General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: We Live In The Emotional And Economic Wreckage Of This Broken Home.... [View all]bigtree
(94,593 posts). . . in that the civil rights struggle was often framed as an exercise in togetherness - stoutly resisted by many white Americans - to the exclusion of an economic rationale for the protests and other activism. I do note the divide which occurred when the Democrat party assumed the role of a refuge for that particular brand of social engineering.
I recognize that you're not trivializing the motivations behind the very prescient and meaningful protests of the emerging youth; just pointing to the message which was taken from those efforts by many in the white male 'establishment' which centered more on the cosmetics and theater of the protests and protesters, than it did the substance of the arguments made. Maybe that was a flaw of the younger generation, to equate their movements with their individual desire for more free expression.
I hesitate, though, to define that movement of youth from the perspective of the paranoid and chastened generation they were challenging. Point taken on the impetus for their alienation. It all seems even more petty, I think, when considering just how deeply we felt about the things we were advocating - how so much of the freedoms of expression and attitudes of today came out of the social changes that so many youth were pressing for.