MandoMan
07-12-2020, 12:18 PM
“Gone With the Wind” has been removed from the airways because it has slaveowners who aren’t irredeemably despicable. Disney isn’t showing “Song of the South” because it combines old Br’er Rabbit stories with an idyllic view of plantation life and stereotypes (it also has the great song “Zip-a-Dee-Do-Dah”). Several statues of Columbus have been removed because he was an oppressor of American Indians and a colonizer responsible for genocide. (He definitely wasn’t a nice guy, but the fact remains, we are here because of him.) At least one statue of Andrew Jackson has been removed because he is thought by some to have been guilty of attempted genocide as he sent various American Indian tribes west along the “Trail of Tears”, despite his being a U.S. President and a distinguished military hero. At least one statue of Teddy Roosevelt has been removed because he was a colonizer who urged the U.S. to take over Cuba and other countries from the Spanish. Some are urging in print that we remove Thomas Jefferson from the Jefferson Memorial because he wrote “all men are created equal” but didn’t free his slaves and was an automatic rapist because he had children by one of them (even though she was his late wife’s step-sister and was three-fourths European in ancestry). President Woodrow Wilson, who was President of Princeton University before running for the U.S. Presidency, is being removed from Princeton’s memory because he was a racist (and he was!). Some are wondering if George Washington should be removed from his pedestal (and if perhaps Washington, D.C., should become, say, Frederick Douglass City). Many monuments to Confederate generals and political figures have been torn down. Some are talking of blasting the faces off Mount Rushmore. Expect all of these figures to be rewritten in grade school history classes in the near future. (Can you remember when we used to celebrate Washington’s Birthday and Lincoln’s Birthday separately, rather than lumping them into “Presidents Day”?)
I would like to suggest a number of monuments, museums, television series, movies, etc., that we ought to get rid of because they celebrate people who had slaves or were colonizers who took over other people’s countries, enslaved them, killed them, oppressed them. Please feel free to add to the list. My list is just a beginning off the top of my head.
1. The Pyramids of Egypt should be removed because the were built by slave labor or forced labor (including forced Israelite labor) to memorialize oppressive rulers. The museums glorifying mummies and the “architecture of oppression” should also be removed.
2. The television series “Vikings,” which glorifies vicious people who raped and pillaged England and France, colonizers and oppressors who made much of their wealth capturing and selling slaves from many European areas, should not be shown.
3. William the Conqueror and the Norman Conquest should not be mentioned, as William was actually a Norseman, descended from Vikings, who conquered a country to which he had no right other than the right of conquest and confiscated most of the land and forced most of the English into feudal servitude. Most of the British aristocracy are of Norman descent and still living on what they stole from the English.
4. “Yellowstone” should be removed because it glorifies a rancher who comes from a family that oppressed American Indians.
5. The “Star Wars” movies should be removed not because they glorify both rebellion and terrorism but because they show oppressive colonizers guilty of genocide.
6. “Game of Thrones” should not be shown because it glorifies colonization and attempted genocide and murder and rape and incest.
7. “Downtown Abbey” should not be shown because the Duke and his family are descendants of Norman invaders who still own land and oppress people.
8. The world’s great art galleries should have big bonfires to destroy many of their paintings, as so many glorify wealthy people who owned slaves or made money off the slave trade or the colonial enterprise, such as kings and aristocrats. At the least, most were owned and collected by fabulously rich people who got their money by oppressing others. For example, the great museum “El Prado,” in Madrid, has hundreds of paintings by Flemish painters gathered during the 17th Century days of the “Spanish Netherlands,” which was a period of unwanted colonization.
9. Most of the great buildings in the world were built on the toil of slave laborers or paid labor that paid very little and cared little for the safety of workers. This includes palaces, castles, churches. It includes the Forbidden City in Beijing and the U.S. Capitol and the Kremlin, and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Tear them down and build low-income housing to be rented at affordable rates.
10. Any “Westerns” that have “Indians” who are actually Italian-Americans or members of other groups should not be shown. Likewise, Westerns should be banned if they don’t have at least thirty percent African-American cowboys or Mexican-American cowboys because that’s the way it really was! Similarly, any soldiers, especially cavalry, should be portrayed as vicious murderers and rapists. “F Troop” should of course be banned.
(THIS IS OF COURSE SATIRE MEANT TO PROVOKE YOUR THINKING! I AM NOT SERIOUS ABOUT THIS! I’M JOKING!)
As George Orwell wrote in “Animal Farm,” “Everyone is equal, but some people are more equal than others.”
Here’s the charming song “Zip-I-Dee-Do-Dah,” from 1946. Why is this banned when the complete phoniness of Disney’s “Pocahontas” is fine?
YouTube (https://youtu.be/6bWyhj7siEY)
I would like to suggest a number of monuments, museums, television series, movies, etc., that we ought to get rid of because they celebrate people who had slaves or were colonizers who took over other people’s countries, enslaved them, killed them, oppressed them. Please feel free to add to the list. My list is just a beginning off the top of my head.
1. The Pyramids of Egypt should be removed because the were built by slave labor or forced labor (including forced Israelite labor) to memorialize oppressive rulers. The museums glorifying mummies and the “architecture of oppression” should also be removed.
2. The television series “Vikings,” which glorifies vicious people who raped and pillaged England and France, colonizers and oppressors who made much of their wealth capturing and selling slaves from many European areas, should not be shown.
3. William the Conqueror and the Norman Conquest should not be mentioned, as William was actually a Norseman, descended from Vikings, who conquered a country to which he had no right other than the right of conquest and confiscated most of the land and forced most of the English into feudal servitude. Most of the British aristocracy are of Norman descent and still living on what they stole from the English.
4. “Yellowstone” should be removed because it glorifies a rancher who comes from a family that oppressed American Indians.
5. The “Star Wars” movies should be removed not because they glorify both rebellion and terrorism but because they show oppressive colonizers guilty of genocide.
6. “Game of Thrones” should not be shown because it glorifies colonization and attempted genocide and murder and rape and incest.
7. “Downtown Abbey” should not be shown because the Duke and his family are descendants of Norman invaders who still own land and oppress people.
8. The world’s great art galleries should have big bonfires to destroy many of their paintings, as so many glorify wealthy people who owned slaves or made money off the slave trade or the colonial enterprise, such as kings and aristocrats. At the least, most were owned and collected by fabulously rich people who got their money by oppressing others. For example, the great museum “El Prado,” in Madrid, has hundreds of paintings by Flemish painters gathered during the 17th Century days of the “Spanish Netherlands,” which was a period of unwanted colonization.
9. Most of the great buildings in the world were built on the toil of slave laborers or paid labor that paid very little and cared little for the safety of workers. This includes palaces, castles, churches. It includes the Forbidden City in Beijing and the U.S. Capitol and the Kremlin, and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Tear them down and build low-income housing to be rented at affordable rates.
10. Any “Westerns” that have “Indians” who are actually Italian-Americans or members of other groups should not be shown. Likewise, Westerns should be banned if they don’t have at least thirty percent African-American cowboys or Mexican-American cowboys because that’s the way it really was! Similarly, any soldiers, especially cavalry, should be portrayed as vicious murderers and rapists. “F Troop” should of course be banned.
(THIS IS OF COURSE SATIRE MEANT TO PROVOKE YOUR THINKING! I AM NOT SERIOUS ABOUT THIS! I’M JOKING!)
As George Orwell wrote in “Animal Farm,” “Everyone is equal, but some people are more equal than others.”
Here’s the charming song “Zip-I-Dee-Do-Dah,” from 1946. Why is this banned when the complete phoniness of Disney’s “Pocahontas” is fine?
YouTube (https://youtu.be/6bWyhj7siEY)