What the hell is going on in this country?
Now old things are getting censored and removed
I LOVE My Fair Lady, for the music and yes, even for the story.
When did everything we watch or read become something that has to mean something or teach something or even have anything “right” or “wrong” with it?
Watching Tom and Jerry didn’t make me want to smoke.
Watching Lone Ranger didn’t make me think all “Indians” were like Tonto.
Playing cowboys and indians didn’t make me hate cowboys OR indians, nor did I have the desire to shoot anyone.
I hated Archie Bunker and everything about him. Even at my young age, I knew that what he said was wrong. I felt the same way about George Jefferson, but George had some redeeming qualities, unlike Archie. But, and I don’t remember for certain, but didn’t Archie hate EVERYBODY? Either way, there was too much negativity in that show and I recognized it as a young child.
Playing music with “naughty” lyrics didn’t make me do naughty things.
Playing video games didn’t make me violent.
A quote from my FB friend Ex Libris:
“Okay, so I get that people are justifiably upset about serious social issues like racism being portrayed in historical works of fiction.
But the way I see it, misogyny is just as important an issue, and it appears to some extent almost universally even to this day, even in works written by women with a strong, female protagonist, because the social attitudes towards women often contribute to the narrative obstacles to be overcome.
Yet I don’t think those works should be banned, or are wholly without value as a literary work. I’m not crying foul over every little injustice in every work of fiction, and I think it’s naive and myopic to do so. We can view these works in the appropriate historical context, without agreeing with every attitude portrayed within.
And I think it’s dangerous. Removing these works in their entirety, or perhaps worse, censoring them into a watered down version to conform to modern sensibilities is narcissistic and limits us as an evolving culture. It’s detrimental in the long run, because instead of showing the horrible reality of bigotry and social prejudice, it turns a blind eye and offers a blank slate in place of the truth, essentially whitewashing the sins of those who committed gross atrocities – and in doing so, puts us at risk of doing it again. We need to know the bad stuff in our past in order to appreciate just how far we have already come in terms of social justices – and how we have yet to go.
The danger of this kind of censorship is that it decides what is acceptable for its audience – essentially doing their thinking for them – without letting them form an opinion for themselves, which is the right and privilege of every individual within a free society.”
and
“It’s important to be respectful and to understand that other people may be deeply (and justifiably) offended by things that we aren’t affected by personally.
However, simply resorting to using political correct terminology, and blindly conforming to the party line for whatever social justice issue is currently trending, does not actual fix the situation. Rather, it is akin to putting a band-aid over a bullet hole – merely a stop-gap measure at best. Simply saying a few nice things, or not offensive things, does not actually solve anything.
If we really want to eradicate these issues from society for good, then we can’t be afraid to face them, no matter how brutal the reality. And that means not hiding the truth. Censorship is just a way of trying to sweep these issues under the rug; it doesn’t offer any realistic strategy for dealing with them.”
And on a friends page, I got “yelled at” for mentioning teachable moments.
What happened to simple teachable moments?
I enjoyed Mulberry Street, but I understood at some point, that the Chinese interpretation was incorrect. How did I know? I obviously was taught it somehow.
Teachable moments are going away. We will not learn from our past because we are erasing our past.
I’m so sad and angry.