The '60s (Part 2)

The second part of the documentary started with the song “Sunshine of Your Love” by Cream on the background. This immediately got me “pumped.” I love that song. I played it on drums a couple of times a few years ago and I remember the amazing energy between my band mates and myself when we played it. So you know what I’m talking about, play it on the link below.

Now, this part of the documentary is seldom free of discrimination. I mentioned on the first part of this entry how the hippies did not discriminate against black people. However, black people discriminated against the hippies. They saw them as pot smoking freeloaders. It is seen in the documentary how black people even discriminated against black hippies. But black people were not the only ones that discriminated against the hippies. White people participated in this discrimination as well and saw them the same way. There were violent engagements between hippies and policemen during the hippies’ protests against the war effort.

Another type of discrimination seen in the documentary is towards the gay community. Gays were not allowed to participate in the military even if they wanted to. Some white men even pretended to be gay so as to evade going to war when they were called upon for mandatory service.

Yet another type of discrimination was seen between religions. This conflict is veiled between the love story of a young couple throughout both parts of the documentary. The girl is Jewish and the boy and his family are Catholic. It is not until the end of the documentary that we see how this conflict is solved when the boy’s family accepts her and they all play football in the house’s front yard.

This ending provided an unrealistic sense of accomplishment, giving the era a feeling of a “happy ending” when this is not entirely true. There has been great progress towards equality, yet discrimination is still existent today, 50+ years later. Since then, more types of discrimination have emerged and others have become less intense. There is still a long way to go towards an equal and discrimination free world, but we are on our way and it is up to us to make it happen.