Ropers and Dopers
The Texas High School Culture War of the 1970s
Willie Nelson was the Great Peacemaker
And on the seventh day, there was disco
The aftershocks of the cultural revolution of the 1960s continue to this day. “The Sixties” opened up fissures in American society that have not yet closed, pitting neighbor against neighbor and friend against friend, ever since I was growing up in the 1970s. I refer to the Roper vs. Doper war in America, which particularly was fought in the South and Southwest. And particularly in Texas. And in particular in the public junior high school and high school I attended in Austin, Texas, during the Nixon, Ford, and Carter years. Ropers and Dopers were not the only names for the two sides in this simmering suburban civil war. The same factions were sometimes called Kickers and Stoners. Some linguistic purists insist that Ropers originally described “goat-ropers,” members of the redneck community who had lower status than “shit-kickers” — goat-boys being considerably lower on the prestige ladder than cowboys. Under whatever name, the Roper-Doper rivalry shaped suburban high school life in …
