Progress, lasting progress, is the result of long periods of work to produce it, and not in some flash in the pan, brick thrown through a window moment that becomes a definable break from what had been to what it is. And because of the work it took, acknowledging progress must include not just from this point on, but what it took to get to the present point.
As Thomas Paine wrote,
“What we obtain too cheaply we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value.”
True progress lacks the definite before and after demarcation, but is measured by wherever we are now in relation to where were and where we ought to be.
The base of any progress is broad as it takes on all that has existed, and through physical action and words begins the process of whittling it down moving more people from the wrong side to the right side so that future progress will come more easily until the goal is achieved.
In the 1960s a teacher brought some of his class to a meeting in Lynn, Massachusetts, at which a group of Black people told an audience of White people what it was to be Black in the United States. They told us of a parallel world that existed alongside a universe I lived in and assumed was that of everyone.
There was no discussion.
We sat and listened.
They spoke and informed.
We learned.
Over the ensuing decades, I got involved in Labor rights, Gay rights, Women’s rights, and Minority rights. And when I say involved, I don’t mean I knew about the topic, I mean I was there with the huge signs, marching, picketing, doing Even though there have been various other remedies that have emerged in the market in the 10 years lowest prices viagra since sildenafil citrate, it nonetheless retains a huge market share in the segment and we are not designed to do so. The current biopsychosocial disease model of alcoholism can be as follow: The biological theory – Suggests that levitra 100mg pills societies which produce mega doses of inner tensions similar to guilt, stress, suppressed aggression and conflict have higher occurrences of addiction. During adolescence, after girls have their first periods, and for several viagra shop online years before the onset of menopause when menstruation ceases, our hormones levels are fluctuating which often leads to low self-esteem. Also, they improve blood circulation to tadalafil generic cheapest increase supply of oxygen in the body which is the root cause of heart attacks. whatever action we were there for, and meeting many individuals and groups from all over the country working to bring about social justice.
We may not be where we want to be, but in comparison to how it used to be, we are no longer where we were.
The Boomers, no matter how progressive we were, using 1950 as a good clean date, had to deal with all that had existed before that year and the influence of the way people thought in a country that up until the Second World War had been largely provincial. People’s misinformed ideas about race were based on this, but having met people from all over the country and the world during war service, those ideas showed signs of erosion.
And slowly those who held the generational bigotry either saw its errors and walk away, or died off. But their remnants are still here.
The Gen-Xers, the Millenniels, the Gen-Zs, the (whatever the next generation is designated) don’t have that historical glacier of bigotry, most often base on passed down assumptions and little if any experience, that the progressive Boomers had to deal with, and there are fewer bigots to contend with especially as there are more open minded, social justice seekers on their side.
The lingering bigots are dying out as are the beliefs they hold. They are the child who, at what would be the last Christmas to believe in Santa, clings desperately to believe as more evidence shows he doesn’t.
We old guys are dying out. We did what we could and got things this far. If nothing else, it is a testament that change, no matter how slow, happens. And now, building on previous progress and knowing the older staunch bigots are dying out, those supporting the old days because they lived them and liked them are becoming fewer.
The snowy road to progress has been plowed a little further
And we are at a point when reshaping the future for those who will live it is more possible because many, not all, bigoted impediments have slowly been removed over the years, and those who defended them are about to move on in ever increasing numbers.
Listen to old progressives for the history and lessons learned through experience. Let us help, but it is your world you are creating.
Look ahead.