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WOKE and Me Too

FrancisClement said:
it was always called political correctness if I remember correctly, which stifled individual thought and views. Stuff written in the past reflected the times and altering text is unreal. Just ask Roald Dahl.

At least the post caused some reaction and it was meant that way.

FF
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Something tells me those complaining now about PC/ Woke/ Me Too/BLM etc would 40 years ago have been fully paid up members of The National Viewers and Listeners Association.

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Image by kind permission of @Seanm
 
I am not racist and thoroughly enjoyed living in Handsworth for 15 years. I have many multinational friends from work and the suburb but I am not in a position to be able to apologise for the racists and misogynists from years ago. It happened and we are very sorry for our ancestors and we must prevent it from continuing or happening again. Editing books and music without the authors consent is not the way to go!

The examples exist and can be used to highlight the errors of the past but not by censoring or denying what has gone on before.
 
It is good to be reminded about Mary Whitehouse - the queen of censorship. I suppose censoring books and music is acceptable so maybe burning the books like Hitler and heavy censorship like Stalin are acceptable??

IMO it is not acceptable as censorship does not educate nor inform. I think that it is better to leave writing as it is and say that it is a reflection of their time. It is better to add a preface or foreword to point out the areas that it is no longer current opinion and why. In that way we educate rather than try to forget it ever happened. The Holocaust is a good example of how to deal with the issues as are the Irish Potato Famine and the Genocides in Armenia and Central Africa.

Anyone else wants an airbrush or to be an ostrich?
 
FrancisClement said:
It is good to be reminded about Mary Whitehouse - the queen of censorship. I suppose censoring books and music is acceptable so maybe burning the books like Hitler and heavy censorship like Stalin are acceptable??

IMO it is not acceptable as censorship does not educate nor inform. I think that it is better to leave writing as it is and say that it is a reflection of their time. It is better to add a preface or foreword to point out the areas that it is no longer current opinion and why. In that way we educate rather than try to forget it ever happened. The Holocaust is a good example of how to deal with the issues as are the Irish Potato Famine and the Genocides in Armenia and Central Africa.

Anyone else wants an airbrush or to be an ostrich?
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Completely irrelevant & inflammatory comparisons. Those acknowledging & having a conversation about how we should be treating past texts are akin to Stalin or Hitler?

Enid Blyton is hardly high art, I have no problem with her nasty racism being edited or even better her books ignored.
 
FrancisClement said:
It is good to be reminded about Mary Whitehouse - the queen of censorship. I suppose censoring books and music is acceptable so maybe burning the books like Hitler and heavy censorship like Stalin are acceptable??

IMO it is not acceptable as censorship does not educate nor inform. I think that it is better to leave writing as it is and say that it is a reflection of their time. It is better to add a preface or foreword to point out the areas that it is no longer current opinion and why. In that way we educate rather than try to forget it ever happened. The Holocaust is a good example of how to deal with the issues as are the Irish Potato Famine and the Genocides in Armenia and Central Africa.

Anyone else wants an airbrush or to be an ostrich?
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While there is some merit in the argument that books and films should be left alone to show them up for what they are (though not sure why there should be a problem with innuendo in song lyrics) I think it a mistake to attribute such changes as there are to “woke” thinking. It is in the interest of racists sympathisers to conceal racism.

It is not Woke that wants to stop discussion of slavery, colonialism and their effects on black and brown people around the globe, it is very much those that are campaigning on an anti-woke platform that are campaigning for censorship.

anyone interested in an open discussion about slavery, colonialism, genocide, famine and induced poverty should be very aware that anyone using the word “woke” as a pejorative is trying to marginalise that discussion, not extend it
 
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Yes, I’m confused by the thread title “ Woke and Me Too” in the context of the the OP’s argument that ( as the late Mary Whitehouse might say) dirty minded song lyrics by the monsters of rock should remain unmolested in their original form. I’d go further and suggest a compilation of the best ones with a forward by Andrew Tate.

It was after all a golden age for composition:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=m...rucs&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari
 
FrancisClement said:
I am not racist and thoroughly enjoyed living in Handsworth for 15 years. I have many multinational friends from work and the suburb but I am not in a position to be able to apologise for the racists and misogynists from years ago. It happened and we are very sorry for our ancestors and we must prevent it from continuing or happening again. Editing books and music without the authors consent is not the way to go!

The examples exist and can be used to highlight the errors of the past but not by censoring or denying what has gone on before.
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It’s never a good sign when someone has to positively state as a preface to an argument that they’re not a racist. I’m not suggesting you are, but you do your argument no favours by your trite attempt to characterise Me Too as a body concerned with policing Led Zeppelin lyrics.

Attempts at restorative justice and trying to right historical wrongs is not censorship. Credible anti-racist campaigners are not trying to airbrush slavery from history but are seeking to end the situation whereby figures such as Cecil Rhodes and Edward Colston are normalised and celebrated as historically important and benevolent when in fact they were respectively a white supremacist and a slave trader. I’ll assume you are white. You would really have to ask yourself how you would feel as a black Briton, walking past a statue on display in a city centre celebrating a figure who enslaved, raped and murdered your ancestors.
 
The way forward is, I believe, the one taken by Sathnam Sanghera in his book Empireland How Imperialism has Shaped Modern Britain https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08HD2DYT6/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

Sanghera is very explicitly not trying to apportion blame or suggest guilt, he merely opens up history for what it is. These things happened. We need to better understand them in order to better understand where we are today.
 
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Finnegan said:
You would really have to ask yourself how you would feel as a black Briton, walking past a statue on display in a city centre celebrating a figure who enslaved, raped and murdered your ancestors.
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Yes, very much agree. Colston and Rhodes are excellent examples of the celebration of racism. But they also act to conceal a great deal, for example the role of the Royal Africa Company set up by James II in creating vast fortunes for the likes of Colston.

Colston’s statue has suffered it’s fate, but that of Robert Clive still stands outside the Commonwealth Office so that Indian ambassadors and the like have to walk past a celebration of someone who hated, plundered, murdered, killed and starved millions of Indians.

The fact the ‘Clive of Indian’ still stands proud on his plinth sticking two fingers up to every Indian that has to walk past, suggests that concealment of history is still alive and well.
 
ks.234 said:
.Colston’s statue has suffered it’s fate, but that of Robert Clive still stands outside the Commonwealth Office so that Indian ambassadors and the like have to walk past a celebration of someone who hated, plundered, murdered, killed and starved millions of Indians.

The fact the ‘Clive of Indian’ still stands proud on his plinth sticking two fingers up to every Indian that has to walk past, suggests that concealment of history is still alive and well.
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I’m reminded of the actions of Glasgow City Council in the 80’s. The South African government had a consulate in Exchange Square in Glasgow. The council voted to rename it Nelson Mandela Place, so that every piece of correspondence delivered to the consulate bore the name of the ANC leader. Superb!
 
Woodface said:
Enid Blyton is hardly high art, I have no problem with her nasty racism being edited or even better her books ignored.
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As a child, I was a big fan of Enid Blyton and grew up reading the Famous Five, The Five Find-Outers etc.

The book that I am aware of being "cleansed" is the Island of Adventure where, originally, the perpetrator of evil deeds was a black man called Jo-Jo. He is now apparently a white man called Joe in newer editions.

Now, two things struck me about this. Firstly, as a reader of the book at a young age, the fact that he was black barely registered with me. All I knew was that he was the ringleader of the baddies who were counterfeiting money in the old mines on an island and this was all that was relevant when I was 8 years old. It seems to me that it's adults who get worked up about this sort of stuff, not the children that the books are aimed at.

In addition, there were 21 original Famous Five books, 8 in the aforementioned Adventure series and 15 in the Five Find-Outers series. That's 44 books. Now, if i recall correctly only one had a miscreant who was black. It therefore seems to me that perhaps Enid Blyton's writing might not actually have been the evil pinnacle of white supremacism that it's being made out to be by some delicate souls.
 
Beobloke said:
As a child, I was a big fan of Enid Blyton and grew up reading the Famous Five, The Five Find-Outers etc.

The book that I am aware of being "cleansed" is the Island of Adventure where, originally, the perpetrator of evil deeds was a black man called Jo-Jo. He is now apparently a white man called Joe in newer editions.

Now, two things struck me about this. Firstly, as a reader of the book at a young age, the fact that he was black barely registered with me. All I knew was that he was the ringleader of the baddies who were counterfeiting money in the old mines on an island and this was all that was relevant when I was 8 years old. It seems to me that it's adults who get worked up about this sort of stuff, not the children that the books are aimed at.

In addition, there were 21 original Famous Five books, 8 in the aforementioned Adventure series and 15 in the Five Find-Outers series. That's 44 books. Now, if i recall correctly only one had a miscreant who was black. It therefore seems to me that perhaps Enid Blyton's writing might not actually have been the evil pinnacle of white supremacism that it's being made out to be by some delicate souls.
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That’s 44 books. Now, if i recall correctly only one had a miscreant who was black.
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Enid Blyton’s ‘The Little Black Doll’. The story sees the doll of the title, Sambo, ostracised for its “ugly black face”, and only accepted when its face is washed “clean” by the rain.
 
FrancisClement said:
It is good to be reminded about Mary Whitehouse - the queen of censorship. I suppose censoring books and music is acceptable so maybe burning the books like Hitler and heavy censorship like Stalin are acceptable??

IMO it is not acceptable as censorship does not educate nor inform. I think that it is better to leave writing as it is and say that it is a reflection of their time. It is better to add a preface or foreword to point out the areas that it is no longer current opinion and why. In that way we educate rather than try to forget it ever happened. The Holocaust is a good example of how to deal with the issues as are the Irish Potato Famine and the Genocides in Armenia and Central Africa.

Anyone else wants an airbrush or to be an ostrich?
Click to expand...
Who, do you believe, is asking for these books to be edited? You can only decide who deserves criticism, once you understand that, and their reasons for the editing.

Logically, the only people who have the power to do such editing, are the publishers and owners of the rights to the books. So why would they be doing so? The answer, surely, is because they believe it will sell more books. So the motive to airbrush the past is not driven by 'woke' or 'me too', but by commercial considerations.

You may argue that the commercial consideration is that 'woke' or 'me too' concerns have put pressure on sales of 'objectionable' literature. I don't think I've seen any evidence that this is the case. Do you have any?
 
Ironically, I know a trans man who was inspired by the character of George/Georgina in The Famous Five to question his gender identity from a young age. He's now fifty years old and has been happily transitioned for twenty years. Go figure.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
Who, do you believe, is asking for these books to be edited? You can only decide who deserves criticism, once you understand that, and their reasons for the editing.

Logically, the only people who have the power to do such editing, are the publishers and owners of the rights to the books. So why would they be doing so? The answer, surely, is because they believe it will sell more books. So the motive to airbrush the past is not driven by 'woke' or 'me too', but by commercial considerations.

You may argue that the commercial consideration is that 'woke' or 'me too' concerns have put pressure on sales of 'objectionable' literature. I don't think I've seen any evidence that this is the case. Do you have any?
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Yup. It's just the market in action, not a "woke conspiracy" or whatever bollocks the far-right press are spouting today.
 
I am of Irish descent and my family suffered during the Famine. It existed and illustrates the sometime evil nature of the English upper classes, my mother went to hide my Irish ancestry in the 50's but that was the time when hotels still posted "no blacks, no dogs, no Irish". Do I hate the English because of this - NO. Recent changes in attitude have been brought about by information and education not revolution or throwing statues into the dock. This again is a theme that I think is relevant.

Denial was perhaps the main issue that I wanted to address and censorship is part of this so perhaps the Thread should have been entitled "Deniers".
 
Beobloke said:
As a child, I was a big fan of Enid Blyton and grew up reading the Famous Five, The Five Find-Outers etc.

The book that I am aware of being "cleansed" is the Island of Adventure where, originally, the perpetrator of evil deeds was a black man called Jo-Jo. He is now apparently a white man called Joe in newer editions.

Now, two things struck me about this. Firstly, as a reader of the book at a young age, the fact that he was black barely registered with me. All I knew was that he was the ringleader of the baddies who were counterfeiting money in the old mines on an island and this was all that was relevant when I was 8 years old. It seems to me that it's adults who get worked up about this sort of stuff, not the children that the books are aimed at.

In addition, there were 21 original Famous Five books, 8 in the aforementioned Adventure series and 15 in the Five Find-Outers series. That's 44 books. Now, if i recall correctly only one had a miscreant who was black. It therefore seems to me that perhaps Enid Blyton's writing might not actually have been the evil pinnacle of white supremacism that it's being made out to be by some delicate souls.
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Fair point. It is the job of a parent to look after children & I don't have a problem with being worried about what they are reading. Blyton was a product of the times but some of the attitudes in her books are problematic by todays standards, I don't have a problem with a spot of editing.

It is now not seen as appropriate for actors to black up when playing Othello, so it's possible to make accommodations to the art which have no real impact on it's delivery. I don't like the way you characterise genuine offence as a trivial matter, it's not the fault of 'delicate souls'.
 
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