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Back during segregation and Jim Crow? Ohhhh lovely wonderful times. What common culture do you speak of? Times where blacks could be lynched with impunity? I'm sure YOU would love to go back there.
I remember those days...you could quit a job, and go out and get a job the same day...then, there was competition for jobs and employers didn't treat people badly.
Children were much more mature then, they didn't have everything given to them, had to learn to work for what they wanted.
People go the extremes....technology is wonderful now, but human beings abuse it...and text and talk on the phones when they should be conscentrating on driving, if not for them and their families, for the families of th other drivers out there.
We've become a land of lawlessness...and have regressed....as a society....
There was also bad in the good ol days, but let me tell you, what I liked about the good ol' days was the fact that more people respected the laws, respected authority figures, whom, btw, were also, much more respectable human beings....no human being is perfect, but back then, even though you had people who were criminals, it wasn't nearly as prevalent....
We didn't allow just anyone into this country....we laughed and joked around and people didn't take insult to ethnic jokes....and I'm Italian, and we laughed right along with the others...we were able to laugh at ourselves and with others....we were not so confounded offended by others, for small things....
Our parents were strict...and I'm so thankful they were....they spanked us...didn't beat us, but you can bet your sweet bippy, we knew there would be hell to pay if we didn't listen.
Our parents hunted and kept guns in the house, unlocked and we would never "THINK" of taking them to school, let alone, touch the gun cabinet.
We had bad kids in school, and all they did, were drink a little, get in some fights with each other and smoke. That was why they were labeled hoods. Let me tell you, they treated people fairly and opened doors for their dates and older people....
We had free reign, at young ages....our parents trusted us, and didn't coddle us...today if a kid goes to the park alone, the whole neighborhood comes down on them.
I just had a conversation with a young girl about this today...she said, she knows she coddles her kids to much, but if she allows them to do things on their own, the neighbors would come down on them for child abuse....it is a sick world...and yet, people don't do or say a darn thing when a neighbor's kid is being sexually abused? Go figure.
It's a mixed up world...today....priorites are fashion and who is screwing who...if you vote, your job is done, you don't need to arm yourself with knowledge, and this country allows everyone else from other countries to practice their religions, but if we do, it's taken away from us....what the heck is wrong with putting your hand on your heart, and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. You don't want to say it don't. But stop taking everyone else's rights away.
We have never actually had:
1.) Common values. Case in point, slavery. Other cases in point: Treatment of Native Americans. We have always been at odds with each other over values.
2.) Common religion. We've never had just one religion in this nation. While Protestantism has dominated, we've always been an extremely mixed bag. Debating religion is about as American as apple pie and baseball.
3.) Real culture. What on earth is "real culture." If there is such a thing, then the implication is that we now have a "fake culture." This one bears explaining.
I think this is just a case for pining for the "good old days." Fine I get that. I'm too young to remember Kennedy, Elvis, Jimmy Hendrix, Janice Joplin, Jimmy Morrison and the Beetles. I do remember Kurt Cobain, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Tupac, Sublime and AC/DC. Are my oft-tragic legendary rock stars less meaningful than yours? Scandalous clothing from your generation has become normal. For better or for worse, more and more shocking clothing is the cultural trend the older generation started and it continues today.
So what is "real culture" exactly and when did it become fake?
I grew up during the 80's. I distinctly remember being told that my parents had put me in a private school, because the public school systems were a disaster.
Thing is -- the REASON that the public school systems were such a disaster, is because they were filled with kids whose parents and grandparents and great-grandparents had been discriminated against and marginalized for the previous 350 years. If they ever had a culture, it was destroyed and defiled by slave owners and other racists, leaving a vaccum where 'family values' should have been.
And now their schools were being defunded, because the racist people who 'ran the show' in my area did not want tax dollars being spent on the education of little black kids.
So to me it seems that society was always segregated and atomized, with your family status being the primary determinant of your social class and wealth. It was just that in the 1950's, everyone who was being exploited by this policy was pushed to the margins so nobody even thought of them as being "Americans." But they were.
So your photos of segregated schools for white kids don't really make me think of some kind of utopian society that lived up to its values. They just make me think of all the abhorrent crap done by previous generations, which was swept under the rug as 'unimportant', that my generation is going to have face up to and fix.
I grew up during the 80's. I distinctly remember being told that my parents had put me in a private school, because the public school systems were a disaster.
Thing is -- the REASON that the public school systems were such a disaster, is because they were filled with kids whose parents and grandparents and great-grandparents had been discriminated against and marginalized for the previous 350 years. If they ever had a culture, it was destroyed and defiled by slave owners and other racists, leaving a vaccum where 'family values' should have been.
And now their schools were being defunded, because the racist people who 'ran the show' in my area did not want tax dollars being spent on the education of little black kids.
So to me it seems that society was always segregated and atomized, with your family status being the primary determinant of your social class and wealth. It was just that in the 1950's, everyone who was being exploited by this policy was pushed to the margins so nobody even thought of them as being "Americans." But they were.
So your photos of segregated schools for white kids don't really make me think of some kind of utopian society that lived up to its values. They just make me think of all the abhorrent crap done by previous generations, that my generation is going to have to fix.
Yeah I am sure that's TOTALLY the reason the schools sucked because the white man kept them down....SMH...some people I tell ya...no acceptance of responsibility whatsoever.
I grew up during the 80's. I distinctly remember being told that my parents had put me in a private school, because the public school systems were a disaster.
Thing is -- the REASON that the public school systems were such a disaster, is because they were filled with kids whose parents and grandparents and great-grandparents had been discriminated against and marginalized for the previous 350 years. If they ever had a culture, it was destroyed and defiled by slave owners and other racists, leaving a vaccum where 'family values' should have been.
And now their schools were being defunded, because the racist people who 'ran the show' in my area did not want tax dollars being spent on the education of little black kids.
So to me it seems that society was always segregated and atomized, with your family status being the primary determinant of your social class and wealth. It was just that in the 1950's, everyone who was being exploited by this policy was pushed to the margins so nobody even thought of them as being "Americans." But they were.
So your photos of segregated schools for white kids don't really make me think of some kind of utopian society that lived up to its values. They just make me think of all the abhorrent crap done by previous generations, that my generation is going to have to fix.
It always was. This utopian paradise people are looking back on simply didn't exist. Sure there were a lot of good things about the past's, and some of which might even be considered better than today. Such as not requiring higher education for a lot of jobs. That doesn't mean erase the bad things about it though. This Country always had division and segregation. That's not even simply due to race, but also due to ethnic heritage. The Irish, Germans, Italians, and Jews were not exactly welcomed with open arms.
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