Unlikely, since it was invariably only young women of an age susceptible to nutjobbery who would engage in this behavior. Other young women, and virtually every middle-aged and older woman, would look me right in the eye, and, with a big smile and their own eyes twinkling, thank me graciously for holding the door for them.
Speaking of women with eyes a-twinkle, I’m reminded of a story you all might find amusing if came from anyone else.
I was in a 7-11 one day and the cashier, who’d I’d known for some time, was griping about something or other and in response I playfully said, "Well, you know what they say in France: “sest la vie” (rhymes with pie). The well-dressed, together-looking woman paying for her stuff at the next register visibly tightened up at this but she was too well-mannered to correct me. Still, her frustration grew, and as she went to leave I held the door for her. As she walked by with her eyes cast down so as not to have to look at me I whispered “I know it’s ‘c’est la vie’ (correct pronunciation).” She immediately whirled on her heel, threw her arms around my neck, put her head on my chest and said, “Oh, thank god! I’m a school teacher and things like that just drive me crazy.” Meanwhile, I look up and her husband in their car is staring daggers at my ass because all he sees is some guy hold the door for his wife, whisper in her ear as she walks by and she immediately whirls around and throws her arms around his neck. You know he had to be thinkin’ “Just what kinda silver-tongued devil is this sumbitch anyway?”
Hahahaha! Loved it!
Anyway, sorry for the hijack. Please carry on with the hate talk.
I believe there has recently been another poster on here who tended to excuse his behaviors and attitudes toward women by citing how much the ones he knew all uniformly loved him. Is this purely a generational thing? I am terribly confused by it.
I also notice how the comments fixate on playing ‘bitter young women’ against ‘sensible older girls’ and totally ignore other instances discussed above about other intersections of identity and how they contribute the current dialogue, specifically racial/cultural. Do you have any cute stories about how black folk love you as well, SA?
No, no cute ones. I could post stories - though I won’t - of black people who love me and who I love in return (just painted a picture as a gift for one of them, as a matter of fact), and another in particular who died three years ago and who I loved as much as anyone I’ve ever known except for a few very close relatives. One of the best people I’ve ever known in my life.
Exactly.
Look, I get it. When addressing a system issue, reaction to any singe incident/interaction looks like over-calibration to those who don’t recognize the larger issue. If one’s worldview is solely the product of their personal interactions, and they believe themselves to be the hero of their own story, then there isn’t much we can do other than bide our time for a change of season.
The strategy of using hate and fear as a tactic to build a movement didn’t begin with the 60’s here in the USA. What about the Civil War? There was enough hate and rage for 620,000 people to die in that conflict. The conflicts we are seeing today, brought about by the Trump movement certainly hearken back to the Civil War divisions, but it is hard to argue that this is particularly unique in the long term view.
Agreed that hate and fear are corrosive and damaging and in one way or another will ultimately destroy those that harbor these emotions.
There were bomb threats in the thousands and riots in the streets on a regular basis 45 years ago, no? I was neither there nor then, but I’ve heard rumours.
In the early '70s? In the US? That is not sounding like what I remember. Though, I lived in a nice quiet corner of the country where we were not so much at each other’s throats, and we had a Republican governor in our state who would be to the left of half of today’s Democratic party.
There were a few idiots, (tending to be to the Left, because the Right already had the police to enforce their violence), who made bombs. Only a very few were ever actually deployed–often killing their creators.
The Wikipedia article on Terrorism in the U.S. notes quite a few bombings. Note, however, that as one goes down the list, the number of casualties is fairly low and the perpetrators were scattered among a wide range of people. There were American Leftists, of course. However, note the number of other groups involved: The Puerto Rican FALN, the Jewish Defense League, Croatians, Chileans, a few rogue idiots with no connection to any movement (such as the Unabomber of the 1980s and 1990s).
Riots? There was a flurry of race-oriented riots in the late 1960s with a couple of late arrivals in the 1970s, but aside from the summers of 1966 and 1967, they were hardly common occurrences. (And if one looks at the entire list, one will note that the U.S. has experienced several periods when riots were more or less “common.”)
There were also “frequent” (depending how one defines that word) bombings in a few cities that were mob related. Those also tended to target individuals involved with the mob and did not stir up the citizenry at large.
Were there more bombings and riots then, than now. Yeah. Angry people of the time learned well from the police riots of Selma, Montgomery, and Chicago, etc. Nowadays, we tend to get our thrills from lone nuts holding rifles with large magazines. But just as few people, today, refuse to go to movies or malls in fear of a mass shooting, few people then, ordered their lives around a fear of bombings or riots.
