On Peace Signs and Paisley Ties
Still Nothing New Under the Sun
Ugh. This year is coming in like a lion.
We’re not even a full week in, and we’ve already had several mass-casualty events/home-grown terrorist attacks. Makes me wanna holler. We’ve got to concentrate on protecting our own mental health. Since the election, “garbage in, garbage out” is my personal mantra when it comes to the amount of news I’m consuming. This has helped me manage the constant feeling of dread.
I’m still clear-eyed about the incoming administration and what it means for me as a parent, as a homeschool advocate, and as a Black male living in this country. I just see the benefits of unplugging and touching grass from time to time.
I will admit to gravitating toward clips of news and interviews from the 60’s and 70’s. (As a self-proclaimed pop culture spelunker, I’m naturally drawn to media and clips from the past.) One of the first lessons my dad taught me was “what goes around, comes around. Ain’t nothing new under the sun.” I can still picture the paisley tie that he was wearing at the time, which I, with the infinite wisdom and fashion sense of a nine-year-old midwestern kid, had determined to be “out of style.” To my dad, fashion trends didn’t matter… he was playing the long game. It didn’t make sense to me until a few years later when Prince named his Minneapolis studios “Paisley Park.” Then I knew that my father had always been right about everything, and of course I never doubted him again. :)
This morning I’m watching a conversation with James Baldwin on “The Dick Cavett Show,” and a couple of things strike me. Cavett questions Baldwin about his stated refusal to “vote for a Republican as long as Nixon is in the party.” The conversation could easily be repeated today, with the current polarization in our political landscape.
Another thing that I find interesting is that the always dapper Mr. Baldwin is wearing a peace sign lapel pin. The interview is from 1969, the height of the war in Vietnam, and Mr. Baldwin of course left no doubt as to his anti-war stance. Still, the wearing of that pin against the formal backdrop of his black suit-and-skinny tie combo certainly had to have made a statement on that national show.
It is interesting to note that a year before this interview, in 1968, the anti-Communist preacher Billy James Hargis referred to the emblem as a "broken cross", which he viewed as the symbol of the Antichrist. Hargis’ version was emulated by a fellow John Birch Society member, Marjorie Jensen, who published a pamphlet insisting the icon represented "a symbol of the devil, with the cross reversed and broken" supposedly known as "the crow's foot or witch's foot."
I can’t help but be reminded of how BLM and Antifa are almost universally vilified by those on the right. And how some school systems are banning (checks notes) rainbows of all things.
As homeschoolers, we are blessed to be able to share artifacts of history with our kids by utilizing clips from YouTube, Vimeo, Daily Motion, etc. to illustrate and provide context and framing to current events. Here’s a link to that Dick Cavett clip. And be sure to check out that channel for tons of great interviews with many of the notables from that time answering some tough questions. This is an excellent no-cost resource for teaching social studies lessons.
Eventually everything comes back around… paisley ties and bell bottoms, the Beatles, peace signs… even democracy. It all comes and goes… and comes back again.
And that’s got to be good enough for me right now.
— Chris