Prejudice

by John Isaac Jones

“PREJUDICE” is the first story in The Billy Johnson Collection. When Billy was five years old, he met a Negro on a personal, one-on-one basis for the first time. It would be an experience he would never forget. This story is an examination of racial prejudice in the Deep South in the late 1940s.

7 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 23, 2012

About the author

John Isaac Jones is a retired journalist currently living and writing at Merritt Island, Florida. For more than thirty years, "John I.," as he prefers to be called, was a reporter for media outlets throughout the world. These included local newspapers in his native Alabama, The National Enquirer, News of the World in London, the Sydney Morning Herald, and NBC television. He is the author of ten novels, two short story collections and five novellas.

Reviews

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

The short story Prejudice by John I Jones captures the first time Billy Vernon is confronted with prejudice. In the hills of Alabama in the mid-forties, prejudice was deeply ingrained. Billy had never spoken with a black before and apparently had never heard any conversations about them. When a black man comes to work for a few hours for his dad, Billy discovers that for some unfathomable reason, (his parents just couldn’t explain it to his satisfaction ) this man was a lesser being because he was black, although to Billy he seemed like any other man he knew. By the end of the story, Billy muses over whether or not prejudice will ever change.
It reminded me of my first time speaking with a black person: Falls Church, Virginia, George Mason High school and a black boy came to school for his senior year. His name was “Duck” (that’s how he introduced himself) and I walked home with him often, because we went the same direction until he veered off to go the “black town” which apparently was up and behind my neighborhood somewhere. I never did know where. Anyway, I don’t remember any overt prejudice, Duck was cute, smiling, light skinned and made friends easily. Like Billy, I thought he seemed like anyone else. This was 1966. I also found out my father was prejudice (he was from the South) and my mom wasn’t (she was from Iowa). And come to think of it, I never found why exactly Duck came to our school. All by himself.
I didn’t really confront prejudice then, rather the possible characters of prejudice. It took living another 50 years to see prejudice in all its ugly, ignorant and sometimes just plain silly forms. Billy’s first time facing prejudice didn’t influence him negatively and neither did mine. Sometimes I think we are in the minority (no pun intended!). Like many of Jones’ other stories, this is a quiet and perceptive slice of life of “back in the day” and an insight into the formation of a young mind.