In the late 70s, the stage was set for our success — plenty of folks were ready to listen to new voices post-Viet Nam. But we numbed our awareness with drugs and had little to say besides our version of “whatever” — “later for that, man.”
We should be running the world today, or at least playing a larger role in it. Instead, we're paying the price for all the pot we smoked and all the peace we only wished for then. We, the Let-Someone-Else-Do-It-While-I-Smoke-A-Bowl generation, have discovered that it wasn't such a great idea to let someone else do it. Thanks in great part to our own apathy, we have no real leadership today. We didn't produce a peacemaker we can call our own. We lack greatness in the form of a human being dedicated to civil rights.
At the risk of sounding like an old woman who walked three miles in the snow to school with only a nickel bag to keep me warm, I don't want the kids at Stuyvesant to make a mistake similar to mine. I want them to care about more than their next orgasm. I don't want them to pay a price for their apathy in thirty years; I don't want any of us to pay that price.
I fear we will, though.
Christmas Eve, 2005, Jeb Bush's Florida: My sister is about to serve a great meal when the discussion begins. This year we get the political/gay/Christian conversation out of the way early.
There are ten of us, including my 15-year-old nephew.
The youngest is cooing and bouncing in a short chair with wheels. Her sister is screaming at an olive that has rolled off her high chair. The parents of those two are wondering if they'll ever sleep again.
My sister, I'm sensing, wants the conversation over before it begins. She's a little more conservative than the rest of us – just a little. My 85-year old Roman Catholic mother is hoping that we'll avoid the topic of pedophile priests. My brother-in-law is ready, however. He knows he has to pick up the slack and speak for The Average Man — the absent, blue-collar straight guy who's got more important things to worry about than gay and lesbian rights.
My partner and I are, as usual, upset with the administration and the apathy of Americans in light of it. Mr. Average might not think about gay and lesbian rights, but he sure as hell thinks about lesbians. This we know all too well.
The truth is, we're all upset with the state of the world in our own ways and for our own reasons. Even my mother is upset. But I sense she's upset because my partner and I are extremely upset. She wants everyone to love us as much as she does.
The only person at the table who isn't upset is my nephew, who when asked by my partner if he and his friends care if a person is lesbian or gay, shakes his head. “No,” he says matter-of-factly. “Wanna see my new cell?”
This is encouraging.
I'm happy he's an ally — until, that is, he announces that he'll likely become “Republican,
I guess.”
“Why?” my partner asks.
“I don't know,” he answers.
I think about my nephew — a smart, straight kid growing up in great comfort in the ‘burbs, and about the city kids at Stuyvesant — not-so-straight and growing up in great comfort, and I wonder if it matters that the politics that preceded their “whatever”-ness, cell phones and cuddle puddles appears to be lost on them. Sure, their actions smack of the Everyteen's need to be cool, but shouldn't the end give the means its due?
Should I care that they don't seem to care that the only reason they get to not care is because of all the people that cared in the past?
I'm torn.
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