My generation observed during the 1960s powerful changes in the U.S. from a closed society to one still struggling to see its way forward. We observe through lenses of past and present, creating a double vision of our culture that instantly compares old inequality to present actuality.
For example, I grew up a Yankee in Virginia. My mother was a well-trained singer, and in the 1950s Southern churches hired her as a soloist. Although we were atheists, mom needed the extra pay with free babysitting because she never earned what less-qualified men received at even lower-level jobs at the insurance company where she worked.
The only black-owned business we knew was the trash pickup, and Mom once drove over to pay the owner. We turned by the smelly county dump and cranked up our windows. The dump’s chain-link fence rolled on for a mile before it made two 90-degree turns around the bare lot surrounding the black kids’ school.
Prejudice also persisted in the North. My grandmother approved playing with the Jewish kids next door because they appreciated education but discouraged play with the Catholic kids. In my WASP family, marrying a Catholic, which did happen, was shocking. Yet, the same woman introduced me to Paul Robeson’s singing and decried the discrimination he faced.
My father-in-law joined a union back when unions had power but overtly discriminated against black people. During my husband’s term in the U.S. Army, I overheard a white doctor tell a black sergeant to stop being obsequious. We people of the 1960s hated the shuffle that had gotten older black people through Jim Crow. When Black Power taught black kids that “black is beautiful,” whites cheered or feared. Many black kids frown or avoid smiling, not because they are “gangsta” but to mime strength.
Let’s not be smug about having passed laws for equality. Schools still are segregated, and all poor kids’ schools are underfunded. When we pretend that laws have resolved issues, we end the discussion. Overcoming Las Vegas odds, black Americans are achieving and leaving it too easy to think discrimination is done.
Many politicians and some in the media have chastised the desire to remove the Confederate battle flag. Are they so uninformed about the functions of culture? The Holocaust is taught whenever the Nazi flag is displayed. German soldiers are mourned, but what Nazism stood for overrides all else.
Liberals are told to avoid discussing race because that sets people apart and, on the other hand, different groups should maintain their identities. Consequently, they tie up their tongues. Conservatives twist prejudice to fit politics while refusing to pass laws that broaden inclusion.
Because science has proven a strong relationship between athletics and science and music and math, why aren’t we pouring money into black nutrition and schools? Black athletes outperform most of us, and black musicians have developed entire genres: jazz, blues and rock. African music is based on complex and overlapping mathematical relationships that European-based thinking doesn’t comprehend. During the major growth in European classical music, women legally were forbidden from participating. But we seem to accept racial skills when black killers are “thugs” while white murderers are standing their ground or merely depressed.
We surely cannot discuss that the saving grace of America might be our racial mixing, our melting pot, that may allow for a cultural and — oh, my — physical hybrid vigor other animals experience. We fear reverse racism and are muffled by religious ideas that humans, Homo sapiens, are exceptional.
One politician criticized his religious leader, a pope, for speaking against our earth’s desecration. Why shouldn’t religious people talk about society? Why is every issue that affects our society deemed political and killed on the spot? Is challenging power a greater fear than fear itself?
My generation needs to push our grandchildren to move America forward before we all remain mired. I remember in New York City watching my daughter running through a playground with other kids, all different skin colors, ages and religions, even different languages. I had a clear vision of America’s potential. We must see our way forward again.
Leslie Woods has lived in many states and foreign countries but now lives in midcoast Maine.