One of my FB acquaintances posted these comics this morning. They’re a couple of Little Orphan Annie comic strips from 1966, and they touch on something which these days would be called “Critical Race Theory”.
Now, Annie’s creator, Harold Gray, was about as conservative as they come. He was a strong believer in the Gospel of Hard Work and had a virulent hatred for Franklin Roosevelt, and he liked ladling his comic strips with heaping spoonfuls of Herbert Hoover philosophy. Which makes these two strips so interesting.
I don’t have the context of the story these strips come from. I’m guessing that the man she’s talking to is “Daddy” Warbucks, but because he’s not wearing his tuxedo and diamond stick-pin it’s hard to be sure. Annie is talking to him about a friend she’s made named “In’jun Joe”, who says that he’s a Cherokee Indian. This puzzles Annie, because she thought that the Cherokees all lived in Oklahoma.
“Most of them have, for a long time now,” says Warbucks, and he gives Annie a brief version of how the U.S. Government sent troops to force the Cherokee off their lands and march them to Oklahoma. “Joe’s forebears were some of the few who didn’t get caught in that trap!”
“Hmm… Y’know, in school, off ‘n’ on, I’ve read a lot of hist’ry. How come that story never made the hist’ry books?”
And here “Daddy” Warbucks makes a remark that says a lot about why people are so obsessed with this whole “Critical Race Theory” business: “I guess mostly folks would just as soon ignore and forget what decent folk are ashamed of !”
And Annie remarks, “...the Cherokee’ll be a long time forgettin’ it !”