Life in the 60s | Teen Ink

Life in the 60s

May 16, 2019
By Anonymous

Growing up, there are many expectations that society tells us that we have to meet up to. Whether it’s what music we listen to, how we dress, everything we do with our free time, the people we surround ourselves with, anything you can think of, really. The main people we have to impress and make happy for our own self fulfillment are our parents. Ironic isn’t it? How in order to feel contempt and successful, is to make the other people around us happy other than ourselves. We follow the rules and guidelines given to us, so that we can feel happy and like we belong. Maybe there is a way that we can change all of these awful rules by twisting the normal, and taking a risk for what we truly want to do.  

There is this show on television, hosted by the famous Alan Freed, in which all the respectable “white kids” dance to the newest music in the Rock n’ Roll genre, to make this music more acceptable. Why is the music we like in the first place even considered evil and inappropriate? Is it because it stems from the chicago rhythm and blues? AKA created by black people? I myself am a person of color and all these things make me feel sick to my stomach. What’s even worse is that I want to be on this show more than anything in the whole world. I can dance, and I can dance better than any white person on that floor. However, I don’t just want to be on the floor on the integrated days, I want to be the main dancer every day of the week.

It is a socially accepted rule, that the whites stay with the whites, and the blacks stay with the blacks, simple as that, but the treatment we have to face from these people everyday, is cruel and I will be the person to make a change for the rest of us. Tomorrow, there is an audition to be on the show for a main spot, and I am going to go down there and prove how there is no one person who can top me, and they will see what they have been missing this whole time.

Walking in, I am dressed in a long pink dress, with my hair up in a bun, and my dance shoes on. I look up to the respectable standards that the show has made. Of course I’m greeted with the snarky and confused looks from the rest of the rest of the room, some were even laughing. “This is an audition for a main position, I think you must be lost”, some girl who is already a part of the show said to me. I brushed it off, if anything this is the stuff that makes me dance even better, because now I really have something to prove. As the music starts, and I’m clearly killing it, it was the best feeling I had ever felt. I’ve never done something like this to push me out of my comfort zone, and even though they were looking at me like I was crazy, because I’m a black girl trying to to be on this show, I have never felt more beautiful. After the tryouts were over, the casting people gave me a hard no, for obvious reasons. However, I had my friends there to support me and defend me, and let’s just say, they made a really big scene. There was no way that they could take this opportunity away from me at this point, just because of the color of my skin. After all the bickering, the host finally offered me a chance. He said, “Fine. You have one chance on this show, and if the ratings plummet, you are off for good”. I took that as the best news ever, but the rest of the cast went nuts. They felt embarrassed that they had to have me on their show, but I was not going to let that change my attitude on how excited I am. I am officially the first black person to be a main part of the cast.

It’s my first day on the show, and it comes on in fifteen minutes. I’ve been practicing all week; morning, noon, and night, and I feel like I’m really ready for today’s show. As it starts, I’m just getting more excited. Now remember, my parents absolutely forbid this for me, and said if I did it, I’m out of the house. The phones from the show are ringing and ringing, and by the end I’m told that it was the most watched episode in the whole 10 years that it’s been airing! I look around, and I see my mom, and the rest of my family. They told me how proud they are, and apologized for all the doubts they had. I get to stay on the show now, and the host said that the ratings were so high, that they are changing the segregation for good. From now on, there is no color rule. This has been the craziest feeling, and I had changed history for forever, and now the future of discrimination is set to be going onto a good track.


The author's comments:

Twist on life in the 60s.


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