Privilege

Daily writing prompt

How have your political views changed over time?

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I was strangely apolitical for a folksinger in New York’s Greenwich Village. While I had serious political views, I wasn’t singing or writing political material. Why? My goal was to enlarge the amount left in the basket after my coffeehouse set, not reduce the takings. So many others were singing protest, and I concentrated on my material and blues. 

I saved my politics for discussions and protests at marches. Not everyone in the audience wanted to hear protest songs set after set. Yes, some golden-voiced individuals could get up and warble a song titled Everything Must Belong Somewhere Equally, Or it’s time to take out the trash in Washington and make folks applaud. And pay! But not me. I stuck to Jelly Roll Baker, Salty Dog Blues, and that ilk.

Through the sixties and seventies, my political views expanded. I had difficulty with many on the liberal left. Not because I disagreed with their politics but because they could and did walk away from their positions on prejudice, the draft, race, sex, and poverty by exercising the privilege of their class, race, or ethnicity. 

It was that issue that eventually moved me not so much to the left or right but to the position of resenting entitlement and privilege. People like myself could not just go home to a wealthy suburb, have Uncle Bob find a job for us, or have Daddy pay for college. 

Many of my peers headed for the exits as they grew older and graduated from college. I realized my doubts about them were real. Privileged upbringing and no real hardships made it easy for them to wear their liberality as a badge they could take off when convenient. 

Because of this, I take Emerson’s admonition seriously: “There is an optical illusion about every person we meet.”