Recently I got an e:mail from my 2nd-cousin-twice-removed-in-law Joe. He was asking if I'd seen that Red Skelton YouTube video where Red talks about the Pledge of Allegiance, and noted that the comments surrounding that bit were usually along the lines of "this country needs to get back to the way it
used to be." Joe was trying to figure out exactly which
used to be they are thinking about. The 50's? The 60's? And he wanted to know what my thoughts were.
Well, far be it from me to let an opportunity go to waste to spout my opinion about how fucked up the American public is, so that's the subject of today's blog post, with a hat tip to Cousin Joe for the inspiration.
What, exactly, are the "Good Ole Days," and why do people long for them? What's so great about how things
used to be compared to today's social construct that we should shuck progress in favor of going backwards?
Are the Good Ole Days the time before germ theory, when getting an infection was basically a death sentence, and a young girl's fantasy consisted of making it out childbirth alive? No?
Okay, then how about the turn of the century, when social welfare programs were non-existent and losing your job and your home basically condemned you and your children to death by exposure and hunger? How about those? Were those the Good Ole Days? No?
Well, then, surely the middle of the century were the Good Ole Days. The G.I. Bill allowed an enormous number of veterans to achieve the American Dream, owning their own homes and becoming members of the middle class. That was a great time to be alive!
....Unless, of course, you were a person of color, and the simple acts of voting or getting a decent education were acts of courage and conviction. Those weren't really the Good Ole Days for African Americans living the Jim Crow South, now were they?
I've noticed that people who engage in the "this country needs to get back to the way it
used to be" rhetoric are usually the ones who
also engage in "
America! Fuck, Yeah!" patriotism. And, yes, I'm going to say it - I strongly suspect they're also the ones that perceive the "Good Ole Days" to be a time when them uppity colored folks
knew their place and
stayed there.
Now I'm certainly not suggesting that waxing nostalgic for years past automatically makes you a racist asshat. Far from it. But I do think that such rhetoric is often used as code for racist opinion, and I'd almost rather they just came right out and said, "I hate that my unearned privilege is being threatened by an egalitarian social structure and I wish those colored folk were still second class citizens." But that's not how people's brains work, and such self-honesty is a rare, rare thing.
Progress is GOOD. It means that no one
has to die from an infection, thanks to the discoveries made possible by the Theory of Evolution leading to modern antibiotics. It means that
everyone gets a chance to educate themselves and move up (or down) the economic ladder depending on how hard they work and their own ability. It means that people who are "different" from the majority aren't ridiculed, aren't discriminated against, aren't deprived of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Based on our country's values and founding documents, these benefits must apply to
everyone. Everyone, including people of color, and the LGBT population, and people whose religion isn't the same as the majority. Not just affluent Christian white folks, like in the GOOD OLE DAYS.
That's progress, and even if you mistakenly think your unearned privilege is your Constitutional right, you don't get to enjoy modern antibiotics, social welfare programs, and all the other wonders of our modern life and world without accepting the accompanying social progress, as well.
Some people may want to go back to dying of amoebic dysentery, but me? I'll keep looking forward, thanks.