I weep!

[KelleyD]

I have been a follower of DU since 2007 and have never posted a thread.

I was watching the segment from Chris Mathews' interview of Peter Yarlbow of "Peter , Paul and Mary". I was overcome by emotion because I am of that generation.. I am a white female at 60 years of age and I remember the March on Washington. It was so far away from what I had experienced in my little corner of Northern Indiana of 1963. Oh how wrong I was. Indiana was the headquarters of the KKK in Tipton ,In. But I didn't know about that because no one talked about that in my day. I knew about the unwritten rule in my county, "White County" Indiana that no black person could be in our county after dark Was not a concern of mine 'cause there were no Black Folk in my county. It was not until I went to Cheerleading Camp in Lebenan Junction KY that I ever encounters "Blacks". They were just like me as far as I could see except that they had a "better Tan"...which at the time we were all trying to get by swapping ourself with Baby Oil and Iodine and baking ourselfs in the sun to get a Dark skin. It was very ignorent of me but WTH I was a white female girl in 1968.

I was weeping because I thought that we in that 60's could have solved this whole mess. I am so sorry that we did not do that. I encourage those of you in the younger genraration to take on the challenge and make this come to pass.

People need to look inside themselves and just block the voices of the Prejudice amoung us. Let us all progress!

[Vinnie From Indy]

1. Cheers!

K & R

[CurtEastPoint]

2. I'm of that generation and I also thought, "...we in that 60's could have solved this whole mess."

Lots more work to be done.

[SharonAnn]

23. Remember the assasinations! They changed the course of history

Medgar Evers
JFK
Martin Luther King, Jr.
RFK

In retrospect, perhaps it's amazing we accomplished anything.

[rustydog]

3. Yes, one would think we, as a nation would have put this "race" thing behind us

But the KKK, and the GOP just won't change their ways.
It is sad that not that long ago, blacks were killed for simply looking at or for talking to a white girl...
I weep with you but hold out hope we can still change.

[markpkessinger]

4. Many years ago I had the privilege . ..

. . . of meeting Peter Yarrow at a cocktail party. He is a warm and wonderful human being.

I'm just a little younger than you (52), but my four sibling range in age from 58 to 63, so I grew up hearing all the music of that generation as well, and absorbing all the hope and optimism it embodied. So I weep right along with you . . .

[kentuck]

5. Welcome to DU!

Great post!

[rug]

6. I blame disco.

[PETRUS]

8. ...

[rug]

9. Exactly!

What a difference 4 years made.

[lastlib]

20. I blame Nixon.

And Wallace and Maddox. And Reagan. And the Bushes (Willie Horton, anybody?).
And Oswald. And Sirhan. and Ray.
And the KKK and the NRA. And Scalia and Thomas.
I'll leave it at that.

[Scootaloo]

21. Funny thing? A legitimate case can be made that disco hate had some roots in bigotry

Particularly homophobia and anti-black racism. See if this statement rings any bells:

"Midwesterners didn't want that intimidating (disco) style shoved down their throats" - Steve Dahl, originator of "Disco Demolition Night

The thesis of this is, of course the genre's popularity with gay culture in the 70's, the mainstreaming of fashion from that subculture, the prevalence of black artists, and the overwhelming influence of musical styles traditionally considered "black." And the rhetoric showed it - In addition to Dahls "shoved down their throats" statement, there were worries that the music was "Taking over" the airwaves and decreasing the amount of "good" music (defined as white rock and country) being played. The Disco Suckk! campaign has actually been described as "ethnic cleansing of music" by Rolling Stone's Dave Marsh.

And even though Disco is gone (or at least, music calling itself disco, most "pop" music from that period forward was and still is disco) the anger and paranoia of "different" music is still apparent. Know what I hear from nearly every single person who tells me they don't like rap?
"All I hear is ump, ump, unp, pfffbbbtttbppppt, it's all like, noise!"
or
"It just sounds like jungle music to me!"
or
"All it is is dudes talking about smacking bitches and fuck yo momma and shoot the place up!"

It's not "real" music - or if it is, it's "jungle" music, and the premier example of it is gangsta rap (which has often been described as a new form of minstrelry by black critics). Now they don't come out and say it, though the jungle music one comes close enough, but all this points towards the same sort of bigotry that was loaded at disco.

Now I just want to make it clear - I'm not saying that you're a bigot if you dislike either genre. We all have taste in music and it's rarely the same. I happen to enjoy both disco and rap, but find country insufferably dull. I'm just pointing out that there were actual campaigns to install the idea of these genre as being godawful, dangerous, nasty things that should be "taken down."

Anyway. Have some Boney M.

[rug]

24. And then there's this.

[Scootaloo]

25. Paleo-twerking!

And that's the most fun the Finns had at any point in the 20th century

[Mojorabbit]

29. I love this! LOL. nt

[Raine]

7. I feel the same. THANKS for posting this. nt

[sheshe2]

10. Well said! K&R!

[Stellar]

11. K&R

Thanks for sharing!

[KelleyD]

12. Thank you all!

I didn't know if I would get negative responses to my post because of my naivetivity. But I am pleased to see the response for you all that can relate to my Midwestern frame of mine. We did not come on this as predudice, but as no information otherwise. It was so unspoken in my household. My Mom always said "All people are created equal" but my Dad used the N word because he was ignorant and I knew that instinctively. Even though my Mom would never call him on it. I had a confrontation with him after I had moved out and to the West Coast. He was talking to my nephews at the age of 2 and 3 years old the about the n word. I told him front of my Nephews that I never wanted to hear that word in front of me again. Through the years he would tease me about that and chalengenge me about that line I had drawn,

Here is the glorious conclusion of that confrontation.

My Father was diagnosted with Alzheimers in 2001 and I was the one to move home from California to be his caregiver. Long story...Dad voted for Obama after seeing a speech that he gave. Dad said...He's pretty good".

He has been gone for 2 years now but I am so proud that in his last year he became the Man I always knew he was!

[Chipper Chat]

16. I can relate (literally).

I began my first teaching job in August of '63 in a small southern Indiana town. The county had not one black person living in it. Somehow that fact entered a conversation and a resident told me "all black people must be out of the county by sundown." I think I laughed because I thought for sure they were kidding. I went to college in Evansville which had many black residents and even though the schools were still segregated (Evansville Lincoln was the black high school) I recall the races were somewhat friendly towards each other. The town I taught in was very, very prejudiced. When the group "Up With People" came to present a concert in our town the cast stayed overnight with my high school students. I remember a few parents asking for "white only" when allocations were made. I just couldn't wrap my head around this prejudice. I understand there are now many black (and Mexican!) residents of the county - something that would not have been tolerated in the 60s. My grandfather (Miami County) was a KKK member. I remember seeing his robe in a closet and my grandmother had a holy fit when she saw me in there and slammed the door. In all fairness, Indiana has come a long way since those days and I like to think racial relations are now much improved.

[hopemountain]

13. yes we might have - but some of us got sidetracked

i am also of your generation. an explosion of awareness & perceptions took place. for example, in california, by the 70's we became very involved in environmental issues due to the santa barbara oil spill; the farmworker rights movement; alcatraz, wounded knee, aim; the chicano awakening; the women's movement (birth control, burning bras & girdles), and on campus issues. not to mention all that was going on socially with music, the arts, and experimentation with pot smoking and hallucinogens.

[madamesilverspurs]

14. Spot on.

Back in '08 I was saying something similar to the young Obama volunteers. Too many of us (I said) sat on our laurels after all the protesting against the war in Vietnam; thus, we'd negligently left the door open for Reagan and the Bushites. I don't think we'll be relaxing our vigilance again.

By the way - one of my most prized possesions is a photo of Peter Yarrow with his arms around me and a couple of my friends from high school. We'd performed many of PPM's songs way back then (mid 1960s) and reunited at a PPM concert in Denver in 1996. He visited at length with us after the show, a very genuine and dedicated man.

[rurallib]

15. I don't believe we could have solved the whole mess in the 60s

the counter culture and the youth culture got a lot of press but we were in toto the minority. And Nixon and the Wallace crowd hit back hard.
A lot of myths surround the 60s. As far as I know the youth and counter culture was never a majority and blacks were still having problems in the Democratic party in Chicago in '68.

[Useless in FL]

17. I do too!

Kelley, I'm right there with you, though I'm slightly (ok a little more) older.... 68. Though I've been a member since the very beginning....2001, I rarely comment, leaving that duty to posters who are much more politically astute than I. Seriously, though, I really hoped that this would all be behind us by now especially since I've entered the GOLDEN years (that's a joke)and would have hoped that citizens would be more informed and less hoodwinked by now. Obviously that's not the case, there seems to be a major resurgence of this vile thinking, propagated by, who would have thought it.....our religious institutions in.....the SOUTH! No surprise there, someone has to keep ripping off the sheeples.

[KelleyD]

18. The Indian Nation is whose philosophy we should follow.

I was honored to have been able to be a part of. I was asked to teach a class of American Indians in Acting for the camera back in the day of "Last of the Mohecans and Dances with Wolves". I did not envision the lessons they would teach me. My first class I asked them to tell me al little bit about themselves. One beautiful girl told me that her people were originalty from georgia but her people were moved by the government to Oklahoma. They were then, because of the oil boom, moved to another location. Then she had come to LA to try and make a living in our movie Industry. I was so humbled by that that I cried . We put our Native Americans through so much in a land that was their own. When our Governmntt realised that there was Oil in Oklahma they took that land from them. We need to atone for that plus try and now become the Nation that we really want to be.

[99th_Monkey]

19. k & R ~ nt

[DeSwiss]

22. '...no black person could be in our county after dark.''

You're speaking of Sundown Towns. There were thousands of them all over the U.S. They were pretty much in every state, somewhere. And I agree, it's time to turn the page.

- Hang in there, it gets better.....

[MrMickeysMom]

26. I'll be 60 this year, KelleyD... I connect with you, but we have to connect with that generation...

It's up to all of us to keep fighting to good fight, and no amount of racial prejudice that was in our upbringing, or lateness of coming "into the game" can stand between real progress. We need to connect with every younger person we can.

We could have solved a lot through the leadership of a progressive president like John Fitzgerald Kennedy, but just as the the powers that be were then, here we are today.

We have to carry through because a lot happened to stop of THEN, which we must NOW carry forward.

It does get better.

[defacto7]

27. I was there and I feel the same

about the hope we had for the future and not reaching the goal. My generation may be called the baby-boomers, but I call us the generation of disappointment.

[tavalon]

28. What the folks in the sixties missed

and what we know now only too well is that the establishment fights back, fights hard, fights dirty and fights to win the long game. I also think the 60s revolution got sidetracked when too many people thought it would be cool to be a hippie because, well, it just would be. It watered down the true hippies and they were the first to run and become yuppies when that was cool and so on.

Hippies, BTW, true hippies, are not gone. There are far fewer but they continue to live lives of authenticity. Check out Communities magazine or their directory. It's huge but pretty underground. And well, Occupy is full of them, and their children and grandchildren. And lastly, while "hippie" is associated with a certain generation, I can tell you that there are plenty of hippies who weren't even a twinkle in their parent's eyes in the sixties. I once was sad that I was born in the early 60s and so "missed" the hippie generation. Most of my friends are hippies and many of us are hippies in urban camouflage. I pay for my son's continue existence (he has severe autism), but I hang and fight alongside the hippies to feed my soul and because it's just the right thing to do.

Yeah, we didn't win every 60's skirmish. We may not win the war. We must continue to fight and fight smart. And we haven't quite figured that one out yet.

And hey, if all else fails, the game will all be over in a century or so. You and I never saw the dawn of man but we are seeing the twilight right now.