Mitt Romney returned from a three-week spring break in 1965 to resume his studies as a high school senior at the prestigious Cranbrook School. Back on the handsome campus, studded with Tudor brick buildings and manicured fields, he spotted something he thought did not belong at a school where the boys wore ties and carried briefcases. John Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.
“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!" He said.
So, I'm reading this article in the Washington Post about Willard's roommates recounting this incident that happened with him and this free spirit puff. Obviously an effeminate fellow student that didn't quite fit in. What is a well-to-do, self inflated bully like Mittens to do? Well, beat up on the guy of course.
The story just makes me reflect on my youth as well as the generations before and after me enduring those troubling High School and College years. Granted I went to SUNY Ulster so I never faced the drama of dorm life, but I can imagine what the underclassmen must go through elsewhere. It's a formative period in our lives. Fun and exciting, but also very scary.
By today's standards, the holding down and cutting someone's hair would be considered assault. Perhaps in the 60's on a campus like Cranbrook, it was probably expected. I don't know, I wasn't there. But fast forward to today. Now we are faced with the possible leadership of our country with a man who thought traumatizing an assumed homosexual classmate through public haircutting was no big deal. I suppose, anyone other than the fella on his back probably walked away without so much as a care. (OK, so I was wrong)
The point is, this blast from the past probably wouldn't have even come back to haunt Willard had it not been for the recent Same-Gender Marriage conversation occurring at every dinner table this week. Yes, Obama has finally admitted that everyone should be treated as equals. Don't you just hate this shit? Just when so many of us were getting used to living as second class citizens, the President throws us into some kind of "I'm worth living" sense of righteousness. Ugh. Now we have to contend with the mobilization of bigots across the nation spewing the same hysterical nonsense we've heard for decades. It's so tired.
Saddled with the task of weeding the grounds with my co-workers this afternoon, I mentioned how some of my friends feel we are educating and changing minds every year. I continued to tell them that no, they aren't changing, they are simply being replaced. It's a generational thing. People who harbor the darkest thoughts passed on from our parent's era are simply growing old and passing on. Those of us who feel all humans are simply people worthy of equal rights are replacing them both in the home and in position of influence. Simple.
So I see it as some kind of evolution too. Like the President and the general public opinion that's shifted toward equality for everyone. Who knew.
But for all you faithful out there, here's to another baby step toward a better America!
8 comments:
Enough of us have also been troubled by the apparent "stupid mistakes" from Romney's past. How you're raised and what life experience brings you shapes the person you become and I'm none too thrilled with the person I see in Romney.
Granted, I live in a very blue state surrounded mostly by thinkers, so I might be insulated from the bigotry that still dominates some other states, but that doesn't lessen the urgency I feel when I hear these intolerance stories about someone the Republicans have chosen as their candidate. We have to step up and make this election a referendum on courage and equality. These values go hand in hand with job creation and manufacturing.
Thank you for posting on this issue.
Homophobia and the violence that erupts from it is just one small step from being ended. A clear message of acceptance helps to lessen the fear behind it, but still doesn't address the cause. While peoples around the world suffer violent suppression of their sexual expression, their leaders gripped with fear that their own sexual preferences might be found out, lash out at their own populations with weapons of war as though their secrets could be concealed in their blood. Nothing could be further from the truth. Putin, Assad, Ahmadinijead, just to name a couple, the jig is up. We know your secrets.
And domestically, attacking groups of little girls is a dead giveaway. Afraid of little "gay detectors" are we? Evolution isn't slowing down.
Hint; the cookie operation. Brilliant.
Need some voting practice before November? Get out there and Vote for the School Budget and our Board members this May 15th.
At least you'll know if your ID and registration is valid when you attempt to vote on a date far in advance of the fall.
There's a big difference between taking money from capitalizers for your campaign and being one. Romney personally turned companies into cash and left the employees for dead. Obama never did that and never will. Whether the function of government is to create jobs or to create the environment for job creation, it sure shouldn't be to liquidate and evaporate the livelihoods of Americans. Onshoring is something you'd never get from a Republican.
Gee Mike, it's ok for some stupid badgerer on this blog to post his ultraconservative baloney(on a "progressive" blog lol), but once gays are victims of a high school prank of the opposition candidate to the King...well.
Where was the "ultra-conservative" ?? The teacher basher?
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