With mischief in his soul, my eldest son led my wife and me on a tour of his campus. The first stop on his tour — the protest encampment in the center of the place. My son was drawn to the encampment like a moth to flame. I am happy to say there were passionate signs of protest, unoriginal slogan words (How many ways can we say Israel bad?), and, best of all, decorum and respect for the rights of others. No assaults, no batteries did I witness.
A proper protest and demonstration.
My son taunted me as sons will do I bet you didn’t protest the Vietnam War. I replied I was all of nine years old in 1970. I was worried about being drafted and dying in a foreign land. “Was this the fate of grownups?” I thought to myself on the school bus. That was my mindset. No one in my southern small-town was protesting. We were all patriotic by and large. We were part of the Great Silent Majority, traditional people who favored Richard Nixon over George McGovern.
Knowing that my daughter can do no wrong/smile, my son revealed that my New Haven legacy supported the divestment protests. My son is a good Big Brother, so he did not reveal the full extent of my daughter’s protest. He was protecting his Little Sister and me, quite frankly. I lean towards the traditional with my adult children. I am of a place and time when hitting the books was more important than activism. My son knows me and that I would prefer not to know all of the goings on in New Haven right now.
My wife chimed in. I was there protesting divestment from South Africa. My good friend, ——-, was the leader of the divestment efforts in New Haven. So, my daughter inherited a propensity for protest from her Mom (and Grandma). I get it, divestment demonstration as a family legacy in the world. When one comes of a stable two-parent family, one learns that Mom and Dad may share their love for children and have little ideological overlap in life. It is a good thing for kids to see differences of opinion in the home. One doesn’t get that richness if raised by a single parent.
As we walked further along the campus, my son weighed in with his perspective. I had suggested these protests would be the defining ethos of his generation. He agreed. In his view, the three college presidents before Congress failed the empathy test. The point was not to deliver a legally refined answer but to show empathy that calling for the genocide of Jews is a moral wrong and would not be tolerated, regardless of the finer points of a student code of conduct. Moreover, administrators should not be in the business of pontificating on disputes throughout the world. Instead, administrators should make it their mission to ensure freedom of speech, no matter how distasteful or unpleasant. It is through difficult conversations that the public discourse is advanced.
That’s my son!
As with all things, I have no doubt that my son may have been playing to the audience. The Old Man (that would be me) would appreciate a defense of free speech, a nuanced and complex treatment of the raging protests and demonstrations on college grounds these days. On the one hand, my son remarked as we left his apartment (with surprise and shock) some people like your work! You could be a social media star! You are a caricature of yourself. I don’t like the public spotlight and changed the subject as quickly as I could.
On the other hand, the truest things are unspoken. I was sitting in my son’s dorm room. His closet door was open. I looked up and, on the top shelf. I saw it. It was folded away with the discipline of a Marine in boot camp. The colors, the pattern, the fabric — I recognized what my eyes saw. The Palestinian keffiyeh.
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It is time for the college road trip. My eldest son is applying to college. I rent a car for the long trip up to the Bay Area and back. We pack snacks because we want to save money, not because of a Jim Crow world. We drive up the 5 through Orange County and Los Angeles. We got a late start, so we are traveling at night through Ventura County and on up the coast to Santa Barbara. I love Santa Barbara, but it is dark when we arrive. We check into this coastal motel and crash. The next morning, we check out the best breakfast place in Santa Barbara. While we are there, my eldest son meets Bruce of the Beach Boys. Bruce shares breakfast with us and urges my eldest son to apply to college in Australia. Very cool moment. —Letters in Black and White: A New Correspondence on Race in America, page 34 footnote.
The Beach Boys and I share the same birthdate, 1961. I was born in Richmond, Virginia. The Beach Boys were born in Hawthorne, California. The Beach Boys were native to Southern California. I am an immigrant to Southern California. The Beach Boys were known for joyful, fun and surfing music in the 1960s. The vibe could be best summarized as SMILE. My readers know I use “smile” frequently in my essays. I love to smile since it is good to be alive. The odds are against any of us being alive, you know.
By the 1970s, the Beach Boys succumbed to the growing discord and discontent in American culture. The Beach Boys became political. “The band embraced left-wing politics and social consciousness. On the tracks of their 1971 Surf’s Up album, they critiqued pollution and police brutality and channeled deep feelings of discontent. Their live performances surged with political purpose. In 1971, they performed at the May Day Protests in Washington held against the war in Vietnam, which would result in the largest mass arrest in US history.”
Conclusion: As we arrived on campus, I saw the Star of David hanging outside of a white building across the street. Someone somewhere was proud to be Jewish. We must strive to live in a world where one can be proud to be Jewish and Palestinian in the public square. These are the Vietnam times of my adult children in Palo Alto, North Park and New Haven.
Good morning!