Day 052 – Prejudice or Slow to Change?

Welcome to Day 52!

My day started out as a typical Sunday morning for a person confined to raising a leg with a cast on it.  It’s funny how synchronicity happens, Julie rang the day after I had been speaking to Chantelle.  While talking we came upon the discussion of the US election and the falling out I had had with Betty. When I mentioned that my motivation, inspiration and courage had improved with Biden being elected.  Julie mentioned that she missed Trump’s entertainment value and her courage had taken a nosedive since the change of government.

After we chatted for a little longer, I began to wonder why our experiences of the US election from this remote vantage point in Australia had been so different.  Julie and I had grown up together and therefore had a shared upbringing.  We were adolescents in the 70s and teens in the 80s.  Sexual revolution for women although happening in the 60s was still slow to take hold (and still is to some extent today).  

It’s taken a long time for women to be accommodated in the workforce and longer still for coloured men and women to be accommodated.  Acceptance and appreciation of the elderly had dropped off as well. There are signs that this has finally shifted. Men have slowly accepted the change and for me in Australia sexism is still alive but at a smaller level.

Julie and I went to schools in an area where “pure Australians” were only a fifth of the classes demographic.  The rest were made up of Maltese, Polish, Irish, English, Egyptian, Hungarian, Slavic, German, Italian, Mauritian, Chinese and various South Pacific islanders. Sadly, at the time there were very few indigenous Australians at my school but Julie’s had a larger contingent. So, race and colour were never really something that made the social news for us.  

There was a bit of tension surrounding people from Japan, Germany, and Vietnam. This was because grandfathers and fathers of people in the class fought against them in the wars.  For instance, having been born on German soil to non-German parents drew malicious comments of me being a Nazi, when I was in primary school (primary school covers children aged 7 to 12 years old).  It was par for the course if you were the token German regardless of the specifics.

We weren’t oblivious to the racial differences, they just didn’t matter or factor into anything.  Of course, being adolescents and teenagers we poked fun at the cultural differences but no-one was immune.  The numbers of any particular group were never large enough to provide a degree of confidence to make comments that were too offensive, that the recipient could give back as good as they got.  It’s an Australian thing.

By the way, if you ever want to be accepted by an Australian, you just need to prove you can take an “offensive” jab. It’s not meant offensively, not by a long shot; it may just appear that way because in polite company it wouldn’t get raised.  The best way to think of the comments is that the comments are coming from the mouths of babes.  For instance, when a child under ten makes a comment on something that most people politely avoid. For instance, if you let a stinky but noiseless fart go, most people will politely ignore it and strategically move away.  

A child under ten of speaking age may quite happily ask in all innocence, “was that you? That was really stinky.”  If your response is to get flustered and growl at the kid for mentioning it – you’re immediately set yourself up for further testing.  If on the other hand you own it like, “yeah mate, not as stinky as the one I let go last week!”, you’re on the right track for acceptance.  Even if this is made amongst the poshest Australian personalities.  Your company might think you crude, but it shows you can handle and embarrassing situation well and is likely to earn respect.  

Back to school, cultural differences factored in for us when it came to scripture lessons. Quite often we would declare we would “faith hop”, this is where would declare that were of a different faith so we could accompany our friends into or out of scripture.  Particularly, if it was a faith that didn’t have a denominational representative attend the school.  This is where students would sit in a classroom doing something like quietly reading or “whatever”, while those of faith attended their scriptures.

Unfortunately for those of who had their “standard” faith written on their school records, we had to attend our respective scripture classes.  Standard at the time were: Protestant, Catholic, Lutheran or Baptist.  It’s not that the other faiths were excluded, there just wasn’t a close denominational representative available.  Again, there was no prejudice toward any particular faith.

The faiths at the time were very traditional and preached that love between a man and a woman was the only love that could be found.  All other forms of love were wrong.  In their view there seemed it seemed that love and sex were synonymous.  They can be but they don’t have to be.  The roles of men and women were also clearly implied and defined and suited a patriarchal view.  Anything other than that was “wrong” or there was something “wrong” with you.  The same scripture was reinforced at home by trusted authority figures and those you loved, it’s a wonder that anything ever changed. 

So, what does this have to do with Julie’s feelings of disempowerment and the a change of President in the USA?  Here, I’m speculating on possible reasons for Julie’s feelings, which Julie and I haven’t discussed at all – so this is all on me.  Trump was clearly anti-same sex marriage or relationships in general – at the every least, that was the public persona.  This leant a certain amount of courage to those struggling with the shift from conservative scriptures to the more open scriptures of today.  

This was hard for most people, initially I suspect.  As a people we are quite paradoxical when it comes to change, on the one hand we’re like, “woohoo! Let’s change this and let’s change that (providing the change is in our favour).  On the other hand, when it’s not a change directly affecting us it’s or we don’t understand how the change will affect us we’re, “what happened to the good ol’ days?”. 

For me, the presidential change was an inspiration.  Here was this man in his late 70s going into the top job in America.  It wasn’t a smooth election or transition to power.  It showed me that even at that age you can be dynamic, make a difference and not be invisible.  A complaint I hear from some people that have gotten older – Betty and my mother have sometimes complained of not being listened to or being invisible.  Indeed, it’s a topic covered by the Netflix series, Grace & Frankie.      

So, are my mum and Julie prejudiced or are they simply slow to accept the change?  I think so, the change is here whether they like it or not.  Providing they show tolerance, a little I think we afford a little patience while they slowly come on board.