Flappers 2 Rappers: American Youth Slang

Youngsters craved the experience of new music (a development of the rock ‘n’ roll that had started in the 1950s) and new clothing—colorful, wild, casual, sometimes evoking the bygone world of British Edwardian extravagance and sometimes suggesting the realm of that ultimate thorn in the side of the American dream, the hobo. As they looked with distrust on their elders (“anyone over thirty”), 1960s youth indulged in so-called recreational drugs. True, previous generations had had their overindulgences, especially alcohol, but for many of those coming of age in the 1960s, drugs became an integral part of everyday life. With thermonuclear war an ever-present danger, with an ongoing war escalating in Vietnam—a meatgrinder into which American youth were regularly tossed—and with social justice still an elusive goal in America, there was much to protest and reject in mainstream society. Marijuana was one form of protest, alternative, and escape (all rolled up into a cigarette called a roach or joint). Sex (which many youth in the 1960s saw as a synonym for love) was another ...»