My son just gave me a heads up on this video, and I’m hot! No surprise. Anger begets anger, and this video makes me angry. Even worse, it’s from Disney. Yes, that Disney. Disney should stay out of politics. Way, way out.
Slaves didn’t build this country by themselves. Saying or implying they did is just misleading and wrong. As for reparations, my readers know where I stand on that issue. Me and mine did nothing to you and yours. None of us were alive back then. None of us were slaves and none were slave owners. Even if I thought reparations might be due (which I don’t), there’s no equitable way to determine what they should be or how to distribute them.
Was this video made for children? Using children to teach other children to use anger to get what they want is despicable. Anger is as counterproductive as violence.
Disney really blew it with this little production, as did anyone responsible for its existence.
If this is where Disney is going, I’m done with Disney.
Note: I’ve learned the video is a scene from “The Proud Family,” a children’s series streaming on Disney+
April 15, 2023: Seems I’m not the only one who got hot over the Disney video. I just noticed the original video I posted has been shut down. So I plugged in a different one with the same content. It was just one of many now on YouTube that are protesting the original video just as much as I did.
Recalls the excellent Bill Maher commentary on ‘presentism’.
I wonder if wokeness will ever go out of fashion again ? – and looking forward to the swing of the pendulum.
I don’t know. I’m afraid that pendulum may have swung so far that it broke — so we won’t see it swinging back, at least not in our lifetimes.
… and don’t get me started on presentism
I’ve come to realize that my family had a good life in the Chicago suburbs while black people were prevented from moving into white areas and thus prevented from owning property (and also had to attend inferior schools). Much of my family’s wealth came from owning property and trading up with each home purchase, so I have enough money for a decent retirement. Because most blacks had to rent rather than buy, they don’t have the same wealth opportunities. I don’t think anyone needs to feel guilty or apologize. But I think there is a basic fairness issue there.
Oh, I’m not denying they are and have been exploited and disadvantaged in many ways. Too many ways. That’s true of a lot of other people, too. But demanding reparations for something that happened generations ago, from people who had no part in it, just isn’t logical or right. How do you repay today’s Blacks for injustices their ancestors suffered back in the 1800s? How do you carry that forward and translate it into today’s world? How do you decide what constitutes proper compensation or what form that compensation should take or who should rightfully receive it or some part of it? San Francisco is wrestling with that problem right now.
Personally, I don’t think it’s possible to fairly implement reparations for what happened in the 1800s. Nor would it be fair to compensate Blacks for slavery without also repaying Native Americans for what was done to them and taken from them. How far back do you go? What events warrant compensation today? How do you repay anyone without repaying everyone? Where does it end?
I think the best we can do is learn from the past and try to move forward with more awareness, more fairness, more compassion. Everyone, on all sides of the issue, needs to cool the rhetoric and work together for fair solutions.
One side of my genealogy is working-class English and the other poor Irish. The Irish in particular were “disadvantaged” to the point of starvation in the old country and again in this country, but I don’t feel the need for any kind of restitution because of it. So, agreement.
Sounds like you’d have a case if our government starts paying reparations.
Barring your thoughts on reparations, as I don’t disagree there, I will say that I disagree, vehemently, and will leave it at that.
I assume you mean you see nothing wrong with the video, nothing offensive or of concern. As a parent, I would hate to have seen my son or grandchildren exposed to such anger and misinformation when they were young. Kids take stuff literally and are very impressionable. Don’t tell them angrily that “slaves built this country” as if no one else had a hand in it. That’s what I object to — the implication that slaves and only slaves built this country.