(In)Tolerance of Difference

At The Elder Storytelling Place, there is a lovely piece published last week written by Susan Fisher of Suzzwords titled “The Man Who Thought He Was a Train.” Set in 1950s Jacksonville, Florida, it is about a beloved town eccentric, and Susan perfectly evokes the sensibility of that time in America half a century ago.

The 1950s have been much maligned as unenlightened, conformist and boring and I bought that fairy tale for many years. But we get older and in some things grow a little wiser, and I now see the 1950s as a short period of respite between long stretches of social and political turmoil, a little island in time of peaceful coexistence that hasn’t been that calm since John Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, the event which ended “The Fifties.”

The 15 years preceding The Fifties were dark and dismal. At its high point during the Great Depression of the 1930s, unemployment reached 25 percent. Many millions did not have enough to eat and bread lines were common in every city. In those days, there were no government safety nets and private charities did the best they could which wasn’t always enough.

The Depression segued right into World War II. Gasoline, coffee, meat, sugar, butter and other commodities were rationed. Recycling was invented then as women saved food tins and newspapers for the war effort. When the war ended five years later, more than 407,000 Americans had died fighting in Europe and Asia. At home, there was a gold-star mother on every block, meaning a son or daughter had been killed.

The post-World War II economic boom was a welcome relief from a long, dark period of difficulty and deprivation. Returning soldiers and sailors went to college on the G.I. Bill. Couples had babies like bunny rabbits causing the baby boomer generation and they built houses and settled down to some peace and quiet.

Yes, the South was still segregated (many parts of the north too) and blacks didn’t fare as well as whites in the boom of the 1950s. Women, who had gone to work as Rosie the Riveters during the War and supported families alone, still couldn’t be doctors or lawyers or corporate chiefs and were not yet much welcome in colleges at all.

There were many social and cultural inequities we have since improved. But you must never judge the past by current standards.

What Susan Fisher’s story reminded me is that in the 1950s we were much more tolerant of individual differences among us. Even when such superficial social standards as dress codes for every occasion, no mention of where babies came from and perfect front lawns were strictly enforced by peer pressure, many towns had their local eccentrics and we allowed them to be as they were.

There were other kinds of differences too. I went to school with more than a few kids who had club feet, cleft palates, small pox scars, limps from polio, and “retarded” kids attended the same schools as the rest of us. We were taught to help out with them. And without much ado, we made allowances for the kids with physical limitations so they could be included in our games. No one was ever teased for their small pox scars and dermabrasion was still far in the future.

Catholic kids, as they approached their confirmations, were let out of school an hour early two afternoons a week to attend catechism classes. Jewish kids too, for bar mitzvah classes. It pissed off the Protestant kids who had no such rituals, but it was a mock indignation. No one cared for real.

It’s different now. Today, as a couple of comments on Susan’s story noted, the “train man” would be picked up by the police and social service agencies would be paying for drugs and therapy to make him “right.”

Although medicine has mostly defeated those physical deficiencies of my childhood, we have developed much stricter rules since the 1950s of what behavior and appearance will be tolerated.

When was the last time you saw someone as harmlessly off his trolley as the train man? (New York City doesn’t count.) Or – here’s one for you - anyone who is halt, lame or disfigured?

Which brings me to Roger Ebert.

Ten months ago, a portion of the 64-year-old film critic’s mandible was removed due to salivary gland cancer. Subsequent surgeries to replace the mandible have not succeeded, he is temporarily without speech due to a tracheostomy and, as he put it recently, “he’s not a pretty boy anymore.”

As the opening of his ninth annual Overlooked Film Festival (Ebertfest) in Champagne, Illinois, approached last week Ebert revealed that he had been warned not to attend because the paparazzi would take unflattering photos and harmful things would be said.

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn…” wrote Ebert. “I was told photos of me in this condition would attract the gossip papers. So what? I have been very sick, am getting better and this is how it looks. I still have my brain and my typing fingers.”

Chicago Sun Times, 23 April 2007

Elders have a lot in common with the disabled, disfigured and mildly daft; we have all been made invisible in American life. Unless we conform to the gold standard of perpetual youth and beauty with perfect white teeth, glowing smooth skin, a brisk stride and conventional behavior, someone always wants to fix us. As we pay lip service to the culture of inclusion, we have made difference a crime and we are in danger of becoming a population of pod people.

Not everything about the old days was bad and we would do well to reinstate the kind of tolerance for difference among us that Susan Fisher so deftly recalls of the Fifties. Roger Ebert agrees:

“We spend too much time hiding illness,” he continued in his column. “There is an assumption that I must always look the same. I hope to look better than I look now. But I’m not going to miss my Festival.”

And he did not. Hurray for Roger Ebert:

[EDITORIAL NOTE: Timothy Grass, Part 2 of Judith Taylor's Tapestry series, in which a 50-year-old memento brings back memories of a certain summer, is posted at The Elder Storytelling Place today.]

Comments

[ronni prior]

Thanks for that look, Ronni. It's true. Any sort of obvious physical or mental deviation from the "norm," is taken as a sign of poverty, which is in of itself sort of a disgrace.

When Elvis met the Beatles, I read that he wondered why they all had "gnarly" teeth. The culture of "perfection" is rampant in this country.

Our Homeowner's Association won't let us put a cable through the front of our house.

Having said that, in Austin, we have Leslie, an eccentric homeless man who hangs around downtown and has become a tourist draw with his high heels and bikini. But then, Austin has always been a bit more tolerant than smaller towns.

[Rain]

It is true that many people resent others showing up who have physical malformations. It might be somewhat less that way out where I live. I have seen people in restaurants who had had major physical injuries, the worst being a man who had had his face burned off, see a lot of injured soldiers these days, and it's not unusual to see in Portland or Tucson as well as nearby small towns people wandering through stores or on the streets who mumble to themselves about things they see that the rest of us do not. I think what we have to be concerned about is that the people who are mentally different are not also dangerous to others or themselves, if they are not, then the rest of us should accept we aren't all born the same. And for the man who had no face due to a fire, more power to him for living as much a normal life as he could. Unfortunately things happen and not everything can be fixed. I hadn't heard of Ebert but agree with him for going out. It takes courage in a world that reveres youth and beauty.

[marja-leena]

Excellent post, Ronni! I like how you've described the fifties as a calm and growing time between wars, something we tend to forget. The early 50's was also a time of huge immigration from Europe, which changed the faces of North America. It was a simpler time even with its difficulties. It seems that with massive growth and technology and globalization, life has gotten more complicated for us humans and for this earth.

[naomi dagen bloom]

brilliant, incise post--on many levels. forwarding to my son, the historian, for the nuanced way you describe the 1950s, what the time seems for those of us experiencing it. disability movement people would honor your writing today too.

[kenju]

Excellent!

[Paul]

I loved the 50s and the canards against that day are hollow !!

[notdotdot]

Ronnie, you're just the best. What a great piece. And I do feel good about us all - the halt and the old etc.

[jen]

Good on Roger Ebert. It takes a lot of guts to do what he's done. I remember as a teenager being extremely self-conscious because I had acne and I was mercilessly teased. But I know I was sometimes on the other end of the teasing scale because of some minor thing probably. I feel embarrassed now I've grown up a bit and am hopefully a lot more tolerant of differences.

[jeneane sessum]

Super post, Ronni. Inspiring.

[tamar]

About 15 years ago, when the Iron Curtain fell, and Jews were allowed to leave the former USSR, hundreds of asylum seekers arrived in Atlanta, their new home. "Where are all the old people?" my newly adopted families asked repeatedly. Sensitized by my new "relations'" candid observations, I could only grope for fuzzy answers. Today, older people remain largely invisible here, where private cars are the chief means of getting around and malls or shopping centers have largely replaced neighborhood stores.

Not so in Tel Aviv, my other home, where benches abound in parks and on street corners, providing focal points for senior gatherings. Whether in wheelchairs, using walkers, or independent and mobile, in this middle eastern metropolis, seniors are out — on busses, in local markets, on the beach — really, everywhere.

So, whether we see older people in public depends on where we are (as folks note in some earlier comments). And, of course, weather not permitting, we all can and sometimes do become invisible shut ins!

[patti digh]

thank you for this. It occurs to me that we are afraid of difference - or of noticing it (and often pretend that we don't notice what are obvious, visible differences) because we have confused noticing difference with making a judgment.

[Kay Dennison]

Excellent, Ronnie!!! I agree with everything you've said here. It was, in many ways, a kinder, gentler world. I, for one, miss it.

[joared]

I like the way in which you've placed the '50s within the context of history, before and after.

I've long since placed a higher value on the differences in people than the sameness and have had a draft on a related topic awaiting some polishing.

Good for Roger Ebert. Facial disfigurement seems always more difficult for most of us to accept. What we need is visual densensitising with more exposure in public to those who don't meet beauty police standards, beginning with some of the press who could try just being honest and open without being belittling.

[Joy D]

Amen! Good post and kudos to Roger Ebert.