Hi!
If you recall my last post spoke about the 1950’s and early 60’s and how they weren’t that fun for anyone involved. Well, the 60’s seemed to be just as bad. Because this is when the Cold War really went full steam ahead.
Well, almost. And that is exactly what we were studying. The 60’s seemed to be the closest to nuclear war the world had been at that point (I think we all know why I’m saying this in past tense) Our job was to come up with a thesis on a specific point in the 1960’s that caused the world to be on the brink of destruction, and then write an essay about it.
I decided to choose the assassination of JFK. This was a huge point in American history that I figured I wanted to do more research on and get a good argument for. And I did, it was very interesting
The 60’s was a real time to be alive. One one hand you had the Cold War with the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Berlin Wall, on the other hand you had your nice apple pie life, and on the other other hand you had social change. As an example, there was Stonewall.
Stonewall was a huge point in LGBTQ+ history, in which the police raided a gay bar and the people fought back. It led to a series of riots lead by two trans women of colour who just wanted a place where they could be themselves. It’s something I was very relieved to actually learn about because it’s not often that we get to learn about gay history and, personally, I like knowing about my own history.
But the Stonewall riots became a huge protest that, on most nights, got very violent. It got into the press, and for the first time people were opening their eyes to see that gay and trans people were there and they deserved rights, and they would fight to get them.
The media has such a big influence on people. A similar thing happened with JFK, when Lee Harvey Oswald shot him. It became aware that the Soviets were in their borders. Not Cuba, not Russia. In America. Even if Lee Harvey Oswald wasn’t associated with the Russian government, people were still thinking about it.
Those two events were almost wake up slaps for America. Things are changing, some for the better and some not so much. People were opening their eyes.
This isn’t just a thing of the past. We always think that people in the past were blind but we see everything. We really don’t, sometimes you look at a piece of media and it really makes you think. I’m going to leave links to a few things that really did that for me, and I hope you get to thinking more.
John Oliver: Transgender Rights
Caster Semenya Looses Fight Over Testosterone Rules
Read you later
Sincerely, Parker