“We will have equal rights for all. Except blacks, Asians, Hispanics, Jews, gays, women, Muslims. Uhmm…Everybody who’s not a white man. And I mean white-white, so no Italians, no Polish, just people from Ireland, England, and Scotland. But only certain parts of Scotland and Ireland. Just full blooded whites. No, you know what? Not even whites. Nobody gets any rights. Ahhh…America!”
Yeah I was watching the 1953 Calamity Jane Musical on the television, and there is a scene where they just take in the Splendor of the beauty of nature as they travel to this party, and they start singing a song. But before they do they remark
“No matter them injuns are fighting so hard to keep this wonderful place”
Which was a line that made me do a double take and go “Or maybe the more important fact that it’s… ya know… theirs to begin with?”
I just finished a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of Little House on the Prairie and other books in that series. In one of her books she had a line describing her part of the West as “a land that had no people in it”. In the 1950s, shortly before she died, a young fan wrote to her and pointed out that there were, in fact, people in it: the Indians. To her credit, Wilder wrote back that she had made a mistake and of course Indians were people, and she had future editions of the book edited to say “a land that had no settlers in it”.
…and the Native Americans.
“We will have equal rights for all. Except blacks, Asians, Hispanics, Jews, gays, women, Muslims. Uhmm…Everybody who’s not a white man. And I mean white-white, so no Italians, no Polish, just people from Ireland, England, and Scotland. But only certain parts of Scotland and Ireland. Just full blooded whites. No, you know what? Not even whites. Nobody gets any rights. Ahhh…America!”
Yeah I was watching the 1953 Calamity Jane Musical on the television, and there is a scene where they just take in the Splendor of the beauty of nature as they travel to this party, and they start singing a song. But before they do they remark
“No matter them injuns are fighting so hard to keep this wonderful place”
Which was a line that made me do a double take and go “Or maybe the more important fact that it’s… ya know… theirs to begin with?”
I just finished a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of Little House on the Prairie and other books in that series. In one of her books she had a line describing her part of the West as “a land that had no people in it”. In the 1950s, shortly before she died, a young fan wrote to her and pointed out that there were, in fact, people in it: the Indians. To her credit, Wilder wrote back that she had made a mistake and of course Indians were people, and she had future editions of the book edited to say “a land that had no settlers in it”.