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[G.ZZZ]

This thread... i can't. I guess no one here had to actually interact with human beings from different cultures or that grew up in different times because it's the only way such absolutists and intolerant world views make sense to me.

 

[reynal1287]

Obviously there were non-racist at the time, but it was pretty normal to be racist at the time. Just because you like a person's work doesn't mean you agree with the person's beliefs. Anyway, i can see why people are upset, that's some messed up stuff.

 

[IdreamofHIME]

He seems pretty obsessed with trying to make a flit joke work...whatever the fuck a flit fun is.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

Muhammed Ali was against interracial marriages and race mixing and held pro racial segregation views. Does he get a pass as a product of his time, or is his legacy permenantly tainted?

Depends, are these passes melanin-dependent or does everyone get them

The double standard is pretty obvious or you wouldn't even have brought this up.

 

[J10]

Do you really not see the difference between excusing and explaining or do you think it's just the same in this special case because all those die-hard Dr. Seuss fans can't face reality?

I really hope it's the latter, btw.

Look at what SG-17 wrote:

I'll assume you aren't an historian. Presentism is a big taboo in academic history, generally its only used by plebeian popular histories which have no real academic value. Presentism creates a distorted understanding of historical events and persons. Just because someone did racists art in the 1920s doesn't mean they are akin to modern-day racists.

This statement seems like apologetic nonsense. Cartoons using language and imagery like that do exist today and they are just as wrong today as they were back then. He's excusing it via abstraction, as if cartoons like this exist in a bubble and don't have any real effect on people.

 

[Stet]

He seems pretty obsessed with trying to make a flit joke work...whatever the fuck a flit fun is.

Those are advertisements he was commissioned to do for a bug spray.

 

[Dion Blaster]

So are you saying that there was no one living in the early 1900s with non racist views?

I'm not giving dude a pass on some "product of his times" bullshit.

He didn't claim to give him a pass. It's just zero percent surprising that someone from that time period was racist. What is surprising is that others are surprised, if that makes sense. It's also well documented that he was a terrible person.

 

[Skeyser]

This statement seems like apologetic nonsense. Cartoons using language and imagery like that do exist today and they are just as wrong today as they were back then. He's excusing it via abstraction, as if cartoons like this exist in a bubble and don't have any real effect on people.

You completely misunderstood his post though. He never said that cartoons like this don't exist anymore or that they aren't harmful.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

He didn't claim to give him a pass. It's just zero percent surprising that someone from that time period was racist. What is surprising is that others are surprised, if that makes sense. It's also well documented that he was a terrible person.

It's weird that some people are like "whatever, it was the (fill in the year), everyone was racist then" when something about a famous person comes up. Like I said earlier, people 100 years from now look back at the past 2 or 3 years they might say the same thing, if they go by mass media records, stories of police getting off for killing unarmed black people, forum archives, etc. They'll probably marvel at the circumstances that elected a black president while the country itself was steeped in hate too

 

[Irminsul]

Cartoons using language ad imagery like that do exist today and they are just as wrong today as they were back then.

Yes, and? SG-17 wrote nothing to the contrary.

Or, and now for some "apologetic nonsense", it depends on what you mean by "as wrong". Through modern eyes, certainly. If you define certain moral values as "absolute" and equality is one of them (independent of the discussion whether moral values ever can be absolute and what "absolute" and "equality" exactly mean), then certainly, too.

But in the sense of "they were as far removed from what was seen okay back then as they are now", then certainly not. Such cartoons were far more usual back then than they are today. Which means that you could producing by just flowing with the mainstream, whereas today, you have to be at the fringe edges of society to do that.

Maybe your problem is that you see equality (or non-racism) as a absolute moral standard that somehow always was present. But it isn't. Even if you define equality as a moral absolute, it doesn't mean societies follow these absolutes or see them as such. Societies aren't always moral.

Frankly, how "fundamental" certain moral values are or seem to be is completely irrelevant to how much they are present or to be expected in a society. That's why it doesn't matter whether we're talking about racism or the hilarious reactions of Americans to that sauna video we had a few weeks ago. It's not like people "know deep inside" that racism is wrong; it probably never occurred to them to ask that question whether it is. Many people do have slightly different moral values than their "society at large", but that doesn't mean the common (wo)man will scrutinise each and every one of them. People are really good at adaptation.

Oh, and before you accuse me of "apologetic nonsense" as well: I never said anything of that was good or desirable. It's just how it is, and history proves it.

He's excusing it via abstraction, as if cartoons like this exist in a bubble and don't have any real effect on people.

What? I honestly don't understand that. What do the "effects" cartoons have on people have to do with whether they are a product of their time or not? What do they even have to do with anything?

Also, I don't want to invoke any slippery slope arguments, but actual or supposed effects things have on people could be seen as one. Beside the point that this is a bit diametrical to the whole "independent thoughts" thing.

 

[MattKeil]

Sure you can. What is morally wrong now was morally wrong then.

What kind of nonsense is this? People in the present can't even agree with each other on what's morally wrong now. Morality is wholly subjective, especially from culture to culture.

 

[J10]

You completely misunderstood his post though. He never said that cartoons like this don't exist anymore or that they aren't harmful.

Yes, and? SG-17 wrote nothing to the contrary.

Or, and now for some "apologetic nonsense", it depends on what you mean by "as wrong". Through modern eyes, certainly. If you define certain moral values as "absolute" and equality is one of them (independent of the discussion whether moral values ever can be absolute and what "absolute" and "equality" exactly mean), then certainly, too.

But in the sense of "they were as far removed from what was seen okay back then as they are now", then certainly not. Such cartoons were far more usual back then than they are today. Which means that you could producing by just flowing with the mainstream, whereas today, you have to be at the fringe edges of society to do that.

Maybe your problem is that you see equality (or non-racism) as a absolute moral standard that somehow always was present. But it isn't. Even if you define equality as a moral absolute, it doesn't mean societies follow these absolutes or see them as such. Societies aren't always moral.

Frankly, how "fundamental" certain moral values are or seem to be is completely irrelevant to how much they are present or to be expected in a society. That's why it doesn't matter whether we're talking about racism or the hilarious reactions of Americans to that sauna video we had a few weeks ago. It's not like people "know deep inside" that racism is wrong; it probably never occurred to them to ask that question whether it is. Many people do have slightly different moral values than their "society at large", but that doesn't mean the common (wo)man will scrutinise each and every one of them. People are really good at adaptation.

Oh, and before you accuse me of "apologetic nonsense" as well: I never said anything of that was good or desirable. It's just how it is, and history proves it.


What? I honestly don't understand that. What do the "effects" cartoons have on people have to do with whether they are a product of their time or not? What do they even have to do with anything?

Also, I don't want to invoke any slippery slope arguments, but actual or supposed effects things have on people could be seen as one. Beside the point that this is a bit diametrical to the whole "independent thoughts" thing.

What kind of nonsense is this? People in the present can't even agree with each other on what's morally wrong now. Morality is wholly subjective, especially from culture to culture.

OK.

 

[Irminsul]

OK.

Ah, for a second I thought you wanted a discussion. Sorry for wasting my time.

 

[ryutaro's mama]

Muhammed Ali was against interracial marriages and race mixing and held pro racial segregation views. Does he get a pass as a product of his time, or is his legacy permenantly tainted?

Yes it taints him, imo.

Obama was tainted for me too for his flip flopping on same sex marriage.

He should have been pro marriage equalit from the get go.

 

[J10]

Ah, for a second I thought you wanted a discussion. Sorry for wasting my time.

I can't argue forever. So I'll concede.

 

[Zaraki_Kenpachi]

Are we really going to defend his cheating? I think it's a terrible argument to say "well these other people weren't driven to suicide when their partner did something monstrous, so it's not his fault". It's absolutely his fault. Cheaters cause their partners a lot of pain. He had no excuse.

Where did I defend it? Please point it out.

You don't have to be sitting next to someone's deathbed chanting "Pull the plug! Pull the plug!" to drive someone to suicide. It's pretty clear what was responsible for her wanting to take her own life.

No, but implying he did something to "drive her to it" is also crap. Do you frame all other cheaters as nearly driving their SO to suicide? I'm assuming not. It's a shitty way to frame it.

 

[Necromanti]

While I don't think he was a racist in the classical sense in his later years (given how he depicted the US's treatment of black people and Jim Crowe), it's an obvious racist depiction of black people that was a common way to caricaturize them at the time. I guess how one reconciles those two realities is a different matter.

 

[Lebron]

This is like finding out that Ghandi was racist as fuck.


Damn, Seuss went in

 

[BunnyBear]

Burning all of my daughter's Dr. Seuss books when I get home

This is crazy..

People like you are what Fox News and the shitty tabloids love. Hotheaded, reactionary fire-breathers who pivot on a whim. Everyone needs to step back and judge things by the same of their parts. He indeed wrote some racist stuff, but he evolved his work to become very tolerant and promoted equality. Isn't that what we want from society? People who learn from their mistakes and grow and make amends?

 

[orthodoxy1095]

Obama was tainted for me too for his flip flopping on same sex marriage.

He should have been pro marriage equalit from the get go.

I'll never understand this attitude. Now you could say that Obama only changed his stance for political reasons and his personal views were unaffected. But having someone change their views is a good thing. It means people are open to discussion, debate and to having their own views challenged.

 

[OrlanisWorks]

Welp...

Glad I've never said I liked Dr. Suess. I just say Green Eggs & Ham is my shit. And I like his work in those books. Like Polansk and Cardi: I like some of the work, but the dude is scum and that is that.

 

[King Tubby]

It's weird that some people are like "whatever, it was the (fill in the year), everyone was racist then" when something about a famous person comes up. Like I said earlier, people 100 years from now look back at the past 2 or 3 years they might say the same thing, if they go by mass media records, stories of police getting off for killing unarmed black people, forum archives, etc. They'll probably marvel at the circumstances that elected a black president while the country itself was steeped in hate too

Would they be wrong? People nowadays are still super racist, there's just slightly less of it. Progress is slow as fuck. The problem is using someone's bigotry to completely write them off as an individual. At some point walking down that road you just end up hating almost every famous person who ever lived, exclusive of people who specifically campaigned for civil rights (although many of them were bigoted in one way or another) or perhaps lived in the post-Civil Rights Act era. I just come to terms with the idea that anybody I might admire from 50 or more years ago probably had really fucking flawed beliefs.

 

[poppabk]

Would they be wrong? People nowadays are still super racist, there's just slightly less of it. Progress is slow as fuck. The problem is using someone's bigotry to completely write them off as an individual. At some point walking down that road you just end up hating almost every famous person who ever lived, exclusive of people who specifically campaigned for civil rights (although many of them were bigoted in one way or another) or perhaps lived in the post-Civil Rights Act era. I just come to terms with the idea that anybody I might admire from 50 or more years ago probably had really fucking flawed beliefs.

They'll probably look at photos of people with their smart phones and designer clothes gained from exploiting half the world's population while plundering natural resources and shake their heads in disgust.
History is not going to be kind to the late 20th and 21st century.

 

[pj]

I wonder how many folks in this thread, who want to crucify a man born 40 years after the end of slavery for being racist, ever called someone a "fag" in the 90s.

people should stop pretending they arent a product of their time

 

[Crud]

I should of took a fat shit and piss on all the Dr. Seuss stuff at universal studios. Fucking sad ass racist loser fuck Seuss.

 

[ryutaro's mama]

I'll never understand this attitude. Now you could say that Obama only changed his stance for political reasons and his personal views were unaffected. But having someone change their views is a good thing. It means people are open to discussion, debate and to having their own views challenged.

Changing your views is fine but for me it doesn't absolve you of the fuckery you did in the past.

 

[Xe4]

Would they be wrong? People nowadays are still super racist, there's just slightly less of it. Progress is slow as fuck. The problem is using someone's bigotry to completely write them off as an individual. At some point walking down that road you just end up hating almost every famous person who ever lived, exclusive of people who specifically campaigned for civil rights (although many of them were bigoted in one way or another) or perhaps lived in the post-Civil Rights Act era. I just come to terms with the idea that anybody I might admire from 50 or more years ago probably had really fucking flawed beliefs.

I'll take it a step further. There will be people looking back on us saying "I can't believe that so and so made a movie/TV show/comic that said that. What a bigoted asshole that person was". The kicker is that it may be for things most people didn't even know were wrong.

Heck there are times that I look back on my past beliefs and shake my head that I thought that. Progress is slow, yet a lot changes in almost a hundred years. Whats important is taking morals on a sliding scale, and realize that nobody is perfect. Then we can work at educating those who try to listen and dealing with those who don't.

 

[Sami+]

Seuss was a bigoted piece of shit who drove his wife to suicide by publicly cheating on her when she was sick with cancer.

What the fuck

 

[King Tubby]

They'll probably look at photos of people with their smart phones and designer clothes gained from exploiting half the world's population while plundering natural resources and shake their heads in disgust.
History is not going to be kind to the late 20th and 21st century.

That would be a great thing, of course, because it would mean that the future society would continue to progress and not have undergone some terrible regression.

I wonder how many folks in this thread, who want to crucify a man born 40 years after the end of slaver, for being racist, ever called someone a "fag" in the 90s.

people should stop pretending they arent a product of their time

We need to consider the dominant social and ethical views of a society as a baseline for the people in that society if we're going to honestly evaluate them. When I think of American abolitionists in the early 19th century, I don't consider them as just being decent human beings because of the modern view that slavery is an abhorrent practice, I consider them exceptionally compassionate for their time because they rejected a cruel and unjust institution that was ingrained in the national fabric.

It seems rather more intellectually honest to condemn a society and a culture for the atrocities it finds acceptable than the individuals who are born into it. I could never know how I would act if I were a white man born into a slaveowning family. I would love to say that I would immediately free all my slaves once I had the opportunity to do so and become an abolitionist and fight the good fight, but I can't honestly say that because I have no idea. I would be a completely different person than I am today in such a scenario.

 

[GamerSoul]

WOW, I had no idea he was that racist

same. well damn...

 

[Aquavelvaman]

He didn't drive her to do anything, what sensationalist garbage. There's no evidence that he did it viciously or just to drive her to suicide like you're implying. Plenty of women are cheated on, vast vast vast majority don't commit suicide in response.

I didn't mean to imply that he did it on purpose. I don't think that my phrasing actually implies that. According to the article, his infidelity was a motivating factor in her suicide. But I guess we can't know for sure.

 

[dork]

Someone born in 1904 was racist? You don't say

What kinda magazine was this?

 

[Kinyou]

lmao, thank you. I can't wait for 100yrs from now when a professor shows his class the Eric Garner video and warns "you can't judge these officers by today's morals, they were a product of dey tamz!!!"

I have only seen this excuse used to protect white offenders. Like clockwork. Columbus was a product of da tamz! Everyone was committing genocide, slavery, and mass rape back then yo!

I've never seen the excuse used for Chairman Mao, Genghis Khan, Robert Mugabe or any other non-white scoundrel.

Wasn't Columbus actually considered as extreme even by the people that lived back then? I think it's actually a good reference point when you compare the actions of the individual to the actions of the society he/she was living in.

Don't we also apply that measure when we make a positive judgement? Someone saying nowadays that they're pro-gay marriage is no big deal, someone saying that in the 50s-60s would be considered extremely progressive and perhaps even brave for doing so.

 

[Gonzalez]

Someone born in 1904 was racist? You don't say

What kinda magazine was this?

Surprisingly Highlight magazine. This was the picture puzzle.

 

[theignoramus]

lmao, thank you. I can't wait for 100yrs from now when a professor shows his class the Eric Garner video and warns "you can't judge these officers by today's morals, they were a product of dey tamz!!!"

I have only seen this excuse used to protect white offenders. Like clockwork. Columbus was a product of da tamz! Everyone was committing genocide, slavery, and mass rape back then yo!

I've never seen the excuse used for Chairman Mao, Genghis Khan, Robert Mugabe or any other non-white scoundrel.

Ive actually seen "product of the times" excuses trotted out for people like Dick Nixon. Sadly, 30 years from now, I can see people using that excuse for individuals from the 80s and 90s.

 

[Blunoise]

Wow just beat the last boss! That music and the boss was really fun

Edit: wrong thread

 

[NHarmonic.]

Oh you poor fool...

Edit: and in case the tone of that article puts you off, here's a more objective Wiki section that supports the same accusations.

I'm at a loss for words :C

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

I wonder how many folks in this thread, who want to crucify a man born 40 years after the end of slavery for being racist, ever called someone a "fag" in the 90s.

people should stop pretending they arent a product of their time

You should stop projecting.

 

[poppabk]

That would be a great thing, of course, because it would mean that the future society would continue to progress and not have undergone some terrible regression.

What makes you think we have progressed?

 

[turtle553]

Even Abraham Lincoln had views that would be considered racist now. Does this ruin everything he accomplished?

I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality ... I will add to this that I have never seen, to my knowledge, a man, woman, or child who was in favor of producing a perfect equality, social and political, between negroes and white men. - See more at: http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/153860#sthash.NKlryhWA.dpuf

 

[Obliterator]

Wow this is disgusting. Had no idea Seuss was so racist

Even Abraham Lincoln had views that would be considered racist now. Does this ruin everything he accomplished?

What in the actual fuck? Holy shit this is a crazy thread

 

[BocoDragon]

I heard that Martin Luther King Jr. liked to eat babies.

 

[Deleted member 80556]

Even Abraham Lincoln had views that would be considered racist now. Does this ruin everything he accomplished?

I bet he was just preaching to the choir, but still, damn.

Gonna get out of this thread before any other figure of influence is destroyed.

I also can't wait until my grand-grand children think I am a monster for something I had no idea was a bad thing in 2015.

 

[Gonzalez]

Randy Savage - Abusive control freak

John Lennon - Also abusive

Pre-Crisis Superman - Pick a cover

 

[Deleted member 80556]

Oh John Lennon was a shitty human being. Wife beater (and probably his own child too), cheater, etc. And I'm a Beatles fan.

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

It's like no one has read a book or taken a real history course.


Does Lincoln being in favor of colonization early in his political career change what he did as President?

I don't think so, not unless fake outrage in the present can alter the timeline.

 

[Regulus Tera]

Burning all of my daughter's Dr. Seuss books when I get home

This is crazy..

Death of the Author, please.

 

[King Tubby]

What makes you think we have progressed?

Well, in our Western societies there is generally more acceptance for minority ethnicities, pigments, religions, sexualities, etc. I also figure that as bad as globalization is exploiting the world's poor, it would've been even worse decades/centuries ago if colonialists had access to modern day technology.

What in the actual fuck? Holy shit this is a crazy thread

I bet he was just preaching to the choir, but still, damn.

Gonna get out of this thread before any other figure of influence is destroyed.

Seriously? I'm more surprised you didn't know this. Lincoln was not a magical paragon of tolerance. It doesn't mean he still shouldn't be admired or praised for his actions.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Pre-Crisis Superman - Pick a cover

My personal favorite

 

[Bitanator]

This thread is almost the equivalent of finding out your mother put the dollar under your pillow, or that your father was the jackass eating Santa's cookies.