Interview with Lise Funderburg

Funderburg, Lise ; McKiernan, Stephen

Lise Funderburg is an author, educator and editor. She went to school at Reed College and Columbia University School of Journalism. She has had publications at the Washington Post, the New York Times, The Nation, Salon and many more.

2012-01-24

In copyright

2017-03-14

McKiernan Interviews

148:37

McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Lise Funderburg
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 24 January 2012
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(Start of Interview)

SM (00:00:08):
You are what we call a late-stage boomer, and I say this because the boomer generation is defined as people born in the years 1946 to 1964, and there is often, in my interviews, been a discrepancy in terms of impact over the events that transpired when boomers were young between those that were born between (19)46 and (19)56 and (19)56 and (19)64.

LF (00:00:35):
Sure.

SM (00:00:36):
However, my question here is, knowing this, do you personally identify yourself with the boomer generation, and if so, in what way?

LF (00:00:47):
I do not generally think of that label as being pertinent to me, although I have to admit that when I see characteristics of boomers in the media, there are times when I have to admit that they describe me. For example, the idea that everything that happens to me is being invented for the first time, that no one has ever gone through whatever my current stage of life is. It is like an amazing discovery. That applies to me and my peers, but I do not really identify with that label.

SM (00:01:46):
Yeah, it is interesting. One of the questions I have asked is do you like the term, period, in defining a group of people. Obviously it was linked toward the large numbers of babies being born after World War II for almost 18 years, as men and women came home from the war. Others say that it could be the Vietnam generation or the (19)60s generation or the movement generation, a lot of different terms, but they still identify because it is based on a large group of babies being born over a period of time. Is there another term that you feel would be more applicable to this group?

LF (00:02:27):
Well, your first question was do I like the label. I would say not particularly, because although its origins have a simple factual basis in referencing a spike in the population, like many labels of generations, it has come to be a shorthand that is generally, I think, pejorative. I think that is true of other ones, like how Generation X became better known for the limitations of the people in that group or the negative ways in which they interacted with society as opposed to something positive about them. Maybe one of the only exceptions to this that I can think of is... what was the group Tom Brokaw wrote about?

SM (00:03:29):
The Greatest Generation?

LF (00:03:32):
Yeah. That was a pretty positive label. I think that has pretty positive connotations, but generally boomers, that label connotes a kind of self-interestedness, a desire for luxury and comfort. While those may be true attributes for many of us born during that period, it is not a particularly positive one. I do think it is interesting to think about this generation. I mean, what is more pertinent to me now is a sub-category. I should also ask you, are you taping this?

SM (00:04:18):
Oh, yeah. I tape everything, and then eventually you will see it. I have got 250 transcripts.

LF (00:04:23):
Oh, sure.

SM (00:04:24):
Yeah. It is a long ordeal. I love it, though.

LF (00:04:27):
Right. I currently identify more with a subcategory, which is the sandwich generation, and that is an experience that other people have had in history where they are taking care of or have some level of dependence from the generation below as well as the generation above them, at the same time. Because of the numbers of boomers, it is a phenomenon that is changing our culture. That is an interesting thing about my boomer generation. Wherever you were born in it, you are part of a cohort that is so large that the life stages you are going through are more evident in the culture, and have more of an impact in the overall culture than other generations have.

SM (00:05:20):
Given the long-view perspective over time, what are your overall feelings on this generation? We do not even have to call it boomer, but this generation. Things you admire or things you do not admire, characteristics you like or dislike?

LF (00:05:40):
Well, I guess my feeling about that is in contrast with generations that have come before and after. For example, I think that what I like about a lot of people my age is a combination of idealism and pragmatism. Again, that might just be that we are in our (19)50s and (19)60s now, and that is when you become more pragmatic in life. I think that maybe, particularly having lived through the protest and social justice movements of the (19)60s and (19)70s, many of us retain a kind of hopefulness that has perhaps been tempered by the years, but persists, and I am comfortable with that. Again, that may be because that is what I know, so I like that about my generation. I also think that we are permitted to have that kind of an outlook and that kind of hopefulness in part because of the sacrifices the generation before us made to, whatever, get us into the middle class, to get us through some big wars, World War II and the Korean War. I think it is partly we are afforded that ability to be optimistic and hopeful because of the sacrifices made by our parents and grandparents, but also, we did not grow up under the dark, dark clouds that the generations after us have grown up under. There might have been the atom bomb, the Cold War, but not AIDS and not, for Americans, the Twin Towers, and no other globally frightening questions of who can make nuclear bombs. Weapons of mass destruction, real or imagined, were not as pervasive when I was a child. There were freedoms just in lifestyle. The over attended child now, that looks horrible to me, parents who are trying to give their children the best, but over program them and are constantly involved with them. I look back and I relish that I had a childhood where my parents were not always paying attention, so that I could have the life of a child with other children. Even though we lived in an urban environment that had crime, it just felt so much safer. I see kids today living with more fear.

SM (00:08:55):
Those are very good points. Over I would say the past maybe decade or two decades, a lot of the critics of the boomer generation have said that many of the problems we face today in this country, including those right here in 2012, we can go right back to that generation and blame that generation somewhat for the problems we face. Of course, the critics say the drug culture, the welfare mentality, where it is a handout over individual responsibility, a decline in church and synagogue attendance, where people left religion and went into more inner spirituality, a breakup of the family, the increase in the divorce rate, the lack of respect for law and order, lack of respect for authority because so many leaders lied to them when they were young or witnessed it nationally. A whole lot of things. Even some people that criticize the generation say remember on college campuses when college students would make a demand, and if all the demands were met, they would make more demands. They would be absolutely sure that the demands would never be met. It is an, "I want it now," mentality, and so that is some of the financial problems we face in the generation, directly related to that attitude of spending now and worrying about how to pay for it later. When you look at all these criticisms of the generation, some of them could be directly related to what we call the culture wars today too, so just your thoughts on these people that criticize this generation for a lot of the problems we face today in America.

LF (00:10:44):
I am sure there is some validity to those critiques, but I am not sure that it is appropriate to hang the blame solely on the door of baby boomers, but in fact maybe it is more of an American epidemic, part of the broader culture, up and down across generations and classes. It is hard for me to find a kind of across-the-board validity to critiques like that because we are such a diverse people, even inside of this generation. To pick out one of those critiques you listed, these people critiquing baby boomers for the fall of social order through something like an abandonment of organized religion, organized religion seems to me not an absolutely good thing, as evidenced by pedophilic scandals in the Catholic Church. Or in the South and in terms of race, which is a topic I am more familiar with, the usage of the Church to justify the sanction and further the cause of racial bigotry and to perpetuate an unjust order of Jim Crow, that was in the house of organized religion. Perhaps some of the turning away from such places was to an attempt to keep close to God, but not the deeply flawed behaviors of the people practicing in His name.

SM (00:13:14):
When I was on a college campus, I know this was an attitude many young people had in the late (19)60s through the mid (19)70s, and that was that we can be the change agents for the betterment of society. There was a feeling that the world was going to change for the better, that eventually because of this generation, war would end, peace would come, racism, sexism, homophobia, all the structure of the environment, all these ills would be corrected by these 74 million young people. As time goes on, critics will say... again, critics; you cannot generalize everyone because many people have done good things... that war has continued, all the -isms have continued. There have been improvements in many ways, but as some people say, we take one step forward and two steps backward many times. What we are seeing here is this attitude that many within the generation, that they were going to be the change agent for the benefit of society, that they have miserably failed. Your thoughts? That is another general criticism, but progress has been made in so many areas for people if you look at the 1950s and 2012, but then you see these terrible individual instances. You have raised a couple of them already in your remarks.


LF (00:14:43):
Once again, I think to place on any group of people the responsibility to cure all of society's ills is an awfully heavy burden to carry. Whoever expected that maybe needed a sort of realistic adjustment, some adjustment in their outlook, to expect that. Again, because one of my areas of professional focus is race and race relations, I have often said that many people place a parallel expectation on mixed-race people, that they are the hope for a future without racial animosity, and that is such an unrealistic expectation. On the one hand, I think that is a highly unrealistic expectation, and it is a superficial expectation too. It does not allow for the complexity of who we all are as people, and also how our identities are overdetermined by the circumstances around us. In other words, we are made up of so many different components of influence, whether it is our generation, as you are interested in, and what that means, our place on the timeline of history, what came before and what comes after, our gender, our religion, our geography. In this country, it makes such a huge difference whether you are born and raised in a city, suburb or rural environment, in the Northwest, in the Southeast, in the Northeast. The composition of the area around you, the personalities and convictions of the people who raise you and the people on the street in which you grew up, the kind of education you have, the amount of education you have, and on and on and on. You can put 10 people in a room who seemingly have so much in common and you will find as much, if not more, that they do not have in common. Therefore, expecting that group of people to all behave in a certain way or fulfill a certain goal I think is unrealistic. On the other hand, I would say that not only is it unrealistic to expect a particular generation to take on such a large burden, but I think it is also unrealistic to expect anyone to be able to solve such enormous, profound, entrenched problems essentially overnight, in one generation. I mean, look at slavery. We are nowhere near where we should be in this country in terms of racial and social justice and equality, I think. We still have a tremendously far way to go. If I were to only look at that, I would not be able to get out of bed every day. It is too bleak to only look that way. If I also look at where we have come from in just a handful of generations, then that gives me some hope that there has been progress, which is now the time when I would trot out Obama.

SM (00:18:35):
Yeah. I have a question on him later, but you can talk about him, because you are talking about, first off, the first African American, but he is biracial.

LF (00:18:43):
Yes, he is.

SM (00:18:48):
Just your thoughts on how he has been treated in America, in terms of not only race but biracially.

LF (00:19:00):
Well, that is a big question. I think that he has been put on a pedestal by some people and expected to be the messiah for Black people particularly, but also other people who feel that they have not historically been allowed to play on a level playing field in this country. I think that he has raised the knap of racism that had been smoothed over in certain areas, acts of racism, especially in a polite society. Not people with swastikas tattooed on their foreheads, lynching someone, but instead in say the halls of Congress or the Senate chambers. Maybe we are a less civil society in general, but the idea that a representative, a government representative, would shout out, "You lie," to a president was inconceivable to me. Does that have something to do with race and a feeling of not needing to respect someone? I do not know the man who shouted that well enough, but that is one example of a way in which I think Obama has not been accorded the respect that a white person in his position would have. Meanwhile, though, of course, people said horrible things. Progressive Democrats, liberals, said horrible things about George Bush, the second Bush. It is hard to know when it is just horrible behavior and when it is horrible racist behavior. It is very hard to identify it, to separate them. As far as a biracial president, it gives me a great pleasure to see him in office for many reasons, some of them having to do with his actual capacity to serve, but in an iconic way to see a Black president and to see a biracial president. To me, he is both of those things, which is not how some Black and biracial people feel, who would have him choose.

SM (00:21:57):
What is interesting about President Obama is that one little note, that he has really wanted to separate himself from the (19)60s generation. Oftentimes he says, "I am not a part of the (19)60s generation," but he is in terms of years. He falls within that boomer generation. He was two years old, so I think he was born in (19)62 or (19)61, in that particular area. He does fall into that area, but he is tried to disassociate himself from the (19)60s, yet his critics say he is the reincarnation of the (19)60s. It seems like an oxymoron at times.

LF (00:22:37):
What is it about the (19)60s that he is trying to divorce himself from, do those critics say?

SM (00:22:42):
Well, I do not know. I just know early on I saw him on television. He has said several times, "I am not part of the (19)60s generation," and probably because he was two years old, but then he does not go on any further. You read articles in magazines, how he tries to separate himself from that period, which was the period of activism, the period of the movements and everything. Then his critics say he is the reincarnation of the (19)60s, the more progressive, way to the left. It is part of the culture wars, almost, that we are seeing today.

LF (00:23:28):
Well, I am not familiar enough with that criticism, I guess, to really have a way to comment on that.

SM (00:23:35):
This gets right into that. How did you become who you are in terms of your growing-up years? What were your early influences, some of the mentors, the role models that influenced you as a young person? I know you have written a new book, and I know your father is a very important part of this, but what were your high school years like and your college years, before you started your professional career as a writer? What was it like... and I know that I am saying a lot here... growing up as a biracial female in the (19)60s and (19)70s?

LF (00:24:09):
Well, I was just a little kid in the (19)60s. I was not 10 until 1969. I do not know how much I looked outside of myself for models, but of course, my mother and my father were big models for me. The neighborhood they chose to raise me and my sisters in was really significant in my developing outlook of the world. They chose a very rare situation, which was a stable integrated neighborhood. I make note of it being stable because there are a lot of neighborhoods that go through, say, a gentrification process, and halfway through, or the old neighborhoods that went through white flight, there was a point at which it looked like it was the 50/50 neighborhood of two races, but it was really just in the midst of a transition. This neighborhood my parents chose to raise me and my two sisters in in Philadelphia was... well, I considered it a tremendous gift they gave us to live in a microcosm of possibility, which is to say that we were able to live in a neighborhood that was by no means perfect... again, there are always humans involved when you are talking about people, which means that no one is perfect and everyone is complicated... but to grow up in a neighborhood where it was normal to be around people who were different was both a sense of possibility of what the world could be like, and it was an affirmation and a reinforcement of the normalcy of my own immediate family. I had a Black side of the family and a white side of the family, and they were all equally my cousins and uncles and aunts and grandparents, but that was a very rare image in the world around me. That has changed significantly, probably because of a lot of the boomers. It would be interesting to look at the particular rates of intermarriage and how much it spiked with the boomers, but there were not that many images around when I was growing up. It was an epiphany for me to watch the ship...

SM (00:26:51):
Still there? Hello? Oops.

LF (00:26:58):
Where did you lose me?

SM (00:26:58):
Well, you were talking about your parents and growing up, being a biracial person in your early years.

LF (00:27:09):
Had I gotten to the neighborhood?

SM (00:27:10):
Yes. You were starting to talk about your neighborhood.

LF (00:27:13):
Okay. It was a tremendous gift and sense of possibility to grow up in a neighborhood where it was normal to interact with people who were different, who looked different, came from different backgrounds. That was not only a sense of possibility of what the world could be like, which was very unusual then, and in terms of residential integration is still highly unusual in this country, but it was also a reaffirmation of my own family and the normalcy of that. Having a Black set of cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents and a white set was my reality and my normal, but it was very unusual in much of the world around me. In this neighborhood, that did not seem so strange. I remember as a kid watching the show, The Jeffersons. Had I gotten to that part?

SM (00:28:20):
No.

LF (00:28:21):
Okay. I did not love the main character, George Jefferson, and so did not enjoy the basic humor of the show, but it was an epiphany for me that there was a character on the show who was biracial, the son of the upstairs neighbors, who looked like I did, which is unusual even for a mixed-race person in that I look very, very... well, I look white. Typically it is often hard for people to see or believe, in fact, that my father was Black. That was a powerful sense of who I was. The writer Paule Marshall said once you see yourself depicted in the world, you have a sense of your right to be in the world. Once you see yourself truthfully depicted, you have a sense of your right to be in the world. There were exceptions like that that I looked for, that would speak to my reality. Maybe in a way, perhaps there is a way in which people like me were outliers to our own generation, because we had some significant experience or piece of our identity that gave us a different vantage point, forced it upon us by birth. Also I think of that as a great advantage, that I know what it is like to be on the outside looking in as much as I know what it is like to be on the inside looking out. I actually think that that is one of our presidene strengths.

LF (00:30:03):
I actually think that that is one of our president's strengths, which may well have come from that shared experience.

SM (00:30:11):
One thing that when your parents, when you were very young, did your parents ever sit down with you? Your neighborhood may have been different obviously than what was happening in the South. And I am not sure where your parents grew up themselves, but did your parents ever talk to you about the fact that in the 1950s, if you were, I think mixed marriages were even a crime in the South. And of course, we all know what happened to Emmett Till for just simply whistling at a white girl. He ended up being murdered, thrown in the river, the hatred in the south between a black male and a white female and all these other things, that southern mentality. And then here few years later, what it was like for your parents to even grow up and to be living during that time, even before you were born.

LF (00:31:03):
Well, my father was from rural Georgia.

SM (00:31:06):
Oh wow.

LF (00:31:07):
From a part of a neighborhood called Colored Folks Hill. So he knew all too well about what was happening in the south and where racial violence could go. My mother was from Chicago and was less familiar with that. When my parents decided to get married, my father went to the library, they met in Philadelphia, and my father went to the library to look up the laws because he knew it was illegal in many states to be married. I think there were still 17 states that had laws on the books the year my parents married, which was 1955, and they were not completely eliminated until 1967, in the case of this famous couple, Loving, whose last name happened to be Loving, L-O-V-I-N-G. And I think their case went to the Supreme Court and was Loving versus Virginia. So my father was much more aware of racial issues and concerns than my mother, which is not uncommon for who was white. I mean, it is not surprising given that she was white and did not need to know a lot of those things, and he was black and had to know them in order to survive. That said, neither one of them had, I think there was not much of a vocabulary for talking about issues of race and identity then in the way that there is now. There were not identity politics, there was not such a self-consciousness either celebratory or self-denigrating about identity in the public sphere. There were not these public conversations the way there are now. And my mother tells a story that in her own effort to somehow bring more black culture into our home, because my dad, I do not know, I guess she felt that my dad was not perhaps doing enough of it. She suggested that we subscribe to Ebony and Jet. And my dad just laughed and that was the end of that conversation. But we did know my parents were pretty active. I think they were more involved in the (19)60s and (19)70s politically than I could ever claim to be.

SM (00:33:50):
Hold on one second. I [inaudible] change this one tape player here. Hold on a second. Almost there. Okay. All right. Go ahead.

LF (00:33:57):
And were very upfront and honest about what was happening in the news. So we were not unaware of racial issues when we were growing up. So they did not really talk about it. And I think one of my sisters may have asked my dad once what she should fill out on a form that gave her the options of black, white, other. And I think that he said she should fill out other. But we were pretty much left to our own devices in terms of figuring out what we wanted [inaudible] or how to think about our racial mix. But again, they more than words, they gave experience of living in this neighborhood, which in the end I think had much more power than any talks might have and really, really shaped my view of the world.

SM (00:35:00):
Now, this neighborhood is where?

LF (00:35:02):
It is in Philadelphia, it is called Powelton.

SM (00:35:04):
Oh, I know that, yes. And this is kind of a follow up to this question, but it is no longer, I will just read this and make sure I get it correct. The Civil Rights Movement in the (19)50s and (19)60s and (19)70s centered on equality for African Americans. Could you describe the confusion and or lack of insight that most people of that time had for biracial Americans? And I want to follow this up with the following statement, that the African American community and the white community both agreed at one time that this concept of the one drop of blood meant that you were black, not white. Am I correct on this? And what findings in your book, Black, White, and Other, did your family and many others of the people that you interviewed for the book feel about this?

LF (00:35:58):
I would say that this notion of the one drop rule, which is also, I believe it is called hypo dissent, that a particular race will trump another race no matter how much or little of it you have in you persists to this day. So many people, black, white, and mixed, feel that that is true. That if you are part black, you are black. And some of that comes from the history of where mixed race people found a home. They were relegated to the black community. And the black community, either by choice or without choice, puts them in. Now, I think the way that people identify is so complicated, but a lot of people choose their identity based on how they look to the world and how they are treated. Most biracial, black, white people are brown-skinned. So they are treated in the way that much of our society acts upon race, which is based on your surface. So for a lot of people, it is just easier. There is nothing bad or good about it necessarily. So that is where they identify. Other people have different layers of identity that are sort of a public identity versus a private identity. A recognition that people respond to us out in the world in one way, but we may feel a different way in our experience and our chosen association. But mostly I think what is most important to think about is that race is a made-up concept, does not actually exist. It is a social construct by and large, which is why the US Bureau of the Census has changed its definitions of race over the years, many, many times over, who is white and who is not. So what I found most liberating in the research for Black, White, Other was that what had long been pathologized by social scientists was actually really healthy. So that is to say the truth for a lot of biracial mixed race people is that they feel different ways and different sort of pieces of their identity in different contexts in the world. When you say it that way, that is not surprising to anyone. If you are, let us say Greek and Jewish, you might feel more Jewish during the High Holy Days and more Greek when you go visit that Greek neighborhood in Chicago that serves food just like your grandmother made. So how is that any different from these cultural associations with black and white? I think it is not. But it used to be seen by psychologists and social scientists as a kind of unhealthy inability to choose a kind of sitting on the fence, an inability to resolve your innermost identity. And what I would say I found in working on Black, White, Other, and what is increasingly accepted in the social sciences and psychological communities is that identity is more plastic. It is flexible. The truth of our identities is that they wax and wane of the pieces of our identity. And I think for biracial people, that is just more exaggerated than it is for everyone else. But everyone has some experience with that. You are more political in one context. You are more an identified with being a man in one context, you are more identified with being someone's son versus being someone's father.

SM (00:40:04):
It is like when in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, if you were a college student, you filled in, you were African American or Latino American, Native American or Asian American, or white, depending on the background. But working in the university in the 1990s, when you came to visit our school, particularly in the early part of this century, the first 10 years, students were confused. I remember students coming in filling out forms on, well, wait a minute, I am Latino, but my parents are white and Latino. Should I put Latino or other? And they were actually going to the vice President of student affairs and asking for a clarification because a lot of them identified as Latino, but they really want to put other because they are proud of their white heritage too.

LF (00:40:53):
Right.

SM (00:40:54):
So I see a difference. There seems to be clear cut back in the boomers, but today with the children and the grandchildren, it seems to, it goes to a lot of different ways.

LF (00:41:06):
Well, I do not think there was a choice. There was no choice before. There was no sort of critical mass of a mixed experience. And it has grown to the point where people are finding their voices. And it is also less threatening than it used to be. I mean, you were literally taking your life into your hands. If you tried to stand up as a black, white, biracial person in a lot of situations and say, "Oh, no, no, I am half white. I am as white as I am black." That just was not going to fly.

SM (00:41:42):
We might be seeing some of these experiences you went through is now expanding into the areas between Jewish and Arab Americans. Because I am seeing a lot of the universities a-a microcosm of society, you probably see it at Penn, and I see it at Westchester when I was there, is that if a guy falls in love with a girl and vice versa, or even in a same sex relationship, I tell you, I am seeing more others than I am straight white, straight black. I am amazed at the relationships that are really forming today in society, which to me is a positive. And I think it is good. And I think if there is anything that can really heal our nation in so many different ways, it is the category of other where we appreciate the backgrounds of all Americans because that is the dream of what America is truly about. And Dee, do you know what percentage of African Americans or white Americans were biracial at say, in (19)68 as opposed to 2012?

LF (00:42:43):
I do not.

SM (00:42:46):
Okay. And when one thinks about that, 74 million, you have [inaudible] and wonder about the numbers within the group who were biracial at that time, who identified as black or white, and was mostly probably they identified as black during that timeframe.

LF (00:43:01):
I am sure that is true, yeah.

SM (00:43:07):
[inaudible]. Are there any events or developments that you feel shaped the post-World War II generation more than any other? I am referring to events that may be called watershed moments or moments where members of this generation reflect on when they look at their past that really shape them then and still shape them now. Could be individual events and since post-World War II America, any time that the Boomers have been alive. What do you feel were the watershed moments and what were the watershed moments in your life?

LF (00:43:46):
Certainly the Cold War and Vietnam War. The Vietnam War, particularly because it was the first televised war, which made it such a personal experience that this was in our living room. Then the microwave, think revolutionized our relationship with food and not necessarily in a good way. I think technology, which continues to just shift us on every level of relationships. It changes how our minds work, it changes our expectations of each other. It changes the boundaries between public and private. And I am definitely more comfortable looking backward than looking forward on that. I do not enjoy... I use social networking media, but I do not feel very comfortable with it. I do not even feel that comfortable with my apps.

SM (00:45:12):
When I asked this, I interviewed two people, actually within the last week. I have added six people, and I thank you for being one of the six that I added to my long list of interviews. And when I mentioned that business about the watershed events, you have already mentioned Vietnam here, but some of the things that have come up throughout these 250 plus interviews, the events that shape them in individual ways. And I have got 10 here and I just want to throw them out to you and see if there is anything that clicks.

LF (00:45:45):
Okay.

SM (00:45:45):
I will just read them. And certainly the election of John Kennedy in 1960 and his assassination in 1963.

LF (00:45:52):
Well, that is actually my first memory is his assassination.

SM (00:46:02):
Oh, yeah? Well, that is an interesting, you were very young.

LF (00:46:02):
I was.

SM (00:46:02):
What do you remember?

LF (00:46:02):
I remember that I was with my mother in a thrift store where she bought a lot of our clothes and that the women all began to cry and gather around a radio at the checkout desk. That is what I remember. And then coming home, and then a neighbor of mine, also a grown person crying about that too. But I was more connected to the assassinations of his brother. And I was much more cognizant then of Martin Luther King.

SM (00:46:40):
Yeah, that is interesting because when John Kennedy was killed, you must have been four or five and when Dr. King was killed, you would have been about 10?

LF (00:46:53):
Nine or 10.

SM (00:46:54):
Yeah, nine or 10.

LF (00:46:54):
(19)68, right? Yeah.

SM (00:46:56):
As a young person, what were you thinking about this nation that you were growing up in? Sometimes I wonder what young kids think, but what does it do to the psyche to see three major leaders of your nation murdered?

LF (00:47:14):
Well, I do think that that was a period of hopelessness where the carriers of the torch were being assassinated one after another. And what were the other 10?

SM (00:47:31):
Well, the other items I had here, the other was the march on Washington (19)63.

LF (00:47:35):
I was there.

SM (00:47:36):
You were? Wow. You were so lucky. Oh my God. Your dad and mom took you there?

LF (00:47:44):
Wait a minute, I might have been at the Poor People's March. When was the Poor People's March?

SM (00:47:48):
Well, that is it.

LF (00:47:49):
Oh yeah, I was there. My mom took me.

SM (00:47:51):
250,000 Americans were fortunate enough to be there in the presence of all those great speakers, but just to be around and... Oh wow, you, that is history.

LF (00:48:02):
And I remember being afraid of the National Guard with their rifles because I did not know anything about guns.

SM (00:48:06):
Wow. Yeah. The other ones were of course, the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, Kent State in 1970.

LF (00:48:15):
Of course.

SM (00:48:16):
The Ronald Reagan election, because things seems to really change in a different direction. Watergate in (19)73, certainly the entire year, 1968. And the rise of the religious, which seemed to really evolve in the late (19)70s and has been around ever since. And then certainly the election of President Obama. I put all these down as watershed kind of developments. I do not know if anything clicks there, but they were just, for a lot of people watershed moments.

LF (00:48:47):
Well, they are all major. I mean, I think more currently the current economic downturn, this major recession is a really affecting experience for everyone I know. So it feels like one of the most widespread, powerful forces going on in my life today.

SM (00:49:11):
When you think of, were you aware as a young person of Dr. King's speech too, in 1967 against the Vietnam War? And if you did, were your parents talking about the extreme criticism that he was receiving not only from the civil rights community, but from the administration of LBJ and others, that he should just stay in the area of civil rights and not be going into world issues? Did that ever come-

LF (00:49:39):
I wish I could remember. I cannot remember that specifically. I mean, my household looked up to Martin Luther King. And I would say my parents would have supported that position wholeheartedly?

SM (00:50:03):
Still there? Yep. Hello?

LF (00:50:07):
Actually, I am going to have to go in about three minutes.

SM (00:50:11):
Oh really?

LF (00:50:12):
Yeah.

SM (00:50:12):
Oh my God, I am only halfway through here.

LF (00:50:14):
[inaudible].

SM (00:50:16):
You do not have 90 minutes?

LF (00:50:19):
Oh, I thought we would said (19)60.

SM (00:50:21):
Oh no, it was 90 it minutes. W-

LF (00:50:24):
Well, I can probably squeeze in another 10, so you should, I guess, cut to your favorite.

SM (00:50:29):
All right. All right. I guess we will go down here. In your view, when did the (19)60s begin and when did it end?

LF (00:50:35):
Around 1970, it began. I mean, I have always heard and believed the joke that the (19)60s really happened in the (19)70s. But again, I was so young. Maybe an older boomer would have more of a personal connection to that. But I was just a little kid.

SM (00:50:59):
Did the (19)60s ever end?

LF (00:51:01):
Not in the neighborhood I was growing up in. It is still in the (19)60s. People still walk barefoot on the city streets there.

SM (00:51:12):
Wow. So it is still ongoing. Describe your feelings about watching the equality movements in the (19)60s, the civil rights, the black power, the certainly women's, rights Latino movement. There was the yellow movement, the environmental movement, disability movement, you name it. And obviously there was no biracial movement, but what were your overall thoughts on all these movements that were happening when you were very young? And that is why when they talk the culture wars, there is a feeling that the culture wars is the battle to really put a stop to a lot of the progress that is been made here almost to go back to 1950s America. Your thoughts?

LF (00:52:02):
That was a multi-part question.

SM (00:52:08):
Well, it is about the movement.

LF (00:52:10):
Oh, okay.

SM (00:52:11):
Yeah. Just your thoughts on-

LF (00:52:12):
All of those movements could come under the umbrella of social justice, seeking social justice for people who have been disenfranchised from the rest of society. And I was a child at that point, being led by my parents' values, which I continue to hold. I never broke away from them as some children do. And it was in support of every social justice movement. I think we were not aware of some of those because geographically they were not happening. Probably the, did you call it the yellow movement?

SM (00:52:48):
Yeah, the Asian-Americans.

LF (00:52:50):
That was probably more West Coast space.

SM (00:52:52):
Yes.

LF (00:52:53):
And we were in Philadelphia, so that was not very, I think on the screen. That was not so visible to us. But my household was a household that was interested in social justice. So all of that being good.

SM (00:53:13):
One of the questions I have asked everyone is the issue of healing. Do you think the boomer generation will go to its grave, like the Civil War generation not truly healed from all the divisions that took place when they were young? The divisions-

LF (00:53:25):
Did you say naturally healed?

SM (00:53:28):
No-no-no.

LF (00:53:28):
Truly healed. I just could not hear you.

SM (00:53:30):
No, the question is the issue of healing. Do you feel that the boomer generation, like the Civil War generation, will go to its grave, not really healed? Oh, okay.

LF (00:53:42):
Oh, okay, not really. Okay.

SM (00:53:43):
Not really healed from the intense divisions that took place when they were young, the divisions between black and white, male and female, gay and straight, those who were for the war and against the war, those who supported the troops, did not support the troops. The divisions were intense. And do you think, does this generation like the Civil War will not be healed? And is that an important issue within a generation?

LF (00:54:10):
I do not think that it is as divided as the Civil War generation was. But I do think people will go to their grave from my generation without having resolved the gulf between their position and other people's positions, whether it is about race or disability or class. Sure, I think that is always going to be true.

SM (00:54:39):
Have you been to the Vietnam Memorial?

LF (00:54:43):
Maybe. I actually do not remember. I might have gone on a class trip. When was it?

SM (00:54:49):
It opened in 1982.

LF (00:54:54):
I do not remember.

SM (00:54:55):
I know the Vietnam Memorial was built as a non-political entity with a hope that it would not only heal the veterans and their families, but start the steps toward healing the nation. Do you feel that that wall has done anything beyond the veterans themselves?

LF (00:55:16):
Not personally for me.

SM (00:55:21):
How about the generation? Do you think it is done anything in terms of healing the divisions and the generation over that war?

LF (00:55:29):
I do not know if that memorial itself provided healing, but I do feel like the generation has done some significant healing where people who were against the war have developed their points of view to be able to separate the warriors from the war, to be able to honor soldiers while disagreeing with the war, which was not a feeling during a lot of the protests. They sort of threw the baby out with the backwater in terms of vilifying soldiers as well as the policies of the government. So there was a lot of antipathy between protestors or from protestors toward the vets who are coming home. And I think that has certainly shifted. And those people who protected the war have become more humane and I think wiser in their outlook.

SM (00:56:41):
Phyllis Schlafly, who I interviewed, said that the radicals of the (19)60s now run today's universities. And they are the most influential teachers now running departments like women's studies, gay and lesbian studies, black studies, Latino studies, Asian studies, native American studies. David Horowitz has also said that. When you hear that, what do you think?

LF (00:57:02):
I think that sounds stupid. That is what I think.

SM (00:57:13):
Okay. She-

LF (00:57:13):
That just sounds like a gross generalization. And I think generalizations are a risky way of trying to make sense of the world. And it is tricky, even in your project, which I think it is a great enterprise to ask questions about this humongous cohort of people who have affected the world as a group in lots of ways and have had a very particular and interesting experience. So it is not that I am against investigating these large groups, but when people make a comment like that, I have to wonder what Horowitz and Schlafly are basing that on. How carefully have they looked at who is running what programs in university? It just seems like a knee-jerk partisan viewpoint, which from any [inaudible] spectrum, knee-jerk, partisan viewpoints are generally stupid.

SM (00:58:21):
I got three more questions and then we will be done. Are you still there?

LF (00:58:25):
I am.

SM (00:58:25):
Okay.

LF (00:58:25):
[inaudible].

SM (00:58:29):
This question I have asked just about everyone too, would you say the following quotes truly define the boomer generation? Quotes, what people say oftentimes are re-quoted for a particular era of defining a time and a group. And I have got six of them here. And you can add one if you think there is another one that is important. Bobby Kennedy is really signifying about activism that, "Some men see things as they are and ask why. I see things that never were and ask why not?" Of course, Dr. King, " I have a dream that one day my little children will grow up in America that is more equal," from the March on Washington that you experienced as a little girl. Timothy Leary, who talked more about the drugs, "Tune in, turn on, drop out." "We shall overcome," which is the slogan of the Civil Rights Movement. John Lennon, about the anti-war, "All we are saying is give peace a chance." And certainly Peter Max symbolizing the kind of the hippie mentality, "You do your thing and I will do mine. If by chance we should come together, then that will be beautiful." And then I know there was a historic one from the women's movement. That really defines a lot of different groups. Do you have a quote that-

LF (00:59:43):
Well, the one from the women's movement might have been, "War is not healthy for children and other living things."

SM (00:59:49):
Yeah, that is it.

LF (00:59:49):
Yep.

SM (00:59:52):
That would be another one there that could define the boomer generation based on the quotes that people listen. Do you have any others?

LF (00:59:59):
Well, I think that goes towards defining the experience-

LF (01:00:03):
...That goes towards defining the experience then. But the Boomer Generation now is a while different ...I mean, I guess you are focusing mostly on the (19)60s and (19)70s.

SM (01:00:12):
(19)60s and (19)70s and actually their influence even today, because they have now reached 65 years old this past year.

LF (01:00:21):
Right. I think one of the things that is happening is that our large cohort is helping to revolutionize the way this country treats old people because we are becoming old people, and we are a force to be reckoned with. So I think that is actually a really positive thing and a positive legacy we will leave. But let us see, those were really fun quotes to hear. War's not healthy for children or other living things. I remembered the poem, Desiderata. "So placidly amid the noise and the haste," and then it goes on from there. In Sunday school, I made a giant banner and spelled out at least the first stanza of that in yarn with glue on burlap.

SM (01:01:24):
Oh my gosh.

LF (01:01:28):
War is not healthy for children and other living things. Make love not war. That was back then. Also, I do not know if I remember this more, this has such an impact on me now, in the aftermath of King's assassination, but his speech in the church where he says, "I have been to the mountaintop" speech was very big, and the chillingly resonant line was, "I may not get there with you."

SM (01:02:00):
Oh, yes. What-

LF (01:02:04):
Go ahead.

SM (01:02:06):
When the Boomer Generation is long gone, what do you feel historians, sociologists and writers will be saying about the Boomer Generation and the time they lived in terms of your feelings? And then secondly, what do you think some of the lessons learned or the lessons lost?

LF (01:02:25):
Those are very good questions and big questions. Well, what I would hope for is that historians and sociologists, the good that my generation did. One of the things might be, as I just mentioned [inaudible] because we had strength in numbers, that was a distinctive quality of our generation. We had strength in numbers. We had probably more mixed-race people. That strength in numbers perhaps dovetailed with things like technologically base increase in being able to be heard. You know what I mean?

SM (01:03:34):
Mm-hmm.

LF (01:03:35):
So we not only had strengthened numbers, so we had more voices, but now what we grew up in a world that made it easier for voices to be heard. So when we did good, we did very, very good.

SM (01:03:55):
Excellent. And then my last question is broken down to parts here. This is the period that Boomers have been alive, just it can be a few words or a couple sentences, in your own words, briefly describe the America of the following periods when Boomers have been alive. 1946 to 1960.

LF (01:04:20):
You mean like the keywords?

SM (01:04:22):
Yeah. Just what comes to your mind, what was America like in that period?

LF (01:04:28):
Well, I think that was a period of recovery and retrenchment. Post-war. It signified the rise of the middle class. It gave birth to social policies which have both benefited and plagued us, for example, public housing. It was a period of survivors turning away from their losses and beginning to envision a future.

SM (01:05:20):
How about 1961 to 1970?

LF (01:05:25):
All right, first help me, what were the years of the Vietnam War?

SM (01:05:30):
Vietnam war was 1959 to 1975.

LF (01:05:34):
Oh (19)75. (19)59 to (19)75, okay. So we are saying the 1960s right now?

SM (01:05:45):
Yep, just 1960s.

LF (01:05:46):
Okay. So that was a fracturing of that unified society that had just come before that I was just describing before over social policy, civil rights and the war.

SM (01:06:14):
1971 to 1980?

LF (01:06:25):
Oh, that is a weird period because when was Reagan elected?

SM (01:06:32):
(19)81.

LF (01:06:32):
Oh, okay. So we are not there yet. Extraction from Vietnam. I do not know, that is the hard one to characterize.

SM (01:06:55):
A lot of people think that period between (19)70 and (19)75 is still the (19)60s because we did not get out of Vietnam until (19)75.

LF (01:07:04):
Right.

SM (01:07:04):
And on college campuses, student activism was still strong through (19)73. So then of course the disco period came.

LF (01:07:12):
Oh, right, maybe that is why it is so forgettable.

SM (01:07:16):
Then we had (19)80-

LF (01:07:17):
The styles. I had a Farrah Fawcett then.

SM (01:07:24):
Oh, did you?

LF (01:07:26):
Mm-hmm. I am not saying it was a good thing.

SM (01:07:28):
Then (19)81 to (19)92?

LF (01:07:28):
(19)81 to (19)92, so I was just out of college. Well, those were the go-go years. Well, that is sort of "The Bonfire of the Vanities" years. That is what I can say about that. And an increasing tug of war between the right and the left.

SM (01:08:03):
1992 to 2000?

LF (01:08:11):
More of the same tug of war. To 2000, yeah, I do not have much to say about that.

SM (01:08:20):
Okay. And then of course, 2001 to 2012?

LF (01:08:28):
Well, we are now global. I think 2000, we were headed towards this before the World Trade Towers and the war against terror, but in positive and negative ways, we are a global village now. Americans used to feel like the big fish, and now we are just the same sized fish in the world pond. I mean, we are a little bit cut down to size now, that is been happening in the last decade, that our place in the world is shifting. We have to take a slightly more humble stance.

SM (01:09:14):
What is interesting about terrorism that a lot of the young people today, the Millennials, think that terrorism began on 2001. Obviously, it was extreme in 2001, but anybody who lived in the (19)80s and (19)90s know that terrorism was ongoing, and actually really since the 1972 Olympics when the Jewish Olympic team was murdered. So it is like ever since (19)72, there has been some terrorism, a takeover of airplanes and all the other things we saw during the Reagan administration, it was just progressively getting worse. My final question and then we are done.

LF (01:09:50):
Oh yeah, we really do have to be done. Okay.

SM (01:09:54):
This is the last question, and this is about the free speech movement in (19)64 (19)65, obviously you were very young, but how important do you feel that movement was on the Berkeley campus with respect to laying the groundwork for all the movements that took place in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s that we have discussed? Secondly, because you teach in a university and experience going to college in I guess the (19)80s, the changing university in the college campus with respect to how it deals with student activism on the campus? Because my perception, I may be wrong, I would like you are feeling, is that I think universities today, for many years are forgetting the meaning of that movement. That the students at that time fought against the corporate takeover of the university and they wanted it stopped. They felt that university life should center on the exchange of ideas, not corporate domination that basically wants students to take and act in a certain way in order to get ahead in the world. Have universities forgotten lessons of the (19)60s and have they forgotten what it was like to be a student in that period and are universities today afraid of activism returning to college campuses because corporate control seems to dominate today? So it is a lot involved here in that question, but-

LF (01:11:11):
Well, and I remember when I was an undergrad that the big issue for activism on my college campus was apartheid.

SM (01:11:26):
Oh yes.

LF (01:11:26):
Anti-apartheid movement and a rising sense of, which may be borrowed from the Berkeley movements or grew out of that, a rising awareness of the connection between corporate profit and abuse of other people in the world. But the problem is I am an adjunct professor, so I am not involved in the wider university life, and I really do not know enough about what goes on at Penn to tell you that. So I am afraid it is a quick answer which is to say I do not.

SM (01:12:08):
There has not been a whole lot of activism on college campuses except that brief period of anti-apartheid period in the early (19)80s, (19)83 I believe. Now we are seeing the Occupy Wall Street group with many college students involved in that. There could be a reawakening here of activism on college campuses and the universities could be afraid of that returning knowing what happened in the (19)60s.

LF (01:12:34):
Yeah, well, my anti-apartheid experience was in (19)77.

SM (01:12:41):
Okay.

LF (01:12:41):
Or it was (19)78, so it was happening back then, but maybe.

SM (01:12:48):
Yeah, I guess if you have any final comments on the Boomers, any final thoughts you want to say?

LF (01:13:00):
I cannot think of any. If I think of any, I will email you.

SM (01:13:05):
Yeah, I have about 20 more questions here, but we are doing fine. I really thank you.

LF (01:13:09):
Oh, sure.

SM (01:13:10):
And eventually you will see the transcript.

LF (01:13:14):
Great.

SM (01:13:15):
I will work on it. Somehow, in some way, I have to take your picture.

LF (01:13:20):
Can I send you a picture?

SM (01:13:21):
You can send a couple pictures.

LF (01:13:23):
Okay.

SM (01:13:24):
I do not know if you have a picture of you when you are in college.

LF (01:13:27):
I may.

SM (01:13:29):
It is that kind of stuff because I am trying to do this at the top of each interview, there will be two pictures. One will be when some of these people were younger and one current. I have done that with a lot of them. Of course, the politicians that were older, just I have their pictures, I took them in person. You have my email address.

LF (01:13:48):
I do.

SM (01:13:49):
You can send them.

LF (01:13:50):
Can you do me a favor and just email me the request for the photos and be specific about what you are looking for and jpeg size and all that?

SM (01:13:58):
Yep.

LF (01:13:58):
Okay. That would be great. All right.

SM (01:14:00):
Lisa, thank you very much and you have a great day, and thanks for spending this time with me.

LF (01:14:04):
Sure. Thank you.

SM (01:14:05):
Bye now.

(End of Interview)

2012-01-24

Stephen McKiernan

Lise Funderburg

148:37

English

Binghamton University Libraries

audio/mp4

Sound

Audio

Authors; Educators; Editors; Funderburg, Lise--Interviews

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