ABSTRACT
As a child, I was exposed to some of the anti-establishment sentiment that was widespread in the 1960s. I was quite young at the time, but I remember feeling curious about the messages of people like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Gloria Steinem. These public figures were passionate, and at times, angry in their speeches, and I wondered what had made them feel this way. I was riveted to the music that emanated from the Woodstock festival, much of which focused on issues that I hadn’t even thought about. The television was always on at dinner time in my home when I was growing up. I would watch images of anti-war protests and civil rights marches juxtaposed with popular programs where all the heroes and heroines were white and wore white hats (or white pearl necklaces), with people of color and different ethnic backgrounds portrayed in terms of their usefulness and service to the white protagonists. Being a white girl born into a middle class family, I was, for the most part, oblivious to how I was privileged as well as how I was silenced. It never occurred to me that I could choose whether or not to listen to messages about racial equity or gender parity because I did not believe these issues were relevant to me personally.
