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Ridgerunner
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Oh, I see.
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Ridgerunner
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In the Philippines, even a lot of the young do. It’s not just because of the WWII experience, but as they say it “…all the factories are owned by Japanese and all the stores are owned by Chinese…”
That wouldn’t sit well if it’s true.
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FirstFiveEighth
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You serious? Good one, I guess? I didn’t realize when I refer to “people” I need to put a disclaimer saying “not referring to the son of God and his sinless mother”. I will rectify that in the future.
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Dr_Meinheimer
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Of course not. Huge fans of both. HYUGE!
Orrrrrrr maybe I don’t have a problem with the airport or the memorial which is what everybody else but you apparently understood when reading the post.
One of the two.
Orrrrrrr maybe I don’t have a problem with the airport or the memorial which is what everybody else but you apparently understood when reading the post.
One of the two.
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Ridgerunner
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It always amazes me to see people claim they’re not racist. Most of the time they’ll betray it within the next ten minutes of conversation in one way or another.
Everybody is racist in some sense, other than perhaps some saint somewhere. Some of it is fairly innocent, as when somebody asserts that, e.g. “blacks are…” or “Hispanics believe…” or “most whites support…” and we do that all the time, despite the fact that it’s racist. I think I said it above that when I joined the college glee club there was one black guy in it. I expected him to have a good voice, but he sure didn’t. That was racist of me. I expected him to have a good voice just because he was black. It wasn’t negative, but it was still racist.
Everybody is racist in some sense, other than perhaps some saint somewhere. Some of it is fairly innocent, as when somebody asserts that, e.g. “blacks are…” or “Hispanics believe…” or “most whites support…” and we do that all the time, despite the fact that it’s racist. I think I said it above that when I joined the college glee club there was one black guy in it. I expected him to have a good voice, but he sure didn’t. That was racist of me. I expected him to have a good voice just because he was black. It wasn’t negative, but it was still racist.
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tomarin
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I’m not aware of any statues honoring slave owners for being slave owners - it’s usually some other deed such as having led men in battle or being a great political leader. Similarly for John Wayne, maybe it’s indefensible to name an airport after him for having retrograde views about race (as determined in 2019) but that’s not something that entered into people’s minds (I’m guessing) when they bestowed the honor on him. It’s rather because of his iconic status as a beloved movie actor.
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tomarin
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I see your point, but isn’t some essential part of being ‘racist’ having a free-floating enmity towards other races? I don’t think you had any animus towards the guy in the glee club who couldn’t sing.
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Ridgerunner
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The only animus I ever had was more like irritation when he sang near me because he had one of those raspy voices that don’t blend.
But it didn’t have anything to do with race. It had to do with my ears.I think of “racism” in terms of having preconceived notions of what some race or portion thereof (or “race” that really isn’t a “race” like Hispanics) is like that people apply broadly without distinguishing. It’s hard to avoid, and particularly in terms of thought. Everybody nowadays vehemently denies being racist in the least way. It’s like it’s one of three remaining moral faults in the society’s consciousness. One is racism, one is “discrimination” generally, and one is smoking.
Everything else is no longer a sin.
Returning to “racism in thought”. While it’s “racist” to say it, I think I can say without too much fear of being proven wrong, most white people would feel very uncomfortable walking through a “black” neighborhood in most cities at night. And while it might be reasonable to have that fear, it’s still racist because it’s based on race. A white person would much more likely be challenged than a black person.
Similarly, a black person would be well advised not to walk through a “Hillbily ghetto” at night. Not unreasonable, but still racist.
Presently, the media presents all Central American illegal immigrants in a positive way, even to the point of assuming, without the slightest evidence, the financial condition of those people in their home countries. “Oh, they’re Guatemalans. They’re probably destitute.” Well, maybe they’re not.
“Southerners who want statues of racists to remain”. They don’t mean “black Southerners” with that. They mean whites. And they assume the figures are of people who were racist when perhaps they were not. Why? Well, white southerners, we all know, are two steps away from reinstituting Jim Crow. And let’s not pretend nobody thinks that. Manifestly many do. It’s “racism in part”. “Bigotry” might be a closer descriptor.
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Dr_Meinheimer
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The problem is you are picking and choose the bad things people you object to as justification for not having a memorial or statue. Which is fine, but then all memorials need to come down. You can’t randomly choose the people who had racist beliefs as ineligible.
Get rid of MLK’s Birthday as a federal holiday - he was a philanderer.
Get rid of President’s Day, since they all had serious flaws.
Not sure why we need Saints’ feast days either, given how many flaws some of them had.
Or we could celebrate the good those people did, using common sense to say “a memorial of holiday does not assume we endorse every thought that person ever had.” I think that is where most people are.
Get rid of MLK’s Birthday as a federal holiday - he was a philanderer.
Get rid of President’s Day, since they all had serious flaws.
Not sure why we need Saints’ feast days either, given how many flaws some of them had.
Or we could celebrate the good those people did, using common sense to say “a memorial of holiday does not assume we endorse every thought that person ever had.” I think that is where most people are.
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Theo520
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I explained this earlier.
We honor people for specific things they did right, not because they are perfect specimens of humanity (the ideal of which is constantly changing)
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Dr_Meinheimer
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In your opinion.
It is bad, as are many other qualities. So until we agree on that definitive list of disqualifiers, who can we honor?
It is bad, as are many other qualities. So until we agree on that definitive list of disqualifiers, who can we honor?
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FirstFiveEighth
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So rename Washington DC then?
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Dr_Meinheimer
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Can you link me to the official “Guinness Rankings of Dastardly Acts” so we can decide once and for all who has got to go?
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FirstFiveEighth
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Uh huh. And what if we had a president who said that blacks and whites were not social or political equals, that “the negro” should not vote, hold any public office, serve on juries, or intermarry with white people? Should we tear his statue down? Or do we mitigate for the time he lived in?
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Victoria33
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I would go to the Word, did any Bible characters own slaves? Say, someone like King David?
Again, we need to view this through the perspective of history.
So many of those finding fault with John Wayne and I certainly don’t mean everyone but I’m sure many finding problems with him might not have problems with abortion.
Often, people, agree or not, compare abortion to that evil that played a large role in the causes of the Civil War, slavery.
Again, we need to view this through the perspective of history.
So many of those finding fault with John Wayne and I certainly don’t mean everyone but I’m sure many finding problems with him might not have problems with abortion.
Often, people, agree or not, compare abortion to that evil that played a large role in the causes of the Civil War, slavery.
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Theo520
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- I will still respect Babe Ruth for his baseball prowess
- I will still respect Walt Disney for what he accomplished and the joy it brings to children
- I will still respect Thomas Jefferson for what he contributed to the founding of the USA
- I will still respect John Wayne for his movies
- I will still respect Jesse Jackson for his efforts in Civil Rights
- I will still respect John McCain for his service to our country
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Ridgerunner
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I would say there are a lot of things lower than that.
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Ridgerunner
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Your statement seems awfully absolute, though you might be right. I’m not going to claim, for example, that Hagar’s life was a bowl of cherries, but she seems more like a “secondary wife” to Abraham than like what we usually think of as the lot of an American slave woman. And from the biblical account, we’re led to think Ishmael was gifted by God as being the founder of a great and numerous people. Maybe he was a slave to begin with, but was he really?
Was Abraham’s ownership of Hagar evil, or was it something different from what we usually think of as evil.
I’m aware that before Louisiana was a state, there was quite a lot of intermarriage between slaves and whites in southern Louisiana, and the state of slavery seemed rather fluid; almost more like indentured servitude. I don’t think full chattel slavery ever really prevailed in New Orleans.
And if “The Source” is to be credited, apparently at one time in Jewish history a non-Jew could bestow Jewishness on his progeny by selling himself into slavery to a Jew. It wouldn’t make him a Jew, but it would make his offspring Jews. Somehow, it’s just hard to accept that voluntarily undertaken slavery could really be quite what we, today, think of it.
None of this is to justify or excuse Anglo-Saxon chattel slavery. But I’m not really persuaded that slavery was always like that or, for that matter, always wrong.
Was Abraham’s ownership of Hagar evil, or was it something different from what we usually think of as evil.
I’m aware that before Louisiana was a state, there was quite a lot of intermarriage between slaves and whites in southern Louisiana, and the state of slavery seemed rather fluid; almost more like indentured servitude. I don’t think full chattel slavery ever really prevailed in New Orleans.
And if “The Source” is to be credited, apparently at one time in Jewish history a non-Jew could bestow Jewishness on his progeny by selling himself into slavery to a Jew. It wouldn’t make him a Jew, but it would make his offspring Jews. Somehow, it’s just hard to accept that voluntarily undertaken slavery could really be quite what we, today, think of it.
None of this is to justify or excuse Anglo-Saxon chattel slavery. But I’m not really persuaded that slavery was always like that or, for that matter, always wrong.
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FirstFiveEighth
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There is a difference between racism and prejudice, and I think you may be conflating the two. Prejudice as it pertains to people is holding a preconceived notion about them. In regards to race, this would be something like “black guys are really good at basketball”, or “white people can’t dance”, or “Asians are all really secret martial artists”. There may even be a certain amount of truth behind a prejudice, but it is ultimately judging individuals as possessing some perceived group trait, simply because they belong to that group. I can almost guarantee that everyone today holds some form of prejudice, whether it is racial, political, musical, whatever. Racism takes a prejudice and comes to the conclusion that one “race” is superior to another because of these supposed immutable characteristics. I don’t believe racism is even close to a widely held belief in the US today.
Secondly, concerning objective morality, Catholic thought teaches that certain actions are objectively wrong. It also teaches that an individual’s culpability in an objectively immoral act is determined by several factors. These include ignorance, social pressure, intent, habit, etc. These circumstances involved in the individual committing an objectively immoral act mitigate the individual’s culpability.
So applied to John Wayne’s interview in 1971, we can say that his statements were most definitely prejudiced, if not potentially racist. And they should not be emulated. We can also acknowledge that John Wayne was brought up in a social situation where basically everyone around him believed in white supremacy, that his views were colored by this, and that he might have been more liberal than his peers (see peak KKK membership in 20s-30s).
If John Wayne went around maliciously disparaging black people and minorities unrepentantly all the time, or was a part of the white hood club or something, or was involved in human trafficking of prostitues for Playboy, I would absolutely be for removing his name off an airport. But what I see is a man in the last decade of his life who couldn’t quite overcome his prejudices and was patronizing rather than malicious. You may disagree, but I hope you can at least understand the logic.
Secondly, concerning objective morality, Catholic thought teaches that certain actions are objectively wrong. It also teaches that an individual’s culpability in an objectively immoral act is determined by several factors. These include ignorance, social pressure, intent, habit, etc. These circumstances involved in the individual committing an objectively immoral act mitigate the individual’s culpability.
So applied to John Wayne’s interview in 1971, we can say that his statements were most definitely prejudiced, if not potentially racist. And they should not be emulated. We can also acknowledge that John Wayne was brought up in a social situation where basically everyone around him believed in white supremacy, that his views were colored by this, and that he might have been more liberal than his peers (see peak KKK membership in 20s-30s).
If John Wayne went around maliciously disparaging black people and minorities unrepentantly all the time, or was a part of the white hood club or something, or was involved in human trafficking of prostitues for Playboy, I would absolutely be for removing his name off an airport. But what I see is a man in the last decade of his life who couldn’t quite overcome his prejudices and was patronizing rather than malicious. You may disagree, but I hope you can at least understand the logic.
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JW55
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John Wayne is remembered for the character he played. The statue , the airport name are in remembrance of the image he projected onscreen. In his films he epitomized the strong male image who did the right thing, righted wrongs and stood against evil. He defeated the bad guys, got the girl, and rode out of town on his horse into the sunset. In these films, he represented the qualities that almost all people admire. This is what his statue and honors represent, not necessarily his actual life. The same way that Sylvester Stallone isn’t Rocky Balboa, In that sense the honors are attributed to a fictional character that Hollywood created. Nothing particularly wrong with that. We all watch movies to escape from real life for a time. People for that short period of time live through that character and as with Wayne’s movie persona they saw characteristics they themselves would have loved to possess. The airport name , the statute were a reflection of that character.
In real life John Wayne had his struggles and weaknesses, just like everyone else. He did some good things, he did some bad things. He was ardent supporter of our military and American values, on the other hand he was a womanizer and an abuser of alcohol. No one aside from Jesus Christ ever walked this earth without faults.
John Wayne’s screen character was honored in the same way that other great actors receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Let’s cut some slack to Wayne that he was actually human, and honor the movie character he projected. Sometimes in Hollywood people begin to believe the fictional character on the screen is the same person in real life. I guess that is good acting. We can’t just go around rewriting history and looking for the chinks in the armor of every person ever honored. Otherwise there never be any statues anywhere, and no memories.
I wouldn’t give two cents for the political views of Meryl Steep, Robert Di Nero, or Barbara Streisand. I usually turn the TV to another channel when they start talking. However, I acknowledge that Streep and Di Nero were talented actors and that Streisand had an incredible voice. I think the same respect could be attributed to John Wayne. Just honor him for his portrayals on the screen.
In real life John Wayne had his struggles and weaknesses, just like everyone else. He did some good things, he did some bad things. He was ardent supporter of our military and American values, on the other hand he was a womanizer and an abuser of alcohol. No one aside from Jesus Christ ever walked this earth without faults.
John Wayne’s screen character was honored in the same way that other great actors receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Let’s cut some slack to Wayne that he was actually human, and honor the movie character he projected. Sometimes in Hollywood people begin to believe the fictional character on the screen is the same person in real life. I guess that is good acting. We can’t just go around rewriting history and looking for the chinks in the armor of every person ever honored. Otherwise there never be any statues anywhere, and no memories.
I wouldn’t give two cents for the political views of Meryl Steep, Robert Di Nero, or Barbara Streisand. I usually turn the TV to another channel when they start talking. However, I acknowledge that Streep and Di Nero were talented actors and that Streisand had an incredible voice. I think the same respect could be attributed to John Wayne. Just honor him for his portrayals on the screen.
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