How many new ideas are there? What are some "new" ideas that have actually been around for quite some time?
Contemporary anti-racists and social justice types can recite with ease the mantra that "there is only one race, and it is the human race". The same folks have also internalized the slogan that "race is a social construct".
Their observations are treated as revelations by many in the general public.
The scientific finding that race is a social construct, and a biological fiction, is not new. As depicted here, such a fact was highlighted by educational videos as early as 1946.
We cannot forget that Brotherhood of Man was released during American Apartheid, Jim and Jane Crow, and when white supremacy was the law in the United States of America. This was also a time when anti-racists and civil rights workers would be imprisoned because they were "insane" or "schizophrenic". And other citizens who demanded that the United States live up to the radical democratic creed and potential of the Constitution were labeled as "radicals", "Leftists", or "Communists".
However, there was a cabal of thinkers, who decades before the "Civil Rights Movement" as understood in the popular imagination, had begun the necessary processes of political socialization which a multicultural democracy during the Cold War era would need to survive, and triumph, over the Soviet Union and her allies.
This is part of America's "hidden history".
The Civil Rights Movement was part of a global struggle for the hearts and minds of people of color. It was not a local conflict. The Civil Rights Movement involved people's advocacy and struggle that in turn provided opportunities and openings for forward thinking elites to act.
Post racial America, with its multicultural elite class in the age of Austerity and neoliberalism, is the bastard stepchild of a radical Black and Brown Freedom Struggle which was cooptated and bought off by more centrist and conservative elements.
Civil Rights, for people of color, women, as well as gays and lesbians, ceased to be "radical" decades ago. The struggle of the Other has long been about democratic inclusion and the ability to participate in the Consumer's Republic as an equal citizen--the fights are really about marginal gains, not destroying or tearing down the system.
Unfortunately--but not surprising--that as a society we are still struggling with race-IQ-culture pseudo-science hustlers like Paul Ryan and Charles Murray some 70 years after such ideas were discredited by The Brotherhood of Man.
Unfortunately--but not surprising--that as a society we are still struggling with race-IQ-culture pseudo-science hustlers like Paul Ryan and Charles Murray some 70 years after such ideas were discredited by The Brotherhood of Man.
16 comments:
Have you seen "The House I Live In" from 1945?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woZVlroHqPU
A plea for racial tolerance. Well intentioned. Frank Sinatra sings "The House I Live In" written by Abel Meeropol. Takes a smoke break and schools some kids who are harassing a jewish kid.
Unfortunately, Meeropol was enraged that in the film, the second verse was cut. Meeropol protested against the deletion of the verse referring to "my neighbors white and black" when the movie was first shown.
American Indians are conspicuously absent from that film. They are only acceptable as Inuit (Eskimo).
They are invisible people. Sigh.
1945 short film featuring Frank Sinatra: "The House I Live In" where Frank takes a smoke break from recording a song about tolerance and schools some kids after they harass a jewish kid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woZVlroHqPU
Song was written by Abel Meeropol. Unfortunately, Meeropol was enraged that in the film, the second verse was cut. Meeropol protested against the deletion of the verse referring to "my neighbors white and black" when Sinatra's movie was first shown.
A nice attempt by director Mervyn LeRoy and writer Albert Maltz. The studio apparently thought they went too far, and cut some of the lyrics. But you're right, the racist bullshit spouted by Ryan was mocked back in 1945.
The fathers and grandfathers of that generation had only just completed the wars against them. I suppose if you are looking at the willful blindness of today's generation for our apartheid past, you could see the similarity.
I agree. I thought that the video was kind of cool (in a cute way), but it was still pretty stereotypical.
Of course. But still revolutionary for the day.
That's true.
A side note: Brotherhood of Man was made by UPA, and among the creators of this film was a former Disney union activist (John Hubley) who was soon to be targeted by the House UnAmerican Activities Commitee (HUAC). He had to quit, or UPA would have been shut down.
And a digression that might be of interest to WARN readers is the Hubley's 1962 film, called the Hole, in which the improvising Dizzy Gillespie remarks "do i look like i have a driver's license?" -- very pertinent to current voter ID/suppression efforts by the new advocates of the new Jim Crow:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bz90dvQbcIk
Very true. And I see Ring Lardner, Jr. getting a writers' credit. He was blacklisted for many many years, despite his beloved writer father.
I think he wrote the MASH screenplay in the 70s, as well. The more we dig into the past, the more we see connections to the present and future.
They knew racism and bigotry was bullshit in 1946, and they knew global warming was real in 1958:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-AXBbuDxRY
But the "debate" continues...
I saw the AFL CIO credit at the beginning and I thought of how the white right accuses some leftist global agenda for encouraging migration to white countries.
End of White America:
2041! http://buchanan.org/blog/a-d-2041-%E2%80%93-end-of-white-america-4912
Stop with your reason!
Thanks so much for that. Good smart folks here on WARN.
The documentary Race: The Power of Illusion alluded to that. Do you have any more info on the back story? Sinatra didn't have enough power at the time to say "no"?
Sinatra was powerless at the time. Barely 30 years old. Basically a boy singer.
Meeropol wrote the lyrics to "Strange Fruit." He was an idealist who could never figure out why movie producers and song publishers cut and prevented his work.
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