Saying that the food people like is an insult is disgustingly racist. Observing and respecting what food people like is not. Demeaning Black people for liking watermelon is white supremacist propaganda. https://thegrio.com/2022/07/04/i-will-never-be-ashamed-of-eating-watermelon/ |
wow- Yes teh omniscient narrator (the author) is stating truths about the world- rich people arent like you and me- isn't supposed to be about just those people at that time, it is supposed to be truth about the way the world works.
Are you seriously saying that A 19 year old debutante who's sole purpose in life was to snag a wealthy husband and wasn't allowed out into the sun b.c it would damage her 'complexion' would know net than teh actual peopelwho raised crops how to ...plant and harvest..raise the crops? Also most people who stayed on a plantation after were waiting there for relatives who'd been sold, that isn't even mentioned. GWTW- a book and film that I loved and which is very enjoyable, a masterpiece is probably one of the best pieces of white supremacist propaganda ever produced. Just b.c something is propaganda doesnt mean it isn't art- in many ways Animal Farm is propaganda but tbh it's not as good as GWTW is at persuading its audience. The best kind of propaganda convinces its audience, it's insidious. The only reason people get so worked up over GWTW is b/c Americans are so sexist that we cant fathom that a white southern woman did what generations of KKK night riders could not, all the soldiers of the Confederacy could not. The men lost their war, the southern women won the peace, and Margaret Mitchell was more skillful at her craft than Lee was at his. American are just too biased against women and the female sphere to believe that something as innocent as a novel could have that much influence but another woman wrote a different novel that was also propaganda that led to the abolition of slavery 100 years before GWTW. A lot of the art we consume is left wing propaganda (all Bauhaus for instance) , and honestly only the most unsophisticated rube is unaware. I can even agree with the message but still recognize that it is pushing a certain agenda. GWTW is pushing a white supremacist, classist agenda. It sanitizes American cattle slavery and transforms it into an acceptable caricature. Also the white people of that time didnt really know what it was like to live with such brutality. So many travelogues of that time recount the constant brutality and violence that slave owners lived with- they'd lash out and slap a child at a seated dinner, and continue on speaking as if nothing had happened while someone unused to such violence or abuse would be shellshocked. There are scarcely any accounts about the southern united states that dont remark on this casual violence and abuse even from people who believed firmly in slavery and Black inferiority. A lot of people were grossed out BECAUSE they were racist and couldn't understand how the southern slave owners could live in such close proximity to non-whites and rape them, have their children nursed by non-whites, have them cook their meals etc etc. . In fact that kind of racism was common amongst northerners and southerners pointed it out to them as evidence that slavery/servitude/Jim Crowe was the natural order and a kindness to Black Americans who otherwise would be sent back to 'Blackest Africa" and heathenry. The reason that GWTW has to be called out as a piece of propaganda is b.c of the above racist view was prevalent only a generation ago and its pull is insidious and many Americans are still susceptible to it. |
No one, and I mean no one, believes this in 2024. Take your antiquated talking points back with you to the '90s. Why is GWTW offensive? Because it is not aggressively moralizing and woke, plain and simple. From the culture warrior's point of view, every story touching on the antebellum South in any way must return to, again and again, the inhumanity of slavery. That must be the primary undercurrent of every story that features slaves. Because GWTW doesn't center slavery enough, it is not woke, and therefore is bad. |
Seriously? You know, in the South, there are still huge groups of white people who do debutante plantation parties when their daughters turn 16 or graduate high school? In big "Scarlett-style" hoop skirts and all. There are large swaths of people who still idolize this Southern Aristocracy era.
Search "antebellum party" to learn more. |
:roll: It's really just dated besides the obvious slavery issues. Makes sense, book and film came out in the 30s and have all the affections of media that came out then. Some things don't make the cut into timeless media. |
* affectations |
FFS, not just white children. --AA |
Which is fine. What you described doesn't hurt anyone. Every period in history had an underclass of serfs or slaves who were horribly abused. You can still enjoy the pretty things of those eras. Otherwise there would be basically no art, literature, music or fashion. Now if these balls include black people dressed as slaves, which I've seen, that would be wrong. Just a party with hoop skirts sounds lovely. |
Would you say the same thing about a novel that romanticizes communism in the USSR and overlooks the gulags and the authoritarian nature of that society and the lack of individual freedom? Would you be okay with such a novel being read in schools without any discussion of its propagandist nature, with no woke analysis of how it centers a utopian view of what in reality was a cruel and horrific system? Be honest now if you would be fine with such a novel being ready purely as a work of art with no historical context allowed to be mentioned. |
And? Who do hoop skirts hurt, exactly? |
DP. In history class? No. In English/literature? Absolutely. Not every novel about the USSR needs to be about gulags. Not every novel about the American South needs to be about slavery. Hope this helps clear it up for you. |
+1 |
Interpreting literature by forbidding discussion of context??? Wow. Would hate to be in your class. |
I grew up in a town that from 2016 on has been decidedly pro Trump and pretty far from wokeness. But back in the good old 1990s at our public high school, we spent so much time in English class talking about what was not explicitly stated on the page but the meaning/intent which was often driven by context of the story. Here in anonymity, I will tell you that I was quite bad at it despite being an otherwise great student. So my 16 year old self would be glad to ditch the exercise. But my 40-something self is kind of baffled by these posters who think novels should be taught without historical context or that is somehow a new or liberal thing. |
They didn't say that at all. |