Gay male, I’d be fine as long as I could smoke anywhere and have a bar in my office. That’s my impressions of 1950’s America
That’s because we RULED back then. It’s good to be king.
White, 59 so I remember the 50s, Catholic enough to pass even with the Latin Mass.
Straight white male, age 54. I voted “Shoot me now”. All my life I’ve despised the 50s as I’ve seen it portrayed in the media. In all but four years of my entire working life I’ve mostly biked, but alternatively walked or bused to work. The bike to work thing probably would have been a no-go in those days and I can just picture being deliberately run off the road or worse. I detest the music of the 50s and I love Black Sabbath (seeing them three nights from now), Alice in Chains (saw them in August) and jazz fusion so if you didn’t shoot me now I would probably do it myself after a few days of sock hops etc. I’m not the most sports-minded guy so that probably wouldn’t fly. Nope - it would be horrible for me.
Asian Christian male and I wouldn’t mind being transported as long as I ended up somewhere fairly enlightened and not some tiny rural hamlet in Mississippi. While obviously our present society is much better due to far less discrimination by race, gender, and sexual orientation along with superior technology (especially with regards to medicine and greater access to information); the 1950s were quite preferable in other regards such as in fashion, pop culture (especially music and movies), a Democratic Party that was both much more progressive on economic issues and stronger nationally, stronger labour unions, lower rates of illegitimacy, and so forth.
Yeah, mumble, mumble. Kneel, stand, kneel.
I’m a white female who could still pass as Catholic but I’d prefer to be shot. Not only would suburban housewifey life suck, my life expectancy would be considerably shortened without modern medicine.
Day Two:
Female responses: 27 (roughly twice as many “shoot me” as “could make it work”)
Male responses: 51 (most “could make it work”, about twice as many as “shoot me”; the only “sigh me up”)
Non-“straight”, non-(apparently)White Christian - about the same (8 & 10, respectively), and, interestingly, more likely to give it a shot/make it work than straight white women.
BTW, I am commenting on the responses on the belief that people are more likely to respond to a poll if they believe their condition or position is under represented.
On the one hand, I think mostly people in the 50s were a little less paranoid of each other, it was slightly easier to get along (unless you were a jungle-bunny or a jap or something different looking). As a caucasian person, I suspect I would do okay. But, on the other hand, if I had foreknowledge, it would be very difficult for me to look at the fields here or the wooded hills there and be able to see the acres of cookie-cutter McMansions destined to fill those spaces.
Still, lovely Spirit Lake beneath Mt. St. Helens would still be lovely, I would be there every chance I got, collecting stories from old Harry Truman.
As a white male, I could make it work. However, I would not be inclined to pretend to have any religious views and I’m not sure I would have to. (would I?) My parents were alive and well in the 50s and as far as I know never pretended to be Christian, or Jewish, or anything. People assumed they were Jewish (because of our last name and ethnic heritage) but I never heard of any hardships they went through for not being Christian.
I’ve been there before and could definitely make it work again.
It would give me another fifty-five years of life
Less crime, less crowding, less obesity, less addiction, less pollution
More privacy
Economy booming
More trust in government and less government intrusion into our private lives
More professional behavior from our authority figures
People were better educated (with the information that was available)
And, in general, interpersonal interaction was more civil
I appreciate the strides we’ve made in human rights for all, the immense growth of scientific knowledge and the increased concern for our earth. But my list reflects areas where, from my perspective, we have definitely lost progress.
For anyone who likes cities, it was the generation of the 1940s and 50s that, one way or another, decided to wreck them by blotting out entire neighborhoods with freeways and razing others to be replaced by civic buildings or housing which, somehow, almost always ended up being for the luxury market.
I would have appreciated the more civil climate of political discourse, however.
I’m a white female who actually is a white Christian, so I could make it work.
That doesn’t mean I’d be happy though. If an adult I’d be face with situations like my mother was, She was a nursing student, and her class had a black female student. They’d all go out together to eat but wouldn’t be able to go to many sitdown lunches because their black friend couldn’t sit. When they went to the movies the whole group had to sit in the balcony, reserved for blacks, because their black student couldn’t sit downstairs with them.
That would drive me nuts. As would the segregated schools, employment want ads, and so on.
I live within walking distance of the Brown Historical site, and of the former Sumner School building, key schools in the Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka cases. It might be interesting to see how they looked back in the day though.
Oddly enough my grandmother, as a girl growing up in the country, attended a one room school with black and white students together. Her father often exchanged farming labor with a neighbor, a black farmer. Grandma said she didn’t encounter segregation as such until she moved to “the big city” of Topeka.
I had to learn all the non-priesty things to me an altar boy, and Father O’Hara would dopeslap you if you mumbled. It was all very mystical because he and I were casting a spell.
Day Four:
No significant change in the pattern.
SWF are more negative than GLBT, but total respondents of the latter is so low, that might be an artifact.
Straight (apparently) white Christians accounted for about 75% of the respondents.
Still only males are fully positive, but “Shot me now” outnumber them 2 to 1.
Male and female GLBT are 5.5 % each; no “Sign me ups”, more “I could make it works” than “Shot me now”.
People who will/can not pass as straight white Christian are now the least responsive group and almost uniformly negative. One male would give it a shot.
Let’s see, a light skinned heterosexual Latina. I can pass as Italian or Black Irish. I have a college degree and I look good in 1950s clothing and I can cook.
I guess, I can marry a nice man and have kids. I can spend my days cooking,cleaning and crying myself to sleep.
Maybe this is where the plot of West Side Story came from.