Posted on 05/14/2005 11:47:25 PM PDT by CHARLITE
Michael Eric Dyson’s tour for his book, Is Bill Cosby Right? (Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost its Mind?) has been busting out all over radio and TV in the past few weeks. In fact there’s been lots of talk about Bill Cosby’s remarks concerning declining morality and poor behavior stemming from a lack of parental responsibility that’s holding black kids back.
Mr. Cosby laments the lifestyle of young blacks; from their dress, to their music, their views on sex, their language and their moral ethos in general. He believes that it is the fault of black parents for not checking more closely on the lives of their children and in this he comes close to the mark.
For although there is major cause for concern regarding poor black children, the issues raised by Cosby apply across a great many segments of our American culture. The reason that so many parents, black and white, cannot control their children is that they themselves have never grown up.
I speak mainly of the liberal Baby Boomer generation whose parents--after suffering through the Great Depression and fighting World War II--spoiled their children in the belief that there were no more wars to be fought and that Easy Street lay ahead. The greatest generation then spawned a faithless one.
A generation that was fed on the drunken notion of the incredible power which was handed them by their parents, but was squandered in a drug-addled, sex-crazed haze of delusion and self-satisfaction, leading to some of the worst times this nation has ever seen.
Nearly all of the complaints Mr. Cosby cites spring most naturally from the decade of the 1960s. Disrespect for authority, slovenly dress, sloth, drugs, ‘free’ love and deviant dialects can all be traced to the ‘revolution’ of the mid-to-late ‘60s.
It’s true that youthful hijinks predate that period of course, insofar as they were a type of teenage rebellion. What was only a phase in the lives of the Flappers of the ‘20s or the Bobby-Soxers of the ‘40s, however, failed to be outgrown by the liberal Boomers.
Urged on by academic socialist sympathizers and indulged by their war-weary parents, they believed that their newly acquired ‘freedoms’ were the beginning of a new America--one that would be led by these fresh young warriors. And so they spread out, especially in the areas of academia, the law, and the arts to spread the Doctrine of Me-ism.
It used to be that if adults didn’t like something, kids thought it was cool and embraced it until it was their turn to grow up. In the ‘60s this was perverted into, ‘if we like it we’ll do it, to hell with our parents.’ Only now that they are the parents, they still want their views to hold sway and ‘to hell with everyone else.’
’Never trust anyone over thirty,’ was their cry until they themselves reached that unholy mark and beyond. Left-wing Baby Boomers now refuse to grow old. Viagra, hair growth formulas, Botox, etc., show that they are loathe to relinquish their youth and view growing old as something less than desirable, noble, or even eventual.
The reason for this is becoming clear. In all their rebel-rousing over the past forty years, they must intrinsically know they have strayed from all but the material goals of prior generations of Americans. They have made money but endeavored to bankrupt the moral underpinning millions of their countryman died to protect and continue to hold dear.
They don’t dare teach the true history of this country because they know it would contradict their foul actions during the Vietnam War and after. They support a runaway judiciary because they know the majority of the country will no longer vote with or for them. And they despise religion even more than aging because they fear the wrath of a God they won’t acknowledge but secretly fear exists.
Worse yet, they refuse to let their ‘culture’ grow old, lest they might also. Spandex-clad sexagenarians like Mick Jagger continue to flounce across stages to the cheers of millions convinced by the Boomers that he represents true artistic genius. These are the same purveyors of the national culture who declared that Campbell soup cans were similarly worthy of worship and The Last Tango in Paris was a cinematic masterpiece.
Rock and roll, junk art, and raunchy movies may be fun for kids, but when adults continue to wallow in their superficiality, it sends a dangerous message: you needn’t grow into a mature, responsible adult, someone else can do that. Too many young people are getting that message and acting accordingly.
About the Writer: Lisa Fabrizio is a freelance writer from Stamford, Connecticut. Lisa receives e-mail at mailbox@lisafab.com.
Sort of obvious when getting an education, learning some skills, keeping your criminal record clean and adding value to society is considered 'acting white' and taboo in black communities.
But, but... Peter Pan really does exist!: http://www.pixyland.org/peterpan/
Scary, in a kinky sort of way...
melt wrote:
But, but... Peter Pan really does exist!: http://www.pixyland.org/peterpan/
Scary, in a kinky sort of way...
--> O Sheet, not this sheet again!
Whilst I agree with the general tone of the article, I dispute thoroughly its generalisation.
I don't lknow about Lisa, but I was there, born just after the war, and believe me I had a very strict, secular upbringing, and learned a whole heap of values, individual aresponsibility, and growing up among them. I am familiar with others of my generation who also did so.
You are missing the major point. Some of that generation bought into the crappy Humanism and post-modernism philosophy, took it to Universities, Labor Unions, the media and so forth, and made it grow like the noxious overpowering weed it is.
Those who could have poisoned and killed it before it got out of hand stayed silent or were silenced by the vituperative nature of our opponents. To this day there are writers who cant get published by mainstream publishing houses or newspapers because they write against the philosophy that is destroying our culture and our world.
So, dont try the "blame everybody" technique, look for the real cause. Otherwise you wont know what to use you anger to fight against.
Ditto -- don't assume that everybody born between 1945 and 1955 is a hedonist nitwit. Many of us were the first in our families to graduate from high school, let alone university, and we were impressed very early in our lives with this fact and with our responsibility to the world that came with our attaining the good things of the world. We passed this along to our children although the world made it tough, and we hope that they will do the same in their turn.
You hate being termed "slackers" and "Generation Why" as a lumpen group; give us the same consideration.
I basically agree with the article. In the same way we conservatives make generalizations about "all" liberals, this article makes the same generalizations about "all" boomers and equally about their parents.
Nobody believes it includes "everyone". I'm certain there are many liberals who can use a similar defense about their strict, secular upbringing. The truth is that, measured as a group or entity, liberals are polar opposites of conservatives and are "guilty" of our generalizations.
The article speaks in the exact same way about boomers and their parents generations, and if any of us are part of those groups, we should just take our lumps but mostly be grateful that we broke tradition from our peers and became part of the conservative majority of today.
Humans are odd creatures. When we look at animals we see adults trying to teach their young how to quickly become adults and survive in the world.
In todays' "extended childhood" society we see humans teaching their children how to avoid adulthood while hoping they'll survive college, multiple marriages, and multiple careers.
Too many people bought into and continue to believe the lies of socialism.
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations (i.e. The Baby Boomers) are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.
Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.
Not bad ideas, except that Lisa ignorantly slams everyone over 40. She probably doesn't even see the irony that her screed essentially amounts to: Don't trust anyone over 40.
Parenting in this land just plain sucks. For the life of me I do not understand why people have kids and then basically ignore them. My parents had the parenting skills of mind numbed robots and most of the kids I went to school with (1200 in my high school) where in pretty much the same boat. That was forty years ago. It's gotten a lot worse.
If you study the lives of successful people ... read their biographies ... you will find one over arching fact. They had parents who were very involved in their lives. A good case study in point is the contrast between the families raised by Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt. There is a dual biography out there that deals with these families. All Teddy's kids grew up sound, well adjusted and successful. Franklin's kids were notoriously effed up. Drunks, druggies and psychological basket cases pretty much. Teddy was a great father. Franklin was mostly an absentee father.
The author clearly does not slam everyone over 40.
She is absolutely correct about the liberal baby boomers, and unfortunately, those liberal baby boomers dominate academia, politics (in both parties), government bureacracies, and managerial/executive positions in just about every corporation in the country.
Conservative boomers have existed all along but they have been a minority all along. Some conservatives have done well by staying below the radar, or swimming upstream through the sewage, but liberals have run much of the country, and run it into the ground during the last few decades.
She speaks "mainly" of the Liberal Baby Boom Generation, but once she has said that, she goes on to blame everybody over 40 for everything that is wrong in the world today. I am wondering if she blames us because the stupid ideas the hippies had proved once again to be the opiate of the toddler. Sadly, but truly, Life consists of more than kicking and screaming "NO!", shoving everything you can reach into yhour mouth, and pulling down your pants in public.
Even Neal Boortz refers to us (the generation of whom he is a member) as "The Gimmee Generation" en masse, although it's a lot like blaming the whole preschool because three or four toddlers are ungovernable in a very public way.
Whaooo... Thats one strange dude!
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