I miss Norman Lear already
And he's only been gone a few days
I remember sitting on the sofa with my Mom and Dad. We watched Archie Bunker and his dear wife Edith every single week. Together we laughed at Archie’s racism; I wanted to hug daughter Gloria every time she took on Archie.
What, you say? … I laughed at racism, but no, I laughed at how out of touch Archie was with real life, or how we understood how “real life” was changing. We were moving toward a world that valued fairness and equality, and Archie didn’t understand. He was stuck in the past.
Norman Lear changed television — no more cowboys and covered wagons, no more “Little House on the Prairie,” and changed us. His focus was with everyday life, real families, and the changing world around us. He took on taboo subjects, use a light hand, and in doing so, taught us about how all people have value. They are human. And we should not be so picky about the their differences. People have value and we are all part of humanity.
I loved the shows: All in the family! The Jeffersons. Maude. Sanford and Son … and many more. And now today, as I remember Lear and his shows, I have to ask,
How did we go from learning about how special, and individual people are? … to electing a Congress where about half of them oppose everything Norman Lear and his shows stood for?
How is it that if the hard-right conservatives in Congress had their way, we would have no freedom of religion, women would be swept back to the dark ages and denied medical care. How is it that the hard-right is against public education. Why do they want us to go back to the days we were all supposed to be blonde and white? We would be either extraordinarily rich or extraordinarily poor. There would be no middle class. Public education would be toast, and in private schools, those of “lucky” enough to go would learn that the enslaved people were lucky because they got to learn new skills.
I have never been one to go backwards. I always have believed in the future, but Norman Lear has left us. I believe it means we have to stand by our values, and push the hard-right back. If we don’t, we will lose our democracy. If we don’t keep our word as a nation and stand by our values as they are so clearly spelled out in the U.S. Constitution, we are lost.