Ordinarily I would reply to the comments on my most recent post with another comment. But when I checked back on the comments, I became aware that they had been closed. Ordinarily, at that point, I would have said to hell with it, and returned to my other afternoon pursuit today, waiting for a client who is almost certainly not going to show up before I have to leave. But the comments I have received strike me as more than a mere personal attack. They raise issues that we all need to think about more deeply. Issues, in fact, that deserve their own post. To those of you who are tired and sleepy and don’t want to be bothered any further with those issues, I apologize. Go back to bed. For the rest of you, or anyone else who is actually interested in what I said in my previous post, rather than what you think I said, here goes.
No, dear friends, I have not been hacked. But I appreciate your concern. And I guess I am “utterly clueless how racist and colonialist the title is”. I thought I was referring only to the Agatha Christie story, and comparing it to the usual (in most election years) self-weeding-out process of the Democratic party and its multitudinous candidates. I didn’t think that constituted a “rant” against the Democrats, and where in hell, by the way, is “another bout of racist ravings”? I only counted one. To the extent I was “ranting” or “raving” at all, my target was the popular and mainstream media perception of the Democrats as being unable to get anything right, whether the error be too many candidates or too few. I appreciate the effort of Alex Jacobs and Meteor Blades to inform me about the origins of my title, which, yes, I really had been clueless about. As Socrates would say, thank you for informing me of and remedying my ignorance.
But I don’t appreciate anybody’s effort to make bad guys out of anybody with whom they disagree, which I think is always bad for the Left, and often results in turning people like me into real bad guys. (For instance, I think that’s what happened to David Horowitz.) It won’t work on me. I was raised in South Florida, a part of the world definitely not immune to racism, and while I have spent the last fifty years trying to clean up my subconscious and its biases, I certainly do not claim total success. If any of the commenters here honestly believe they are completely enlightened and free from racism, I invite them to send me a SASE, and I will gladly send you a properly polished stone suitable for casting.
Or in the alternative, if you honestly believe that all of our enemies on the Right have been conquered or incapacitated, so that we are now free to turn our more malign attentions on each other, I will be glad to assist you in coordinating a victory party first, so that when they go low, we can get high!
And to save you the trouble of trying to find the comments on my previous post, I attach them here:
April 08 · 07:27:15 PM
I’m very tired and sleepy so I haven’t read this …
I’m very tired and sleepy so I haven’t read this thoroughly. I was drawn by the reference in the title and again in the body of the text. It has already drawn the attention of the Native community at large. If you do not see the inherent racism, you can kosmail me and I will explain further. If you do, please find another counting reference, change the title, and remove the “Ten Little Indians” from the body of the diary.
Then I will try to read it carefully for any point you may be making. But not before.
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Meteor Blades
April 08 · 08:07:27 PM
Alex Jacobs in Indian Country Today writes: …
Alex Jacobs in Indian Country Today writes:
No matter what the premise of anything called Ten Little Indians, it is all based on death, murder or genocide, and in the end the Indians are all going to die. Right? And it’s just a game, isn’t it? Something that children play, so why change it or argue over it? It’s so innocent. Right?
As originally outlined in an opinion piece by Julianne Jennings, the rhyme was written by noted American songwriter Septimus Winner in 1864 (or 1868) and performed at minstrel shows. It was then adapted in 1869 by Frank J. Green as Ten Little Niggers and became a standard of the blackface minstrel shows in England and America. Over time, the N-word was deemed insensitive and changed back to Indians, then to soldiers, then teddy bears, then bunnies, and lately as bunnies dressed as Indians. It has never left the classroom here or overseas. The song is still being used to teach counting (or English), enhanced by animation, choreography and use of Native Indian stereotypes and tropes.
Those Ten Little Indians will always stand-in for murder, death and genocide. Sometimes a school or community group will consider putting on a stage play based on Agatha Christie’s book and they soon find out that it could be considered politically incorrect or racist.
The most famous variation was Christie’s 1939 book, actually titled Ten Little Niggers in England, and following American reprints and adaptations were all retitled And Then There Were None the last words in the nursery rhyme,
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Aashirs nani Meteor Blades
April 08 · 08:24:53 PM
Thank you for explaining this so well.
Thank you for explaining this so well.
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louisprandtl
April 09 · 12:58:14 AM
Did somebody hack into this diarist account? Is …
Did somebody hack into this diarist account? Is he/she that utterly clueless how racist and colonialist the title is ? The diary itself quickly devolves into rants against Democrats followed by another bout of racist ravings.