Pants on the Ground

I had never heard of “General” Larry Platt. He showed up, at age 62, well past the “best before date” of contestants which is 29, on American Idol. I don’t watch the show. I only stumbled on this story when my yahoo news put a tag on my email page.

Larry Platt, as it turns out, is a well known civil rights activist. Fortunately no-one reading this post is likely to remember the turmoil the United States went through in the 1960 and ’70’s over what were called “race relations”, the demands of black Americans, Negroes (now politically-corrected to the term “African-Americans”) to be equal. They wanted to be equal in the eyes of other Americans, which at the time, largely meant white Americans. White people had it pretty good for the most part. The Second World War had given way to a new way of life in America – plenty of jobs, lots of consumer goods to buy with the paycheques, and a feeling that their country and their culture was on top of the world. Negroes were often looked down on, spat on, beat up, discriminated against widely in almost every area of their daily life. Housing. Jobs. Medical care. A simple walk through a park where it was generally accepted that only white people went could easily ignite bullying, a beating or worse. And if that walk through the park was tolerated, sharing a slurp of water at a public drinking fountain was not. There were fountains for white people and separate ones for black people. (This was in the days before corporations started packaging nearly free water and selling it to people who find it hard to find a fountain anymore.) If a black and white couple were seen in public, in some places there would be some nasty gossip; in some other places the black partner, especially if that was the guy, could be severely beaten and perhaps killed; such couples were seldom seen for obvious reasons.

A few internet searches of “American Civil Rights movement” will bring up tales of bullying, abuse, murder, lynchings. The state of Georgia, among several others were notorious for their systematic beating down of “Blacks”. (Note that in 2001, the Georgia legislature declared: “WHEREAS, September 4, 2001, was proclaimed “Larry Platt Day” in the City of Atlanta, and it is highly fitting and proper that this body recognize the significant contributions of this esteemed man.”)

Not all white people discriminated against black people of course. Many eventually rose up with the Negroes to demand equality for them. They marched beside the Negroes to demonstrate for equal rights. They wrote letters to the editor and preached against discrimination from the pulpits…at least in some parts of the country. Those white people did it because it was the right thing to do. Because equality was guaranteed in the American constitution. Because they did not want this new post-war society being built with racial injustice as one of the pillars holding it up.

But still, it seemed, it was pretty much the Negro’s struggle to be equal to the white people who were running the country, enforcing the laws, assigning jobs and giving medical care.

Very much has changed. Very, very much. While no-one could argue that today’s African-Americans are always equally treated in all areas of society, they – and all of American society – are much better off than in the bad old days. I can say that because though I was a very young teen at the time, I saw, on a 14 inch black and white TV, the beatings and riots and news stories about lynchings and murders and I watched the protests and I also saw the signing of the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 by then President Lyndon Johnson. This is a long clip and near the end it also features Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the most influential black leader of his time and noted for making tremendous progress for the Negroes of America while specifically denouncing violence.

There is much that the American people have to be proud of while admitting that it can naturally be better when it comes to “Race Relations”. Now back to “General” Larry Platt. The civil rights worker. The student of Dr. Martin Luther King. A young man in 1963 ,who joined the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). This group used non-violent methods like “sit-ins” to protest racial injustice and lack of real civil rights for Negroes. The group formed after black students were refused service at the lunch counter of a Woolworths store in North Carolina. Sit-ins would have groups of protesters sit down in streets, parks, on sidewalks, often with signs on placards, and they would stay there until the police would literally pick them up and carry them away. It was a non-violent way to get attention for the cause and it copied one of the methods Mahatma Ghandi used to take the entire nation of India out of the hands of the British Empire and its armies – without firing a shot.

Larry Platt was one of the 600 Civil Rights activists who marched, on March 7 1965 towards the Edmund Pettus Bridge just outside of Selma, Alabama. Local Police and State Troopers attacked the marchers with billy clubs and tear gas and pushed them back into the city. That day became known as “Bloody Sunday” because of the violence the law enforcers used against the people marching to demand their legal rights.

The police may have thought that was the end of it. But Dr. King, two days later, led a small “symbolic” march to the bridge. Dr. King’s high profile often (but not always) guaranteed, as it did on that day, that there would be no violence against the protesters by the police- they were afraid of the news cameras which followed Dr. King to such events.

But even though the earlier protesters, including Larry Platt, had been beaten up and beaten back, they would not be stopped. Dr. King applied to the Federal District Court and got a ruling that allowed a march – now with the court’s blessing – from Selma to Alabama’s state capitol, Montgomery. On Sunday, March 21st, 1965, the original marchers had grown from 600 in number to 3200. They walked about twelve miles (19 km) each day, and rested in the fields along the way. By the time they reached the capitol they had grown to 25,000 people! Less than five months later the Civil Rights Act was signed. (Source )

So what is “General” (A nickname he was given because of his courageous fight for civil rights) Larry Platt going on about with his “Pants on the Ground” song, which he wrote and performed on American Idol? It is, on the surface, a nonsensical song, kind of catchy, if simple. But what the American Idol video clip does not mention is that Larry Platt had looked back over his life fighting for civil rights, for black people. Especially young black people, so that they had the opportunities and the basic human rights that he and his forefathers either never had or literally had to fight for. And then he looked forward at some of the young people today, many involved in Hip-Hop culture and many of those, black kids, the ones for whose future he had fought so long and so hard for. And in his mind he saw them squandering – throwing away – the dignity and the respect that he and others, thousands of others, had helped to bring to them and to their parents and grandparents.
(Source )

Larry Platt may have started just by thinking that kids with their boxers ‘n’ butts hanging out was just crude and sloppy. A lot of people think that. But it is usually the young people who shake up their elders with outrageous fashions. And sometimes people do need shaking up. Like they did in 1965. But I have to wonder if Larry Platt asked himself “is this how the young people use their right to express their opinions and who they are to the world? Is this the best that young people today can do, all they bother with when there is so much still to be done to change the world for the better?”

Maybe, maybe he is just a grumpy old man who doesn’t like sloppy pants and vertical smiles peeking out of jeans. But the man does get things done! How else would a 62 year old man score an audition on international TV and have it go viral on the Net?

Young people can and should shake things up when the older folks get too set in their ways. It appears to make a tremendous difference how they do it. Some can change a nation and others barely manage to change their underwear.