Harmony School, 2000, Page 216

Description:	...all Tight/Pat DagleyDear Marty and Carolyn,I deeply appreciate the honor you bestowed upon me by asking for mycontribution to the magazine. I know this reply is very late, but I feel I have aresponsibility to explain why my response to the statement, “everything is going to bealright” is a ’no show’.Idealism and optimism are the very fabric of hope. I was chiefly made up of thatfabric for the better part of my life. My date of birth afforded me, as it did many others, abitter-sweet experience as child, a teenager, and later as a young adult. I had what Iregard now as the priceless privilege of witnessing via the media, the civil rightsstruggles of the fifties, and later as a teen, first hand experience in my own back yard, theCalumet Region and Chicagos Southside. I was filled with joy when it appeared asthough segregation and inequality would be trampled down forever under the tired anddetermined feet of the endless stream of marchers who would not give up the fight.Lawmakers were listening to the will of the people and making the changes that werecenturies overdue. Next was the war in Viet Nam. Although the draft forced me to enlist,I was able to make it to Chicago for the ’68 Democratic Convention. I later went back tocity hall to stand in the Civic Plaza, side by side with some of the greatest patriots thiscountry has ever seen, to face the frightening spectacle that was the Chicago PoliceDepartment, in protest to the “Chicago Seven” trial. In situations such as that, blindoptimism and the idea that “everything is going to be alright” is all one has to hold on to.The images that came back from that terrible war, of teenagers being dragged inpieces from the acrid swamps and burned out rice paddies of Southeast Asia, to either betagged or sewn back together like tom rag dolls and returned to a life that would never bethe same, were the fuel for an uprising against the status quo that actually resulted, albeitmuch too late, in a change. But it wasn’t just the change in the political policy concerningthe war. we believed that a much larger change had taken place in the spirit of thiscountry. Something lasting. The same was true of the feeling about the progress in theCivil Rights Movement. The uplifting hope that, at that rate at least, we would all bestanding together on a peaceful and just planet, was reason enough to think thateverything was going to be alright.216Did it happen? Did it work? All the signs say no. The KKK has more membersper capita now than it did in it’s heyday. The American Nazi Party, although slowed insome areas of the country, are still successfully capturing the imaginations of youth allover this country and have become so secretive and elusive our own FBI is not even sureof it’s strength. Even as normal, upstanding citizens we speak of fighting a “popular war’and are spared the graphic images of the massacre of thousands of so called “enemysoldiers.” Indeed many of our young people can think of no higher deed than to “takeout” some faceless and nameless enemy. We are so afraid of any legislation on guncontrol that we are willing to sacrifice our children’s lives for the right to stockpile asmany weapons as necessary. Necessary for what I am not sure. Would anyone really liketo live in a world where we have to protect our water and our canned goods by killinganyone in need?Bigotry is so well assimilated into our culture that it exists right under our nosesin all forms everyday. Ostracizing someone based on their ignorance of the latest fad ortheir clumsy social behavior, their uncool clothes, or not knowing what the latest thinggoing on in music is, amounts to the same bigotry that says “your skin is different thanmine, so I must be better than you”. Police can gun someone down in cold blood, notbecause they’ve done something wrong, but because they are the color of someone whocould do something wrong. That is the rationale they used back before the Movement.Ask the Blue Collar guy about sending aid to those who desperately need it (and Ihave) and it will convince you that compassion is nearly dead. They act as if it were ourchoice, indeed divine providence, that put us in this land of tremendous resources andopportunity. These Americans have no desire to share any of what we have with anyoneelse. Welfare is for parasites. Never mind that a two year old girl goes to sleep on a floorcrying from the pain of hunger. “Let the mother go to work, it ain’t my kid” These are thewords of one upstanding citizen.Is “everything going to be alright?” We have to think so, or resign ourselves tohell on Earth. In order to change these things a generation will have to rise up that isn’tafraid to be unpopular, isn’t vulnerable to the harassment and hazing that has become anacceptable form of bigotry in our schools, and is secure in who they are ascompassionate, empathetic, evolved human beings. Young people who understand that
Source:	http://cdm17129.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/hs-harmony/id/2494
Collection:	Harmony School

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