ASSUMPTIONS AND BRAIN DEVELOPMENT

Assumptions, things we take for granted, are with us throughout our lives. They are matters we accept as true without demand for verification of any kind. That either provides the seeds of prejudice and bigotry or maybe a naïve or unsuspicious outlook on life. Many believe that all mothers love their new born child, but so much depends on the circumstances of that birth. It is during those first few years that assumptions begin to form in the mind. I am assuming this to be true, but in evidence I refer to the UNICEF Convention of the Right of the Child which claims:

 

Early childhood, which spans the period up to 8 years of age, is critical for cognitive, social, emotional and physical development. During these years, a child’s newly developing brain is highly plastic and responsive to change as billions of integrated neural circuits are established through the interaction of genetics, environment and experience. Optimal brain development requires a stimulating environment, adequate nutrients and social interaction with attentive caregivers. Unsafe conditions, negative interactions and lack of educational opportunities during these early years can lead to irreversible outcomes, which can affect a child’s potential for the remainder of his or her life.

 

I bring this up, as during a discussion with a friend touching on race and discrimination, I realized that I had the privilege of a childhood and adolescence with a naïve and unsuspicious outlook on life. It is not that I wasn’t exposed to other people’s hardship or questionable behaviour, but I was never specifically taught to question the world around me except as to the existence of God and religion. Everything else was ‘it is what it is’. So, aged 6 in Florida - by which time I could read - when it came to seeing water fountains marked with ‘colored’ or ‘whites only’, I assumed that was just another ‘it is what it is’, and I did not take in the injustice nor how appalling the situation that could allow such prejudice to exist.

 

Realizing something is wrong is one thing, but being outraged by that wrong is quite another. Where the wrong does not seem to affect you, because you don’t know any better, it is quite easy to accept it as just being ‘it is what it is’. So, despite world travel through a kaleidoscope of nations, of poverty and excess, it took me a long while to develop any kind of social conscience. All the schools I attended from 1947 through to 1959 were entirely white.

Mount Vernon, New York 1947

Miami, Florida 1948

Montgeron, France 1954

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I do not have photographs of all the schools, but suffice it to say that between 1956 and 1959 Beverly Hills High School was a white school. The faculty was equally white as can be seen from this rather out of focus photograph from the 1959 yearbook.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

It is therefore curious, that during the years from 1956 to 1959, in the extremely privileged world of Beverly Hills and Southern California, that one began to develop the beginnings of a more serious form of social consciousness. Not that Beverly Hills was a hot bed of liberalism in the 1950’s, it was, after all, the Eisenhower years. 

I had an opportunity to revisit Los Angeles for the 50 year class of ’59 reunion in 2009 and did a few video interviews of some classmates. I asked them to describe their journey from 1959 to 2009 in one minute. I also prompted them on the 6o’s, the feminist movement and politics. A difficult task but it helped to keep things reasonably short. Here are five of them, two Republicans with rather different perspectives on America of 2009, the beginning of the Obama years, two democrats and one independent.

Given the current Cop26 conference in Glasgow, it is interesting to note that the second interviewee John Shlaes was involved with Global Climate Coalition which was an international lobbyist group of businesses that opposed action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and publicly challenged the science behind global warming. An unfortunate choice, however, the group dissolved in 2001 after membership declined in the face of improved understanding of the role of greenhouse gases in climate change and of public criticism. As to the interviews, make of them what you will, they are very brief snapshots of what they felt was important in their last 50 years.

 

It is never possible to make assumptions about people, and impossible to predict the path of one’s life. I cannot say that my memories of old classmates are very clear, but they were all from middle class homes, some from wealthier backgrounds than others, but all of them had a privileged existence at Beverly High. The academic standing of the school was probably very good, and most, if not all, went on to university and into professional careers or the family business. Could I have assumed that would be the case? Most likely yes. Despite some personal hardships, those who attended the reunion were reasonably contented souls. So far as the 1960’s was concerned, most were observers from the perspective of their jobs and the beginnings of their independent domestic lives. They would have graduated from universities at about the time the Free Speech movement got underway at University of California Berkeley, and would have been in graduate school by 1963 and working in law firms, as accountants, in real estate or businesses of one sort or another by 1965/6. Again, for the most part, they would have avoided Vietnam and the draft. Effectively they glided through the Eisenhower years into the Kennedy years. Indeed they would have just started graduate school when Kennedy was assassinated, or been well on the road to their professional careers. The 1960’s was then a change of landscape rather than change of direction. 

Here are three more interviews which feeds some of the assumptions I have made about the '60s and the feminist movement.

These interviews were all in 2009 some 12 years ago. A lot will have changed since then. A high school reunion is unlike a regimental dinner or a reunion of people who participated in a particular event, it is a gathering of people who grew up together over a period of about 4 years from about 14 to 18. A mixed bag of people from a variety of backgrounds during some very formative years. Not everybody knew everybody, but there was an overall appreciation of who was who, and of course, people remember things differently.

 

Whatever assumptions we made about the world during the last half of the 1950’s were probably changing daily given the variety of social interaction during that time.

 

In 1956, which was the year I started at Beverly High a number of dramatic and popular events occurred:

Spies Burgess and Maclean surfaced in Moscow, Elvis Presley entered the charts for the first time with Heartbreak Hotel, Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin, Doris day sang “Que sera, sera”, Elvis’s first gold album was released, “My Fair Lady: opened on Broadway, Rocky Marciano retired undefeated, “Look Back in Anger” opened at the Royal Court in London (although this probably had little effect in Beverly Hills at the time), Arthur Miller appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee and married Marilyn Monroe, protest riots in Poland are crushed by the soviets, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis split up, Elvis appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, the Suez Crisis, City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco publishes. Ginsberg’s Howl, The Hungarian revolt and the Soviet tanks move in, Fidel Castro lands in Cuba, Eisenhower is elected to a second term.

 

In 1957 Harold Macmillan becomes Prime Minister after Eden’s debacle over Suez, Andrei Gromyko becomes Soviet Union Foreign Minister, the Eisenhower Doctrine approved by Congress, Ginsberg’s Howl and other poems printed in England are seized by US Customs in San Francisco on the grounds of obscenity, Brooklyn Dodgers decide to move to Los Angeles, American Bandstand joins the ABC Television Network, Ford introduces the doomed Edsel, Jack Kerouac’s On the Road goes on sale, the Civil Rights Act 1957 comes into force, Have Gun Will Travel and Perry Mason begin on TV, West Side Story opens on Broadway, Sputnik 1 and Sputnik 2, with dog Laika. are launched, Mafia boss Albert Anastasia assassinated in New York, the Gaither Report calls for more American Missiles and Fall Out shelters, Appalachian Mafia Boss meeting broken up, Eisenhower has a stroke, Bridge on the River Kwai is released, Boeing 707 flies for first time.

 

In 1958 the European Economic Community is formed, first successful US satellite Explorer 1 is launched, Manchester United Munich air disaster, the peace symbol of the Campaign for Nuclear disarmament is designed, Castro begins broadcasting over Radio Rebelde and later attacks Havana, Van Cliburn wins International Tchaikovsky pianists Competition in Moscow, first CND march from London to Aldermaston, Cheryl Crane, daughter of Lana Turner, stabs Johnny Stompanato (Turner’s boyfriend) at their home in Los Angeles, French Algerian protesters seize government offices in Algiers, The film Gigi opens in New York, Charles de Gaulle to lead France by decree for 6 months and visits Algeria. Leaders of Hungarian Revolt of ’56 hanged for treason after secret trials, 5000 US Marines land in Beirut in support of pro-western government, CIA supports Tibetan resistance movement, Lolita is published, Notting Hill race riots in London, France establishes the Fifth Republic, Boris Pasternak given Nobel Prize for Literature, Gaullists elected in France, John Birch Society (far right political group) founded in US, Che Guevara begins invasion of Santa Clara, Cuba.

 

In 1959, Castro advances and Batista flees Havana, Guevara and Cienfuegos enter the city, De Gaulle inaugurated as first President of the Fifth Republic, Soviets recognise government of Castro, European Court of Human Rights established, Buddy Holly,  Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper die in crash, Dalai Lama granted asylum in India, Kind of Blue recorded by Miles Davis, Alaska admitted as 49^th State,  Hawaii admitted as 50^th State, Mr & Mrs Khrushchev tour the US, has kitchen Debate with Nixon and visits 20^th Century Fox Studio and set of film Can Can, action begins in Vietnam.

 

These are just some of the events that shapped our thoughts. Throughout the 50’s and in particular from the moment Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in 1955 there were continuing demonstrations and appalling resistance to integration in Southern States. The bus boycott in Montgomery, Martin Luther King Jr’s front porch was bombed in January of 1956, in Little Rock, Arkansas. In 1957 Eisenhower called in the Army to make the Governor Orval Faubus comply with Federal Court order when Faubus announced he would call in National Guard to block enrolment of black students in school. Over 1000 white protesters tried to block their entrance to school. Four black churches and the homes of two black ministers were bombed in 1957. In 1958 In Little Rock, Arkansas, Governor Orval Faubus closed the city’s four high schools after the Supreme Court rejected his “evasive scheme” to privatize them and then have a private company enrol only white students.  In Tennessee, Clinton High School, which had been integrated in 1956, was destroyed by dynamite.  Also firebombed was a synagogue in Atlanta.  The Supreme Court struck down Alabama’s attempt to demand access to the membership rolls of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). 1959 was more of the same, impediments to integration remained strong.  The Georgia legislature passed a series of anti-integration bills that, among other things, gave the governor power to close individual public schools that were integrated.  A black woman in Little Rock with a rare blood type almost died because of a new state law requiring that all donated blood be labelled by race.  Although the law permitted the mixing of blood with the patient’s consent, many white people did not respond to the city-wide appeals because they erroneously believed that a black person would not be able to receive their blood.  The director of Alabama’s public libraries called for the removal of a children’s book in which a black rabbit marries a white rabbit.  And Louisiana passed a law forbidding black and white musicians to perform together.  Jackie Robinson, the star player who integrated major league baseball, was forbidden to use the white-only waiting room at the airport in Greenville, South Carolina, and the Eisenhower administration was embarrassed after an African diplomat to the United Nations and his son were denied membership in the West Side Tennis Club because of their race.  In the investigation that followed, it was revealed that the club, which sponsored the U.S. Open, had no black members and no Jewish members. 

The news broadcasts during our time in High School concerning racism in the United States were prolific and clearly influential. Not only was the racism directed against the black population but the Jews as well and Beverly Hills High had a large number of Jewish adolescents.

 

So a lot of my assumptions were severely challenged during those high school years. A lot of ideas and opinions were formed which also conformed with my parents projected view of the world, much to my surprise. It was inevitable that I would move towards the left. I was clearly influenced by my parents, as we all were and are, but that influence was reinforced by the activities around the world that scrolled before my eyes and ears. It is also clear from the 2009 interviews that we all took on different views and assumptions, which is as it should be, but I am hoping that the quality of decency and respect for others is at the corps of our beliefs. As the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child puts it:

 

Optimal brain development requires a stimulating environment, adequate nutrients and social interaction with attentive caregivers. Unsafe conditions, negative interactions and lack of educational opportunities during these early years can lead to irreversible outcomes, which can affect a child’s potential for the remainder of his or her life.