February 9, 2006
The Torch Must Pass
In short order, we have lost three matriarchs of social equality - Rosa Parks, Betty Friedan, and now Coretta Scott King. I teach at a community college, and I know first hand that all too many of the coming generation think that inequality is the stuff of history. Many feel that only remnants remain in the form of individual biases. Of course, they have no biases, but a few "uneducated" folks do.
I stand day after day in front of representatives of the 20 to 30-something generation, and feel that somehow it is 1940 again. That period of time when the white majority was oblivious to racism, and before the women sent home from the factories after World War II realized that they were capable of much more than they were allowed to do.
I am sure that others - present and past - have stood stunned that in such a short amount of time so much could be forgotten ... rewritten ... made invisible. How could all of the struggle be accepted so blandly - if it is recognized at all?
I find myself being tugged between rage and despair when confronted with the blank (or disbelieving) stares of students at the discussion of societal racism, sexism, classism, homophobia. Of course, I teach sociology. That means approaching these topics from a perspective beyond individual "belief" or family "influences." But this generation is so steeped in the cult of the individual that many don't recognize there is anything more binding to "society" than that folks live in the same country. Their ideas are all uniquely their own.
We live in a time when the sky is literally and figuratively falling - a time when we desperately need to understand how our history of injustice bears fruit in our lives. New Orleans was just a very public demonstration that injustice is alive and well. All too many of the students in front of me have ready justifications for those left behind to die. The main ones being "they chose not to leave" and "their poverty was their own fault."
There are those moments when I feel very alone as I face those blank and disbelieving eyes. But I know that others stand with me, and have stood before me. Others struggled, suffered, sacrificed, and died to place me in front of those eyes. I have had the privilege of being part of those struggles.
Now I realize that one by one those who passed the torch to me are passing on to other struggles and rewards. I feel a very personal void, a chill wind against my back, where once they stood. Further, I am face to face with my own mortality. I look at these faces and wonder who will take the torch from me.
Posted by rowan at February 9, 2006 5:00 AM | [eMail this article!] |I suppose it depends on what you teach. Technology doesn't present many opportunities to see such. Over here on the east side, on our idylic campus with an awesome view of the Cascades as well as in the snowboard/service community that surrounds us we have a vibrant activist community of twenty-somethings.
Don't let it get you down, this is Oregon, we'll get through it.
Posted by: Thomas Ware at February 9, 2006 12:27 PMThere are young activists. They are active primarily in environmental, or politcal arenas (including anti-globalization). However, they are frequently very unaware of social inequality, or how what they are fighting for ties to social inequality.
Posted by: Rowan at February 9, 2006 12:42 PMWhat would Paris Hilton do ?
Posted by: Bill Whitlatch at February 10, 2006 9:45 AMRowan,
How heart-wrenching it is for one of your former students to hear this very human despair ... I feel it too, as I'm well past the 20-something demography, and find myself feeling overly-idealistic in a sea of achievement-oriented almost-grads.
It is easy for me to want to cheer my young counterparts into action, and yet I know that I forestalled my own education when I was young, suppressing my dissatisfaction until the day I walked into your social problems class (was it a coincidence that yours was my first class in 25 years?). Prior to that, I manuevered within the system.
I'm not at all the activist I'd like to be, but I'm a long way from where I began. That is largely due to the educational path I chose once you asked me the BIG QUESTIONS, the ones I'd ignored for all those years. Things resound, Rowan, they haunt. I think even the staunchest conservatives are gnawing on a root of doubt these days--that's why they are so steeped in angry rebuttals out there, their schematic has been irrevocably undone.
What I'm trying to say is that those eyes, however blank they might appear, mask that one set, or two, that glimmer with doubt about the status quo, that recall ancient compassion and collective soul, and recognize that this is no utopia, that the American dream has always been at the expense of the natives.
The new torchbearers will begin to be known! I feel sure of it.
Posted by: Pamela at February 12, 2006 6:46 PMThank you Pamela!
Posted by: rowan at February 12, 2006 8:34 PMAs usual Pamela pretty much nails it ! I couldn't pass up the opportunity to make my "Paris Hilton" comment that and the word "bling" seem to be a perfect metaphor.
I think you need to keep in mind by the time a student reaches you they have had a lot of brain scrubbing, I know I did. In the movie "Born on the 4th of July" Ron Kovic joins the Marines to serve his country, so do Oliver Stone, so did I, so did lots of my friends.
There is currently a crash course it what is happening and for the price of a ticket and couple hours of your time the public can get a pretty good idea of what is really going on here in the good ole US OF A, : It is the movie "Why we Fight" playing at Cinema 21 in NW PDX, it is very different than Farenheit 9/11 a movie I did not like, much to the dismay of most of my friends on both sides of the poltical arc. Why We Fight gets to the core: capitalism vs democracy. There is lots of money to be made in war ! This movie only runs until 2/16 it is well worth your time !
Thanks for the opportunity to plug it.
Posted by: Bill Whitlatch at February 13, 2006 3:46 PM