{"id":9546,"date":"2012-03-25T16:52:46","date_gmt":"2012-03-25T23:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=9546"},"modified":"2012-03-25T17:24:43","modified_gmt":"2012-03-26T00:24:43","slug":"dont-be-that-guy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=9546","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Be That Guy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Katherine Switzer running the 1967 Boston Marathon (photo credit: unknown)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Who’s the guy running behind her?\u00a0 That’s race official Jock Semple, trying to tackle her and pull her out of the marathon, yelling “Get the hell out of my race and give me that number!”\u00a0 The men running with Katherine blocked him and she was able to finish the race.\u00a0 Click here<\/a> for the full story.<\/p>\n

I hadn’t seen this famous photo before.\u00a0 A friend posted it to Facebook today, along with some rhetorical questions:<\/p>\n

Who are you in this story? The harbinger of progress and equality? The rallying troops willing to stand up for what’s right? Or just another Bull Connor, aggressively fighting against integration and inclusion?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I wish it were that simple.\u00a0 I bet Jock Semple changed his mind about women after that incident.\u00a0 But Bull Connor?\u00a0 My money says he died unrepentant, still hating black Americans.\u00a0 Some leopards change their spots; some never will.<\/p>\n

More than half a century after the civil rights battles of the 1950s and 60s, there are still millions of white Americans fighting integration, an issue most of us thought settled long ago.\u00a0 Millions who would resegregate schools and lunch counters if they could.\u00a0 Millions so deranged by hatred of America’s first black president they have actually convinced themselves it was Obama, not Bush, who got us into this huge recession.<\/p>\n

Who would I be?\u00a0 I hope I would have been one of the runners shielding Katherine Switzer.\u00a0 I know I was one of the starry-eyed college kids who packed clothing and food for the Freedom Riders in the 60s, one of the campus pinkos who joined his college’s Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee chapter, one of the first to march on the Capitol Mall in Sacramento in opposition to our war in Vietnam.<\/p>\n

But on other issues of the day I’ve been a bystander, even occasionally a Bull Connor.\u00a0 Post a Facebook photo of gay servicemen locked in an embrace and ask me who I am in the story, and I’ll say I’m a bystander.\u00a0 Live and let live; it’s not my fight.\u00a0 Post a Facebook photo of stoners panhandling on a downtown street corner and ask me who I am in the story, and I’ll say Bull Conner.\u00a0 Get those fucking dopers off the street and out of my town!<\/p>\n

Like I said, it’s not that simple.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who’s the guy running behind her?\u00a0 That’s race official Jock Semple, trying to tackle her and pull her out of the marathon, yelling “Get the hell out of my race and give me that number!”\u00a0 The men running with Katherine blocked him and she was able to finish the race.\u00a0 Click here for the full […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[250,64,2,8],"tags":[699,700,698],"class_list":["post-9546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-wars","category-history","category-personal","category-politics","tag-boston-marathon","tag-bull-conner","tag-katherine-switzer"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9546"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9556,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9546\/revisions\/9556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}