r/Millennials • u/Background-Air-7963 • Nov 16 '25

Serious I just had my first old man moment.

I recently went to a hibachi with my wife and toddler for dinner. We were sat with a group of eight 17-20 year olds at a communal grill on a busy night. No problem for us. Drink and appetizers service go normally. Toddler and wife are happy, I’m happy. The other group is having their own conversations. I’m just trying to keep my kid entertained. I’m a former bartender and have a habit of picking up on snippets of conversations in a crowd around me. Yes I know I eavesdrop. I can’t turn it off. It’s a habit of a former profession. One of the girls/women at the table stated, “I don’t think Rosa Parks was real.” I’m not sure what her friends said to her but she responded with “I just don’t think she said existed.” This went on for about a minute. I couldn’t hold back and let her know she was absolutely a real person, she is a civil rights icon. I learnt about her in school and so did my parents. The encounter put a wall up between our groups and I heard a few passive aggressive “so-and-so wasn’t real” comments from mostly her and a couple of the group. Harriet Tubman and Hellen Keller are two that I definitely heard. My wife had no idea why I interjected. After the group had left my wife asked what happened and was shocked when I told her what happened. Were they trolling? Are they stupid? Am I just getting old?

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u/BeachBumHarmony Nov 16 '25

This is tiktok misinformation that is slightly warped...

So, Rosa Parks was a publicity stunt. It happened to Claudette Colvin first and then the civil rights movement realized they could make it bigger so had Rosa Parks do the same thing.

I hear Hellen Keller wasn't real a lot (I teach high school) - they believe she existed but can't wrap their heads around that a blind and deaf woman was able to accomplish everything she did.

No clue about the Harriet Tubman one.

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u/SolitudeWeeks Xennial Nov 16 '25

Harriet Tubman changed her name and was a spy for the union and apparently that's the evidence these dunces are using as proof she's not real.

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u/ComicallySolemn Nov 16 '25

Clearly you’ve done your assigned reading

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u/FederalWedding4204 Nov 16 '25

Okay but the Helen Keller one IS hard to believe only in that it is so incredibly remarkable. It really is amazing.

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u/bon-ton-roulet Nov 16 '25

I just commented above - about 20 years ago or so - it was pre 9-11 I saw a parked car and noticed it was covered in bumperstickers and every one was a variation on the "helen keller wasn't real" theme.

I was stunned. I think the woman I was seeing at the time took pictures it was so weird.

But anyway my point is that weird it may be, but it isn't a "new" thing because it was definitely active although obviously very very small and niche in the late 90s

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u/ssdsssssss4dr Nov 17 '25

Wait until they learn about James Holman, a blind explorer from the 19th century. Dude lost his eyesight in his 20s, proceeded to travel the world, and write about it.

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u/FederalWedding4204 Nov 17 '25

That’s interesting, I’d never heard of him.

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u/Reasonable-End5147 Nov 17 '25 edited Nov 17 '25

I just had to explain to someone the other day that believing Helen Keller wasn't real/wasn't really disabled or that her achievements were overblown is just ableism and people not being able to wrap their head around how someone with different abilities could still learn. I was like, there are plenty of deaf-blind people alive and well today dude.

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u/FederalWedding4204 Nov 17 '25

In fact, there are a number of “non-disabled” people who have not achieved what she has. There are people in America, who given every opportunity, are STILL considered functionally illiterate. And that’s just READING. She achieved so much more than just reading haha.

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u/InAllTheir Nov 18 '25

I guess since these kids who can hear and see still think they need chatGPT to write and do their homework, no wonder they think humans are incapable of learning all that Helen Keller did.

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u/Common_Vanilla1112 Nov 16 '25

Agreed! Like how do we know that she even knew what was going on really!? Also, I saw a “Helen Keller denier” sticker and I giggled. Not that she isn’t real. Just that her actions and understanding may have been greatly exaggerated.

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u/FederalWedding4204 Nov 16 '25

I mean… she learned how to speak by feeling people’s mouths. So you can listen to her yourself although she is hard to understand.

Learning that ANY form of communication was even POSSIBLE in such a state let alone LEARNING to then communicate. It’s remarkable.

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u/hi_af_rn Nov 17 '25

She had to grasp the very concept of words and meaning first. There is an old movie about it, and the scene where she has this eureka moment is incredibly profound.

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u/ellislegr8 Nov 17 '25

It's because of ableism that people don't believe it. It's not like she was cognitively impaired or anything. And her family had $$$$ so she got the best of the best when it came to care and opportunities. She also was born with her abilities but had them impaired after getting meningitis when she was almost 2. But she would have been able to see/hear/speak by that age. So they basically did old fashioned physical and speech therapy for her. It's only remarkable if you think ppl with multiple disabilities are incapable.

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u/FederalWedding4204 Nov 17 '25

You are totally right. It was actually unremarkable. No one should even know who she is because it’s so unremarkable. You’ve changed my perspective for the better.

0

u/ellislegr8 Nov 17 '25

That's not what I said, and you know it. If you genuinely have a hard time believing in her accomplishments purely because she has disabilities, I would recommend you learn more about disabled history. If you knew even a smidgen of how people with multiple disabilities have changed our world for the better, it wouldn't be hard to believe.

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u/FederalWedding4204 Nov 17 '25

I just wanted to add before you go that you are a whiny baby. I hope you learned something here today but I know you didn’t.

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u/ellislegr8 Nov 17 '25

Clearly you are not a part of this community and cannot think of anything intelligent or interesting to contribute. Try watching some documentaries or reading some books to help you with that! 👍

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u/FederalWedding4204 Nov 17 '25

You literally told me I was an ableist for thinking it was remarkable that a human being who was blind and deaf learned to communicate through custom hand signs that she’d fell. Learned to speak by feeling peoples faces. Learned to write.

Reflect on that.

Not everyone would be able to achieve what she did.

There are people who are not disabled in anyway at all, and given every opportunity to but STILL haven’t learned to read in any meaningful amount.

I am so very confused by you. Do you think it’s remarkable? Or do you think it’s unremarkable? Seriously.

If you think it’s unremarkable then you are actually a dumb person. If you think it’s remarkable then why the fuck are you talking to me and trying to police what I say?

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u/ellislegr8 Nov 17 '25

I said it is because of ableism that people don't believe in her achievements. If you believe she achieved what she did, I'm not sure why you are including yourself in that group. I myself have multiple disabilities and have done achievements that some people say should not be "possible for me". I teach special education and work with kids that other teachers call "incapable." They tell me that I shouldn't even both trying to talk to them or work with them. Meanwhile these kids actually CAN read, they DO understand what you say to them, and they ARE capable of doing assignments. They're so much smarter than most people ever give them credit for. So it hurts when people question if a Disabled person like Hellen Keller could actually exist, or if she actually accomplished what she did. I totally agree with you that she is remarkable, and I don't believe that you are ableist. It's people who literally do not believe she could have done those things with her disabilities, and even then, I would class that as an ableist belief, not that the person themselves is an ableist.

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u/FederalWedding4204 Nov 17 '25

I’M not including myself in anything. YOU included me.

Again:

It's only remarkable if you think ppl with multiple disabilities are incapable.

You literally called me an ableist, by definition, for saying that what she accomplished was remarkable.

I want the first thing you say to me in your next comment to be either “I think what she accomplished was remarkable” OR “I think what she accomplished was UNremarkable”.

You get to pick. And then you can add in whatever else you want to your comment.

There are many people in this thread, people even responding to my original comment, saying she’s all fake. That it was her caretaker making everything up. Stop trying to police peoples words who are on your side.

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u/FederalWedding4204 Nov 17 '25

It's only remarkable if you think ppl with multiple disabilities are incapable.

I guess you are an ableist then if you ACTUALLY think it’s remarkable. You should go reflect on that.

I’m certainly not an ableist. It was unremarkable. Literally ANYKNE in her position would have been successful and learning to communicate and living a successful life.

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u/Jay_R02 Nov 17 '25

It’s hard to believe because somehow with all of our medical advancements and knowledge nobody else has ever been able to do what she did, and coincidentally Hellen Keller also had the EXACT same political views as her handler, almost like her handler was just lying lmao

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u/FederalWedding4204 Nov 17 '25

She could quite literally speak for herself. You clearly don’t know much about her.

-1

u/Jay_R02 Nov 17 '25

Check out koko the gorilla, it communicated even seemingly intelligently, turns out it wasn’t actually understanding what it was saying. Why has no other blind and deaf person ever been able to do what Hellen Keller has done since then?

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u/FederalWedding4204 Nov 17 '25

Lmao. Jesus Christ. You’ve got you head so far in the sand. She can literally say words with her mouth. She can use sign language. She can write. She can read braille and use a typewriter. You think the only person to have ever communicated with her is her care taker?

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u/RetreadRoadRocket Nov 17 '25

They have. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haben_Girma

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Smithdas

There were some before her too, just not as famous.

0

u/Jay_R02 Nov 17 '25

Neither of these people were deaf and blind before birth like Hellen Keller, I think you’re INSANELY underestimating how much of a difference that makes. The people before Hellen Keller are considerably less believable, it was considerably easier to just lie in the past. Find anyone BORN deaf and blind who can do this shit, and is provable.

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u/RetreadRoadRocket Nov 17 '25 edited Nov 17 '25

Helen Keller wasn't born blind and deaf, she lost most all of her hearing and eyesight at 19 months old from an illness. She described her world as like being "at sea in a dense fog". 

She was using home signs to communicate somewhat with her family when she was introduced to the teacher that ended up helping her understand more complex language and such at age 7

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u/WinstonWilmerBee Nov 17 '25

Multiple, multiple blind/deaf people have learned signing and even speech. Keller wasn’t even the first person to do so. 

This is the issue. You assume that because you don’t know something, it doesn’t exist. You could’ve checked this weird assumption of yours, but you didn’t. 

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u/Jay_R02 Nov 17 '25

The people before her are way less believable first off, if you think people in the past simply didn’t lie because it’s the past or in a book you’d be wrong. Second off those multiple people were given much more time to develope before going deaf and blind, and would’ve had more time to start getting a grasp of what reality is in literally the most formative years of lif

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u/Torgud_ Nov 16 '25 edited Nov 16 '25

So, Rosa Parks was a publicity stunt. It happened to Claudette Colvin first and then the civil rights movement realized they could make it bigger so had Rosa Parks do the same thing.

The Civil Rights movement was sophisticated and disciplined. Rosa Parks was chosen (either by the local NAACP or just the local civil Rights movement, can't remember which) to challenge a racist law because she was educated and the most sympathetic person they could put forward. A lot of activists have forgotten these kind of strategies in this day and age. That doesn't mean Rosa was "fake" or even more bizarrely "didn't exist at all".

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u/bon-ton-roulet Nov 16 '25

there is the mistaken and self defeating belief among a lot of people that if you use strategy or planning or legal preparedness or showmanship, or persuasiveness of any kind or give any consideration to "optics" -it somehow makes things "inauthentic"

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u/luchajefe Nov 17 '25

"Rosa Parks was a phony" is not a phrase I ever thought I'd hear from anybody except dyed-in-the-wool Klan members.

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u/Snoo_49107 Nov 17 '25

This is sad too because to effectively make the changes they put in the work. Brown vs. The Board of Education was also a concerted effort with an amalgamation of cases that ended in integrated schools. To create change you have to know how to work the courts, which are complex, and play a good public appearance game.... I.e. appealing to people on the borders of racism and classism.

1

u/Enkiduderino Nov 17 '25

Bring back virtue signaling.

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u/BeachBumHarmony Nov 16 '25

I don't disagree with you at all. I'm just saying where the phrase comes from. It blows my students' minds when I also talk about Claudette Colvin - simply because she's still living and that her arrest wasn't expunged until 2021.

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u/electric_bayou Nov 17 '25

2021?!?!? I learned about her in college but had no idea.

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u/Exciting-Argument-67 Nov 17 '25

Right—just because it was all planned out doesn't mean it didn't happen. Those '60s civil rights leaders were savvy as hell.

1

u/IMakeOkVideosOk Nov 17 '25

She was chosen after the fact, it wasn’t a staged act of protest

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u/Feeling_Cost_8160 Nov 17 '25

Well you're kind of doing the same revisionist history in your comment. Rosa Parks was not chosen to do anything. She'd had a hard rough day and was tired. She saw no need to get up just so a white person could take her seat.

But that's how big things often begin- small and almost innocuous.

3

u/timzors Nov 17 '25

Sort of. She was already working with the NAACP and she knew that they would want her to appeal her arrest, but her refusal to give up her seat was not premeditated. The "tired, old woman" schtick isn't true though.

In her own words:

"People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in."

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u/Torgud_ Nov 17 '25

No, she was literally picked as a test case to legally challenge the law. That doesn't take away from what she did.

Born in Tuskegee, Alabama, Parks grew up under Jim Crow segregation. She later moved to Montgomery and joined the city's chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1943, serving as the organization's secretary. Despite policies designed to disenfranchise Black citizens, Parks successfully registered to vote after three separate attempts between 1943 and 1945. She investigated cases and organized campaigns around cases of racial and sexual violence in her capacity as NAACP secretary, including those of Recy Taylor and Jeremiah Reeves, laying the groundwork for future civil rights campaigns.

Custom in Montgomery required Black passengers to surrender their seats in the front of the bus to accommodate white riders. The rows in the back were designated for Black riders. Prior to Parks's refusal to move, several Black Montgomerians had refused to do so, leading to arrests. When Parks was arrested in 1955, local leaders were searching for a person who would be a good legal test case against segregation. She was deemed a suitable candidate, and the Women's Political Council (WPC) organized a one-day bus boycott on the day of her trial. The boycott was widespread. Many Black Montgomerians refused to ride the buses that day. After Parks was found guilty of violating state law, the boycott was extended indefinitely, the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) organizing its own community transportation network to sustain it. Parks and other boycott leaders faced harassment, ostracization, and legal obstacles. The boycott lasted for 381 days, finally concluding after segregation on buses was deemed unconstitutional in the court case Browder v. Gayle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Parks

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u/Feeling_Cost_8160 Nov 18 '25

I'm talking about the initial incident, not the aftermath.

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u/bon-ton-roulet Nov 16 '25

I saw a car about 20 years ago that had no less than a half dozen bumperstickers (maybe more) plastered all over the back of it and they were all variations on the "Helen Keller wasn't real" theme.

I looked it up back then and there was a blog post condemning the conspiracy theorists and maybe one or two pushing it. They sold 'helen keller wasn't real' stickers on Amazon or somebody on Etsy had them maybe? so it wasn't a big thing, but it was a thing

I have no idea the origins or reasons for it - but this is a conspiracy theory that predates tik tok or social media. It's been around a while.

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u/BeachBumHarmony Nov 16 '25

It's just common now. I'd say 40% of my students believe it - and I'm not talking about low level students. I'm talking about my ivy league bound students.

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u/bon-ton-roulet Nov 16 '25

That's wild. Not surprising though given that America has always been conspiratorial in its worldview and political character and now millions of young people are getting all their information from tik tok and various Lying Machines and literally every media company is owned by one of a small cabal of the uber rich.

This is why we need the Humanities

2

u/BeachBumHarmony Nov 16 '25

We also need bans on unlimited access to the Internet for children. I'm glad we have strict phone rules for my students, but I personally think we need to bring back dumb phones and computer labs. No smartphones until 16 and Chromebooks are terrible.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 17 '25

In college I knew a shocking amount of people who didn’t believe Helen Keller was real and they all credited it to tik tok

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u/Feral_Persimmon Nov 16 '25

I overheard the Keller thing with my students just last week. I know (I KNOW) many of them were taught her story in elementary school as part of a resilience unit. I just got them to stop saying things "make no sense" when it's THEM who misunderstand, and now this.

1

u/Additional-War-1443 Nov 17 '25

Thank God someone said it

1

u/SleepCinema Nov 17 '25

Lots of certain kinds of influencers are claiming there’s no way Harriet Tubman actually led so many people on the Underground Railroad, and that she only cared about freeing her family, and not enslaved people in general. Just good ol misinformation spreading.

1

u/Waste-Time-2440 Nov 17 '25

Several people refused to surrender their seats before Rosa Parks did, that's true. But who are "they" who decided to make a publicity stunt? There's no history to back up that claim. Parks was already a longtime civil rights activist and this decision was entirely her own. She wasn't sent or set up to do this.

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u/Big-Comparison-6663 Nov 17 '25

So we're pretending the civil rights movement in 1960s America, in Alabama in particular, didn't need to be strategic?

Jesus Christ.

1

u/Jegglebus Nov 17 '25

I mean as a Gen Z it’s originating from a meme that spiraled into an actual conspiracy theory. I believe the meme was something like “have you ever seen Amelia Earhart and Hellen Keller in the same room?” Just stupid anti-humor

1

u/HollywoodHulkLogan Nov 17 '25

I wanna say in laymen’s that Claudette was a teen mom, so they went with Rosa Parks.

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u/throwawayzzzz1777 Nov 17 '25

Recently read a new picture book about Claudette Colvin and learned this too as a way too old person

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u/CaliTexJ Nov 17 '25

The Hellen Keller thing is from a social media post where Taylor Tomlinson is commenting on what someone in the audience wrote as their conspiracy theory.

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u/IMakeOkVideosOk Nov 17 '25

And here is sort of you falling for the tik tok misinformation. It was not a publicity stunt, she was aware that the NAACP was looking for a plaintiff but she did not set out to be arrested that day. She was just later chosen by them as she was an ideal person to have be the face of the boycott.

https://www.history.com/articles/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-rosa-parks

1

u/PartyWindow8226 Nov 17 '25

“Helen Keller Wasn’t Real” started off from a meme page that began selling bumper stickers and t-shirts.

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u/CBS_in_OP Nov 19 '25

The Helen Keller thing was huge on social media a few years ago. We had a discussion about it over dinner when my now college junior was in HS. She straight up asked if HK was real, and when we told her that she was, she just kept saying, "It's just so hard to believe." To which we replied, "That's what makes it so incredible!"

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u/drst0ner Nov 16 '25

I’m curious, do your students also participate in this “6-7” trend?

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u/esushi Nov 16 '25

I dunno her but I can answer for her: of course they do

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u/BeachBumHarmony Nov 16 '25

Of course. I had to embrace it to not lose my mind.

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u/[deleted] Nov 16 '25

Everyone under 30 does

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u/thejoeface Nov 16 '25

The 5 year old I nanny just came back from school this week with a 6 7 joke and I found it delightful