quietlyradical

When I was growing up in the late 1960s and early 1970s “radicalism” was a term tossed around quite often by politicians and the news media.  Often accompanied by footage of angry, long-haired Vietnam protesters or rampaging looters in places like Detroit, Newark, New Jersey, and Watts “radicals” came to represent all that was dysfunctional and disturbing to me, a small town “colored girl” (the politically correct term for African-Americans back in the day) from Terre Haute, Indiana.

But while my parents never marched with Dr. King or became members of the Black Panthers or the Weather Underground it wasn’t long before I realized that they had a decidedly different way of looking at things.  And when most kids my age were desperately trying to “blend in” I guess I found myself more than slightly intrigued by the idea of going against the flow.  Not in a splashy or attention-seeking way, but rather as a “closet non-conformist”; one who could be called “quietly radical.”

I remember my mother earnestly explaining to my little sister and me (when we were ages four and six respectively) why she wouldn’t buy the grapes we asked for.  What could have been easily dismissed with the favorite mom-phrase “because I said so” evolved into a discussion about boycotts and the work of Cesar Chavez and equal rights for migrant farm workers.  In that moment, listening to my mom, educated, eloquent, neatly dressed and as elegantly coiffured as actress Diahann Carroll of TV’s Julia I learned it could be possible to espouse what some might consider radical ideas without necessarily scaring the neighbors.

Like many words in the English language I think the term “radical” has gotten a bad rap.  According to Dictionary.com the word radical means “thoroughgoing or extreme changes from traditional form” or “favoring drastic political, economic, or social reforms.”  For those who would suggest that radicalism is a bad thing I would offer this challenge:  Name one thing in our currentl political, economic, or social climate that is working so perfectly that it shouldn’t be subjected to “drastic, thoroughgoing, or extreme change.”  I suspect that that list would be radically…short.