Ed Wood's When the Topic is Sex: "Yes or No—The Candidates and Busing" (1972)

Ed Wood wasn't afraid to tackle controversial topics. (Illustration from Black and White)

NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Ed Wood's When the Topic is Sex (BearManor Media, 2021).

The article: "Yes or No—The Candidates and Busing." Also known as "Yes or No—The Candidates on Busing." Originally published in Black and White (Pendulum Publishing), vol. 2, no. 2, June/July 1972. No author credited.

Excerpt: "Will the war in Viet Nam continue, and how long? And when are we going to pull the soldiers and Marines out of that far-off cobra infested country? And what in hell are we there for in the first place? That seems to be the general question. And whether or not straight answers are ever forth coming, there are always opinions by those who are in the know, or who would like to think they're in the know, or those who would like everyone else to believe they are in the know."

The awesomely-named Leonard Woodcock.

Reflections: The landmark Brown vs. Board of Education case of 1954 declared the racial segregation of schools unconstitutional in America, but de facto segregation was still everywhere in this nation. How could we ever achieve racial equality if black children and white children didn't even attend school together? One proposed solution was so-called "forced busing." Basically, students were transported outside of their local school districts via bus—black kids to white neighborhoods, white kids to black neighborhoods. This pissed off just about everybody and dominated the news cycle for months in the early 1970s.

I was born just a shade too late to experience the "busing" controversy at its peak, but I learned about it from my usual sources: old sitcoms and back issues of MAD magazine. Since it was a political issue that directly affected schoolkids, busing received plenty of coverage in MAD. We also learned a bit about it in school. We were shown the 1990 made-for-TV movie Common Ground starring Jane Curtin during a high school civics class. (I mainly remember Jane putting on a Bahstahn accent and yelling a lot.)

What I didn't know was that Ed Wood had written an entire article on this hot-button issue in 1972. Well, "wrote" is somewhat of an exaggeration. Once again, Eddie just borrowed a bunch of quotes from someone else's article, in this case a piece about busing from Life magazine. Still, even though it's second- or third-hand information, you can read what a number of real-life politicians had to say about busing during that fateful election year. One of those quoted is Ed Wood's old crony, Los Angeles mayor Sam Yorty, but Ed doesn't mention his own connection to the politician. Other speakers include Shirley Chisolm, George Wallace, Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, and UAW president Leonard Woodcock. (Some name, huh?)

If the busing issue were occurring in 2022, it would likely break down neatly along party lines, with Democrats on one side and Republicans on the other. The politicians in this article would be more concerned with demonizing the opposition than they would with actually addressing the issue. But the hyper-partisanship we see commonly today is not in evidence in this article from 50 years ago. The candidates actually talk about the merits and demerits of busing, and their main concern seems to be the education of our nation's youth, white and black, rich and poor. 

Moreover, not one politician in this article, conservative or liberal, slings an an insult at the other side. Most of the speakers, Democrat and Republican alike, come to the conclusion that busing is well-intended but ineffective. Not even George Wallace, the man all but synonymous with segregation, resorts to slanderous rhetoric in his response. He's anti-busing, as you might guess, but he doesn't feel the need to be a dick about it. In other words, this article would be completely impossible in 2022. Today, it's all about scoring a "win" for your team and beating the other side. What's best for the kids? Who cares? Spew out a soundbite on Fox News or CNN and move on.

Ed Wood being Ed Wood, he does wander off the main path and talk about other issues of the day. You may notice that the excerpt I included above is about the Vietnam War, not busing. I had to include it because of the phrase "that far-off, cobra-infested country." Eddie also discusses Richard Nixon's highly controversial trip to China and predicts (correctly) that Nixon will win reelection in 1972. But who could have known the controversy that would eventually arise from this election? Even Criswell didn't predict that!

Next: "Satyriasis and Prostitution" (1971)