Tag Archives: idealism

The Road to 65, Mile 99: Bloody Sunday

6
Posted by on in Personal goals, Social, Travel

March 7, 2015, Banning-  In July, 2011, I happened by Selma, AL, and spent a day walking around the city, crossing the Edmund L. Pettis Bridge, looking over and seeing the Alabama River, which, miraculously, did not claim any lives on March 7, 1965, though humans took the lives of other humans, over a period of three weeks.  I spoke with a ranger at the Selma Civil Rights National Historical Site, who noted that race relations were a tad better now than they were during the immediate aftermath of the turmoil.  Paying my respects at the Viola Liuzzo Memorial, near Hayneville, I pondered that people change their behaviour at the behest of outside influences, such as the government, but not until their hearts change, are the objects of their disdain even remotely safe.

We have made some progress, in getting along, over the years.  There are more people of colour in my hometown of Saugus, MA, than when I was growing up.  I was raised not to think disparagingly of others, based on race, much less to speak so.  Quite frankly, I felt as shocked and disappointed when Malcolm X (who my father thought was making good changes in his life) and Martin Luther King, Jr. were executed.  Yes, both, in my mind, were acts of officially-sanctioned murder- as the assassinations of  John and Robert Kennedy probably were, also.

People in Prescott, my current home, are outwardly accepting of others, regardless of race. Yet, I have it on good authority (from a racist-in-recovery, no less), that many in the town are still emotionally stuck in the 1950’s and ’60’s, if not in the Jim Crow Era.

To say that we are all racist, to some degree is an overstatement- and a dodge.  Everyone does need to work on raising their consciousness level, but that applies across the board, not just with respect to how we deal with those of other ethnicities and pigmentation.

I am spending tonight in Banning, a city in western Riverside County, CA.  Banning had serious trouble during both Los Angeles riots, though it seems to have quieted quite alot, in the few times I have been here since 1992.  Quiet,though, does not necessarily mean peace.

I would be overjoyed to see people interact positively with each other, regardless of background, on a regular basis.  I do see more of that with Millennials and Post- Millennials, and hope and pray that this will remain a lifelong habit for those generations- and that the rest of us remember the idealism of our own youth, and ponder just what it is that has deflected that idealism.  We’re not done growing, yet.

Moving Seamlessly

6
Posted by on in Personal goals, Social

The young firefighter described his, and his unit’s, work, over the course of a year, as moving seamlessly from one set of tasks to another.  This is what I admire most about so many of those who have taken on difficult, dangerous and often thankless, unappreciated tasks as their life’s work.  The unit in question works under an administration which seems to neither understand nor care much for those under its charge.  That administration is getting a rather long overdue education today and tomorrow.

I have said in the past that, even as I have good friends in every living generation, I am finding I relate best to Millennials.  The sense of commitment to a better world is just below the surface among all ages, yet nowhere is the energy and drive to truly create a functioning and equitable global society stronger than it is among teens and twenty-somethings.  Gen Z (those fourteen and under) seems just as promising, so this could be a confirmation that the world, towards which so many have striven,  is on its way, even as so much that is rotten needs to be cleared out.

We may not move forward with absolute seamlessness, and there are plenty of non-angelic types among the younger generation, but as I move about the city of Prescott, around Arizona or across the country and to other parts of the world, I sense there is a purposeful mien among the youth.  It goes beyond idealism, which, if left to stand alone, becomes cynicism and gives way to creature comforts, drug abuse and paranoia. Maybe, with the current younger generations, the lack of time-honoured opportunities which many of us enjoyed as youth, has forced self-reliance, group action and innovation to the fore early on in their lives.  Certainly, technology has helped greatly, in that regard.

I have come under a lot of fire from many of my fellow Boomers and from several Gen-X’ers recently, for my past few posts.  I can’t share their cynicism, though, and while contemplating the rest of my life, I can only see good things for the human race, in the aggregate.  Those of my contemporaries who agree with my assessment have been equally vocal, so maybe I, too, am moving seamlessly from one day, and one set of tasks, to the next.