Old White Folk Story [View all]

[H2O Man]

I’ve read a few O.P.s/threads discussing old white people here over the past few days, with great interest. Some of my best friends are old white folks; there are several living in my neighborhood; and even some of my extended family members have included old white people. So, while I admittedly do not have a Ph.D. in old white people studies, I have studied them closely.

My father was an old white man most of my life. He was a “first generation” Irish-American. His father came here from the Old Sod in the 1870s (white folks from another island stole the land our family had lived upon since at least the 1200s). My father was always older than me while I was growing up, and he rarely wore shorts. Hence, on those few summer days he wore shorts, his legs were painful to look at without sunglasses on.

My father was a very old white man when he died. The curious thing is that my siblings are about that same age today, and they don’t seem so very old to me.

This alone may not convince the skeptic that I know a heck of a lot about old white folks, so I’ll tell two true stories to remove any and all doubt:

Two weeks ago, while in a grocery store, an old white man said, “Hi” to me. I felt a wave of anxiety as I thought, “Who is that old white dude? He looks familiar.” Suddenly, about ten minutes later, I realized that he had been two years behind me in high school. The anxiety was replaced by sheer panic. I did, however, get home safely.

In a closely related true story, in the 1980s, I spent a day with Abbie Hoffman in Oneonta, N.Y. He was speaking at the state university there that evening. I remember that a lot of old white folks seemed disappointed that Abbie wasn’t exactly the same as he had been in 1968. Oh, his values were much the same, but his tactics were different. Some of the college students seemed surprised that he was mellower than the historical character they had read about.

I’m convinced that, by now, all readers except perhaps the most paranoid and/or troubled have concluded that I know about old white people. Now that my credentials have been fully established, I would like to talk about old white folks in the context of the struggle for political, economic, and social justice. Please pay attention while I’m speaking -- there will be a test. But you don’t have to take notes.

The struggle for social justice is on-going. It started well before the American Revolutionary War, and will continue in each decade and in every generation. It is not something that is won and done. Rather, it is a living entity, a living force that we participate in, either as an advocate or an enemy of social justice. Thus, those who attempt to sit upon the sidelines -- who “aren’t interested” and suffer from the delusion that their life isn’t impacted by the problems of the larger society -- add dead weight to the negative force, making it more difficult for good people to make progress. Yet that does not translate into their being “the enemy” in the same manner as a Dick Cheney or a corporation that destroys the natural world.
Every generation has had good and sincere participants in the struggle for social justice. But even within that large group, we can identify competing sub-groups. Let’s consider the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. It was, to be sure, an outgrowth of the same struugle in the 1950s, and the 1940s before that, and on and on. In the ‘60s, there was the NAACP, the SCLC, the Nation of Islam, the Black Panthers, and more. At times, the leadership of these groups didn’t coordinate their efforts. But when they did, they harnessed much more power than the combined totals of each group. Synergism is a very real force in social struggles.

In fact, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover authored an infamous memo in the 1960s, ordering his agency to destroy any and all attempts at uniting the various civil rights groups, preventing such a synergism. Students of that era know that, in late ‘64, there were efforts by Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X to unite. This would have resulted in the domestic civil rights struggle to evolve into an international human rights movement, where it properly belonged.

The Civil Rights Movement won a lot of important victories. Obviously, that struggle is far from over. The enemy has become more sophisticated and system’s-wise than it was in the 1960s. At the same time, it is no longer defined as exclusively “white vs. black”: there are also brown, red, and yellow peoples involved.

Both leadership and tactics have changed. The young leaders of that past era are now the Elders of today. That doesn’t mean they do not participate in the struggle. Their values are the same. But their tactics -- indeed, their role -- has changed. And that’s a good thing. It’s the right thing. For there are few things as sad as a 60-year old, male or female, attempting to compete with 25-year olds. (I am not, however, opposed to the Rolling Stones going on tour.)

When I was young, I was a student of the Elders. That doesn’t mean I was in total agreement with each and every one. But I could learn something from each one, and a heck of a lot from a few of them.

Today, I am old. My children are convinced that I am the oldest living human in history. Still, they and their circles of friends never hesitate to ask my opinion on current struggles for social justice. I interact with plenty of other young folks at group meetings in the region of upstate New York that I inhabit. And I get to meet quite a few young activists when I speak at high schools and colleges.

Certainly, not all of these young folk agree with me on everything. Nor should they. If, in my current role as -- for lack of better words -- a teaching Elder I found that any one of them agreed with me on everything, I’d have failed in my duty to encourage them to think for themselves.

Tensions within groups, and between sub-groups, is a good thing if it is used to fuel creativity. The opposite potential -- for tensions to be destructive -- is not a good thing. As we all contribute to the potential outcome, by way of our individual beliefs and actions, how we view others, especially those “different” from ourselves, plays an important role.

Keep an open mind.
H2O Man