Author Topic: 1963  (Read 18594 times)

Offline CellarDweller

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Re: 1963
« Reply #30 on: August 28, 2013, 07:18:16 pm »
I mean an 'out' gay president.


Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: 1963
« Reply #31 on: August 28, 2013, 07:25:08 pm »
Hmmm. Fifty years from now isn't that long. Fifty years from now race will still be an issue, and we will not have had an openly gay president.

And be wary of applying the term gay to people who lived more than 150 years ago.

(I'm such a Debbie Downer.  ;D )
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline southendmd

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Re: 1963
« Reply #32 on: August 28, 2013, 08:09:17 pm »
Well, for what it's worth, Buchanan was inseparable from William Rufus King. 

Andrew Jackson called them "Miss Nancy" and "Aunt Fancy". 

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: 1963
« Reply #33 on: August 28, 2013, 09:09:50 pm »
Well, for what it's worth, Buchanan was inseparable from William Rufus King. 

Andrew Jackson called them "Miss Nancy" and "Aunt Fancy". 

Yes, for what it's worth.

But consider the source.  ;D

And Abraham Lincoln apparently shared a bed with his law partner.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline serious crayons

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Re: 1963
« Reply #34 on: August 28, 2013, 10:09:37 pm »
Maybe I'm glass half full, but when I think of what the culture of this country was like 50 years ago -- within my lifetime; almost within my memory! -- segregation widespread, interracial marriage banned, black people attacked for sitting in Woolworth diners, women needing permission from husbands to get a credit card and banned from many jobs, gay people presented in cautionary school newsreels as sexual predators ... it would not surprise me at all to think that 50 years from now race won't be a big deal and we could potentially have a gay president.

We have a black president now. A woman candidate almost won. Gay marriage is in a dominoes situation. A gay president might takes a few more steps, but that's not out of the picture. Not. At. All.



Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: 1963
« Reply #35 on: August 28, 2013, 11:31:29 pm »
Maybe I'm glass half full, but when I think of what the culture of this country was like 50 years ago -- within my lifetime; almost within my memory! -- segregation widespread, interracial marriage banned, black people attacked for sitting in Woolworth diners, women needing permission from husbands to get a credit card and banned from many jobs, gay people presented in cautionary school newsreels as sexual predators ... it would not surprise me at all to think that 50 years from now race won't be a big deal and we could potentially have a gay president.

We have a black president now. A woman candidate almost won. Gay marriage is in a dominoes situation. A gay president might takes a few more steps, but that's not out of the picture. Not. At. All.

I think that you are being a "glass half full" person--not that there's anything wrong with that!  ;D  ;)

Yes, we have a black president now, but don't forget the vicious, thinly veiled racist attacks, the idiotic "birthers," and others of their ilk. I guess I'm being a "glass half empty" person, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if things even get worse--that race becomes even more of an issue, even if it isn't openly an issue--before they get better as the U.S. becomes more and more a minority majority nation. I would love to be proved wrong, but I won't be surprised if I'm right.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline CellarDweller

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Re: 1963
« Reply #36 on: August 29, 2013, 08:01:44 am »
I tend to be an optimist, but I wouldn't be surprised at all with a backlash, and then steps back.


Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: 1963
« Reply #37 on: August 29, 2013, 08:55:24 am »
I tend to be an optimist, but I wouldn't be surprised at all with a backlash, and then steps back.

That's more or less what I was trying to get at. You said it better and more succinctly than I did.  :)

"Two steps forward, one step back." That sort of thing.  :-\
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline serious crayons

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Re: 1963
« Reply #38 on: August 29, 2013, 09:48:20 am »
I think that you are being a "glass half full" person--not that there's anything wrong with that!  ;D  ;)

 :)

Quote
Yes, we have a black president now, but don't forget the vicious, thinly veiled racist attacks, the idiotic "birthers," and others of their ilk. I guess I'm being a "glass half empty" person, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if things even get worse--that race becomes even more of an issue, even if it isn't openly an issue--before they get better as the U.S. becomes more and more a minority majority nation. I would love to be proved wrong, but I won't be surprised if I'm right.

I don't forget the vicious, thinly veiled racist attacks, etc. I'm not saying racism (or homophobia, or sexism) has been banished from our nation. Far from it!

But in 1963 those racist attacks would have been a lot more vicious and not at all veiled. In 1963, people who tried to help black citizens vote, let alone run for office, were not just called ugly names, but could have been murdered (the murders in Meridian, Miss., happened in 1964), and when when they went to trial juries could let them go (of the 21 men initially charged by the FBI in Mississippi, seven were found guilty, none served more than six years).

Maybe racism will never go away. But if it's no longer openly an issue, it's a lot less of a problem than when it was when we were kids.



Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: 1963
« Reply #39 on: August 29, 2013, 10:22:15 am »
Maybe racism will never go away. But if it's no longer openly an issue, it's a lot less of a problem than when it was when we were kids.

That's where we disagree and I'm not so sure. Of course there is no such thing as "good racism," but at least in 1963 it was open. Now it seems to me that much of it has gone underground. It's still there, but now it's sneaky and invidious. I suppose I think that racism that's underground and sneaky may be more of a problem rather than less of one. George Wallace on the steps of whatever he was standing on the steps of at least had the virtue of making himself look odious in the eyes of the entire world. But the white waitress who makes black customers wait longer for service than white customers is, in my opinion, a lot more difficult to deal with--even if those black customers can now sit at the same lunch counter as white customers.

Of course I'm not denying that great strides forward have been made since 1963. I just don't think we're as far out of the woods yet as you seem to think we are, perhaps because now we have to deal with racism on the individual level, which I think is a lot more difficult than dealing with it on the institutional level.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.