Confederate flag/statue banning thread

[Innula Zenovka]

I suppose it being so hard to find actual left in the US magnifies the difference.

I think they manage to make themselves heard in some quarters (from the book):

Here’s the thing about The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. It’s about comedy, but really it’s about Jews. It’s about as Jewish as a TV show can be. Rachel Brosnahan is very good in the main part, but – my Jewdar is acute – I knew instantly that she wasn’t Jewish. And I don’t really have a problem with that. Or I wouldn’t, were I not aware that every single other minority, in a show where the way of being of that minority was central, would have needed to be cast accordingly. The producers would simply not have countenanced the reaction otherwise.

Similarly, in Hunters, a series about Nazi hunting on Amazon, Al Pacino plays the main part, Meyer Offerman.* Al Pacino I think we know is Italian-American, and not Jewish. At the time of writing, the film Mank, about the Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, is getting amazing reviews. Mankiewicz was Jewish, and it’s not shied from in the film: he talks in various scenes of the ganze mispocha, which is Yiddish for the whole family. The part is played by the non-Jewish Gary Oldman. Oldman isn’t just not Jewish, however. In a 2006 Playboy interview, Oldman defended Mel Gibson and his infamous anti-Semitic rant when arrested in 2002 by saying that those offended should ‘get over it’. He added: ‘Mel Gibson is in a town that’s run by Jews and he said the wrong thing because he’s actually bitten the hand that I guess has fed him, and doesn’t need to feed him anymore because he’s got enough dough.’

Oldman later apologised, in a very fulsome and thought-out manner. But still: presently, there hasn’t been a murmur about this. Not a murmur about the fact that perpetuating the myth of the Jewish stranglehold over Hollywood might be an issue for casting him as a Jewish screenwriter, in a film which represents, sometimes pretty negatively, a lot of other Jewish players in Hollywood at the time. Again, I’m not saying Oldman should not have been given this part; nor am I calling for any retraction of awards for his performance (although he does mispronounce mispocha). I’m saying there should be, as there would have been with any other minority, a conversation about it.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Not sure what any of these people have to do with the actual left.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Not sure what any of these people have to do with the actual left.

Don't the US left tend quite frequently to involve themselves quite a bit in social media campaigns about non-minority actors playing minority roles (not just roles where ethnicity is important, but also cis or straight actors playing parts where the character's being trans or gay is important to the role?

 

[Free]

Don't the US left

lol

 

[Romana]

Don't the US left tend quite frequently to involve themselves quite a bit in social media campaigns about non-minority actors playing minority roles (not just roles where ethnicity is important, but also cis or straight actors playing parts where the character's being trans or gay is important to the role?

Except for the fact the you won't find a "conservative" (at least by today's warped definition) doing it, no. It is not the particular province of "the left" to care about these things.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Except for the fact the you won't find a "conservative" (at least by today's warped definition) doing it, no. It is not the particular province of "the left" to care about these things.

So who in the US is involved in the campaigns about minority casting and the like in the US media? Someone must be, judging by the amount we read about it over here.

 

[Romana]

So who in the US is involved in the campaigns about minority casting and the like in the US media? Someone must be, judging by the amount we read about it over here.

If you need a label, it's the people who the right wing love to mock as "woke" our "social justice warriors".Activists for their particular communities. They probably do skew left, but they are not a political movement.

 

[Clara D.]

So who in the US is involved in the campaigns about minority casting and the like in the US media? Someone must be, judging by the amount we read about it over here.

"Progressives" is probably more accurate than "Left" as the counter to the backwards, everything-phobic "religious" fucks that now set the standards for conservatism.

By global standards, we don't have a Left, at least in government. Even Teh Bern is Right-of-Center.

 

[Soen Eber]

It's kind of a slow-motion "woke" movement in tune with the larger population; when you're talking about entertainment the people bringing the money are very ... cautious ... because they are putting millions of dollars on the line. The fact that they sometimes take chances at all instead of insisting on a big name actor to bring in the audience should always be counted as a minor miracle.

I've discovered our local NBC affiliate has a black weatherman (in Minneapolis!) and better coverage on black and minority issues so I've recently switched to them. We're still looking at generational changes, like how an ocean liner moves.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Don't the US left tend quite frequently to involve themselves quite a bit in social media campaigns about non-minority actors playing minority roles (not just roles where ethnicity is important, but also cis or straight actors playing parts where the character's being trans or gay is important to the role?

That's more US liberal than US left. US liberal is accused of being "the left", but they're mostly center-ish. Some are even kind of conservative. Basically anyone who isn't a religious nut, free market extremist, American style racist, extreme nationalist, or outright fascist.

The actual left, your Corbyn types, are basically powerless and ignored by the mainstream media. The closest in Congress would be Bernie and AOC, and Bernie's kind of milkwater.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

On re-reading it, I see (or think I see) that Baddiel uses "progressives" and "the left" to mean pretty much the same thing:

It’s important that this is clear: this book is about progressives. Progressives themselves will sometimes respond to anti-Semitism by pointing to the – implied – much worse racism suffered by other minorities in, say, opinion columns in the Daily Mail. A fair enough point, but I’m not interested in those columnists, as their racism is active and obvious, and also, to be honest, not mine to talk about. I want to talk about anti-Semitism and, most importantly, the anti-Semitism that needs to be deconstructed, which blatant far-right anti-Jewish statements do not. What we have looked at so far are examples of Jews being left out: left out, by the left, of identity politics. Identity politics, for anyone who doesn’t know, is a politics whereby traditional things that the left and right fight about – basically economics – get surpassed by issues like racism and disablism and homophobia. The duty of the left becomes less about supporting the working man (although many left thinkers would say that economic injustice goes hand in hand with injustices perpetrated against minorities, which I agree with) and more about the championing of people of colour, and gays, and trans people – all the people named by Dawn Butler. This is the good fight, and the left is always a fight-y space, defined by its rebelliousness.

I use the phrase ‘good fight’ advisedly. The left have always thought of themselves as the good guys. I lean politically towards the left (as a teen, I was going to Young Communist meetings) and so I can’t really speak for the right, but it seems to me that people on the right are less bothered about a virtuous self-image. You can be a Conservative and happily believe that human nature, as suggested by capitalist economics, is rampantly self-interested, and because this creates free societies which in times of plenty function well, if unequally, then that’s fine. Which means that you don’t have to project yourself, and your politics, continually onto the moral high ground. The left are fighty, because they are the outsiders. The right are the Establishment, which makes the left the rebels, the mavericks, the revolutionaries (although this language was in recent years appropriated by Donald Trump and Brexiteers, but that really is another story).

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Why every single statue should come down | Gary Younge

The long read: Statues of historical figures are lazy, ugly and distort history. From Cecil Rhodes to Rosa Parks, let’s get rid of them all

www.theguardian.com

 

[Romana]

Why every single statue should come down | Gary Younge

The long read: Statues of historical figures are lazy, ugly and distort history. From Cecil Rhodes to Rosa Parks, let’s get rid of them all

www.theguardian.com

I was just watching the Rosa Parks elixir of Doctor Who with friends, and if the portrayal of her was at all accurate, she wouldn't have wanted a statue ; she'd probably have said to put the money to better use helping bring needed change (this also jibes with what the article's author says).
I wonder how many people there are statues of would have said the same? Probably not the Confederate generals or people like Cecil Rhodes (who sounds like Shelley ''s Ozymandias).Gandhi, MLK, and Mother Theresa, privatization yes.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

people like Cecil Rhodes (who sounds like Shelley ''s Ozymandias

Or Elon Musk, perhaps.

 

[Free]

Or Elon Musk, perhaps.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

 

[Free]

 

[Free]

Also,



And Lee's home being "our most hallowed ground" is because it was confiscated DURING THE WAR and turned into a cemetery for the war dead.

 

[Free]

The new monuments.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

And over here