"Strong Family Values of the 1950s" is a Myth (racism, solutions)

[randomparent]

Originally Posted by green_mariner

I haven't heard many (if any) Black people wax poetically about the 1950s. That whole thing of "know your place", it was enforced heavily in the South, both in terms of social customs and the law. Jim Crow was both law and social customs. Glad I don't live in those days.

Shows like Leave It To Beaver obscure the fact that McCarthyism was strong in those days. All of the "panics" going on in those days, "gay panic", and basically any other panic highlights the kind of fear that permeated society in those days.

As for church, I have no issues with church being big part of people's lives. It is sad that so many hypocrites abound. Some of those so-called Christians being angry about skin color show how so much was for show. To understand the South during the 50s, understand this. The South was basically trying a modified version of the antebellum period. Slavery was over, but there were many who still felt that Blacks had to "remain in their place", a subservient place at that.

I recall that a neighbor of mine in the mid-1980s, who upon deciding to move back to the Georgia from the upper midwest, told my mother that she appreciated that in the south everyone knew their place. My mother was horrified. I'm fairly certain they never spoke again.

[glamatomic]

I think what is appealing to many about the 1950s (including myself) is the outward aesthetic- the houses, the furniture, the cars, the clothes, the hair, the music and the movie stars.

However, being fascinated by the 1950s as a child and now as an adult, I certainly wouldn't want to actually live through the 1950s. While I still may enjoy the clothes and furniture, once you look beneath the superficial elements of the era, it was a society that had many aspects we should not be trying to emulate.

Unfortunately, many just look at the 1950s on a surface level or from the perspective of an able bodied, heterosexual white male.

[Ellis Bell]

Originally Posted by Ellis Bell

Then correct it ... or stop already.
btw: I can do this all day


The History of Marital Rape Laws


and I can't wait for your rebuttal.

Originally Posted by phantompilot

I don't really care about the article, but you had mentioned that the first case was presented on Law and Order, which didn't even start airing until late 1990.

So you couldn't have seen this on Law and Order. The case was long before and wouldn't have even been in the correct period for the setting of the show (it was depicted as real time NYC).

In any case marital rape is largely irrelevant to this discussion. There isn't any evidence that husbands were raping their wives, or routinely beating them up, or any of the other ridiculous claims that you and others have put forth in this thread as a kind of alternative history of America's recent past.

The reality is that the 1950s featured more families that were intact, and with lower rates of violent crimes compared to our current decade (not a whole lot lower for the specific category of murder, but lower in any event).

"In 1993, all 50 states had finally eliminated the “marital rape exception.”"
Law and Order (1990 - 2010) often inspired by latest headlines ...

Not irrelevant when it was brought into the discussion and you disputed it, not once but many times.

There are principle differences that were held in the 1950's than there are today ... we became a throw away society. Social evolution ... it happens. Even with violence within the family dwelling that happened, people handled themselves in those situations, differently. People's priorities have changed.

[Phil75230]

Originally Posted by bawac34618

The bigotry of the majority is not equal to the rights of the minority. In simpler terms, the rights of Southern states to impose segregation is not equal to the rights for blacks to be treated equally under the law. That same logic applies to most other social issues today.

That's one of the biggest things conservatives don't understand.

Mtl1 and people who think like him are just absolutely convinced that the traditional definitions of "respectworthy" and "disrespect-worthy" person were A-OK the way they are, and therefore no need to change them. Not just on matters of race either: sexual orientation, gender identity, society's gender roles and gender personality ideals - even common everyday definitions/standards of "normal" and "abnormal" behavior. All this time barely recalling (if at all) that the Internet's developers had more than their fair share of "weirdos", "freaks", and other non-conformist misfits.

[Cantabridgienne]

Originally Posted by Oldglory

The topic is about family values, not gays, blacks, etc. The 50's were far more superior in that area than it is today. I know, I lived it.

How old were you?

[Phil75230]

Originally Posted by Oldglory

The topic is about family values, not gays, blacks, etc. The 50's were far more superior in that area than it is today. I know, I lived it.

They're all interconnected. Abuse toward one type of person opens the door to abuse against all such people who aren't in a position to withstand attacks from others (legal, physical, social standing/stigma level, etc.). That's another thing social values/attitude conservatives consistently forget. One thing in noticed in my dying days of my conservative self (back in the mid 90s) is that how a person talks about society's most despised people is an early warning system of the quality of person they are. Anybody who disparages people based on "tacky" or "gross" traits is very likely to be a very harsh judge of others who don't fit into society - even if that group/type is not THE most despised or disparaged.

(ADDED: lots of people posted personal stories on this thread about how their own family members - or families they knew - were substance abusers, abusive husbands and fathers, or disparaged people in some way well outside the norm. I don't have to pile on here. Is that your idea of what a moral society is?).


BTW, society back then had a very narrow definition of morality - confusing it with visual propriety (what we call today "optics"): namely focusing on sex, alcohol, drugs and things closely associated with them. They totally forgot about not just race but anybody who didn't fit into the conservative middle to upper middle class norm. It was totally acceptable, if not expected, to treat those types of people that way. Sure doesn't sound like a good family value to me.

[bawac34618]

Originally Posted by Phil75230

BTW, society back then had a very narrow definition of morality - confusing it with visual propriety (what we call today "optics"): namely focusing on sex, alcohol, drugs and things closely associated with them. They totally forgot about not just race but anybody who didn't fit into the conservative middle to upper middle class norm. It was totally acceptable, if not expected, to treat those types of people that way. Sure doesn't sound like a good family value to me.

This is exactly how it was and it's also the exact world that Trump supporters want to force us all to live in.

And they say they aren't racist and by their definition they are right. Non-white skin is all fine and dandy as long as they conform to WASP culture and social norms.

[Phil75230]

Originally Posted by bawac34618

This is exactly how it was and it's also the exact world that Trump supporters want to force us all to live in.

And they say they aren't racist and by their definition they are right. Non-white skin is all fine and dandy as long as they conform to WASP culture and social norms.

Which means the question now is "Why should I believe 'WASP culture and social norms' are fine the way they are', and therefore didn't need to change - and still don't?". None that I can see. They (to be fair, not just WASPs, but any culture that does the following, too) were wrong about the value of LGBT, wrong about race, wrong about traditional gender role prescriptions, wrong about Jews and Catholics, wrong about other religions in general, wrong about different ethnic groups....and now seem wrong about gender identity.

So the world will just have to excuse me when I say mainstream defintions and cultural attitude about normal and weird, respectable behavior/personhood (and not) in general have a poor track record of accurately assessing the actual value of a person, and therefore don't deserve to be taken seriously. It's more shaming that substance. If I can't trust mainstream traditional society's judgments about those kinds of people, how can I even trust them to correctly identify which common everyday behaviors are deserving respect or disrespect?

Yes, there are some things I do agree with mainstream WASP society about. But my agreement comes in spite of mainstream WASP agreement, not because of it.

[mtl1]

Originally Posted by green_mariner

Today, everyone has the same rights. If that bothers you, too bad. Anyway, just because you disagree with my assessment of the 1950s does not refute anything I've said. Until you can prove me wrong, your disagreement is just that, a disagreement. Why not just admit what YOU really want.

Contrary to the narrative, everyone had the same rights in the 1950s too.

[Phil75230]

Originally Posted by mtl1

Contrary to the narrative, everyone had the same rights in the 1950s too.

If that's so true, why did we have to pass the Civil Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act, the Voting Rights Act, and such during the 1960s? Or pass the 24th Amendment (poll tax elimination). Or outlaw "redlining" of neighborhoods during the early 80s? You're also forgetting about Montgomery city ordinance about who may sit where on a bus? Something had to make all those measures necessary, otherwise they wouldn't have passed them.