Brown Paper Bag

There is no single dynamic of Americana more telling of economic and ethnic purposes than the Brown Paper Bag. Believe it or not, there are some of us who remember our first exposure to plastic. It was in 1936 that European and American companies started the development of plastic, not until several years later that plastic became a recognized entity, mostly a utilitarian product, water repellant and biological coverings. (Wax paper, paper cups, rain apparel, were the first uses of plastic.) With every year, "polymethyl methacrylate" (PMMA), better known as "acrylic." penetrated and infiltrated everything. One my age could never have imagined that this organic-exotic chemical would take over the world, part and parcel, of everything we use, (clothing, furniture, vehicles) assimilating the most important molecule in our culture.

Probably, more marine life die because of plastic. More vertebrates have their lives compromised because of plastic, than all other chemicals combined. Landfills are full of these molecular structures which will not deteriorate. Communist China has stopped using plastic bags and many other plastic products.

The Brown Paper Bag was important in every respect. Families saved, ironed, these bags for use and reuse. One congressman told me that the most important letter he ever received in his Washington congressional office was written on a Brown Paper Bag. North Carolinians remember with contempt, governor Kerr Scott and his governor son, Bob Scott who required a Brown Paper Bag full of money, in their office, if anyone expected help from them. More recently, the daughter-granddaughter of these two (she was Sectary of Agriculture) tried the same politics and she went to prison..

It was the Brown Paper Bag, provided from the ABC Liquor stores to the politicians and preachers which enabled them to “Brown Bag” their liquor into the best restaurants. I remember very well, Blockade Runner Hotel, an associate telling me, “There is the local Methodist pastor going into the restaurant with his Brown Paper Bag.

On the staff of an army hospital, WAC (women's army corps) center of the army, a black assistant to the commander of the center asked this medical officer, with honesty and sincerity-wanting to know, if I had any advice on how to lighten the color of her skin? As in New Orleans (A city where fraternities, clubs use a Brown Paper Bag attached to a door, determining your admission), other American cities with large black populations, elitist black social groups determined your social acceptability by the use of the Brown Paper Bag. This Lt. Colonel, black army officer, wanted to join a elitist social club in Anniston. AL. God only knows why she wanted to join this club, which discriminated against whites and blacks. She was a shade darker than the Brown Paper Bag used for acceptance to the group.

Color discrimination among Americans may have begun between Caucasians and Negroids because, after the Civil war when 4 million slaves were emancipated, the color disparity began. I remember so well, as a university student selling Bibles door to door, during the summer, experiencing my first discovery of this type caste-class problem. In the Northeastern area of NC, one of the white slave owners had fathered children by many slaves, his offspring had much lighter skin, very different hair and eyes. His children had inherited his great wealth, lived totally apart from other blacks... their own church, schools, clubs, fraternities, a color code which exists not only there but in many other places.

On remote islands in the South Pacific, I found dark-skinned natives with blond hair, blue eyes. My guide told me that these south sea islanders, products of a Scandinavian wrecked ship, did not associate with the natives of other islands.

For many years, this writer owned an apartment on Manhattan’s Beekman Place, just south of the United Nations building. The South Korean Mission was on the corner across from my building, the famous composer, Irving Berlin's townhouse on another corner, national missions throughout the area. THERE IS PROBABLY NO PLACE ON EARTH WHERE MORE RACIAL DISCRIMINATION IS SHOWN THAN AT THE UNITED NATIONS. This world traveler was invited to many receptions, I noted the dark-skinned diplomats did not associate with the lighter skinned diplomats. The Brown Paper Bag rule was not used but a friend, a black Kenyan who lived around the corner from me, told me that skin color discrimination was very evident, among the diplomats, throughout the sectariat.

This writer is a Southern born and bred white man, worked in green tobacco, in the poverty of a tobacco farm, with people of every skin color. I do not have a cell of bigotry in my body but, I feel with righteous indignation when I hear Northerners speak of racial turmoil in the South, how southerners have treated the blacks. I call these people “Bifocal Yankees”. Looking south through the upper part of their spectacles, they judge southern whites but, when they decide to move south, no longer be declared a snow-bird, but take up residence here, looking through the bottom part of their spectacles (bifocals), they immediately jump into the box of antebellum discrimination, immediately joining one of the all-white country clubs, civic clubs and even the all-white churches.

The Brown Paper Bag was a prized utilitarian vehicle, you could transport just about anything with safety. It could serve as a lunch box, tool box, disposal. Paper is cheaper than food product. Look at the small amount of food you get int every container of paper. As the paper boxes get larger, less and less food inside. The Brown Paper Bag had a superior quality, called strength and honesty.