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Yep. It's called Free Speech. If he does a good job on my lawn, I couldn't care less how he votes.
Back in the good old days, people could have opposing opinions without getting their panties in a twist. In the 60s and 70s, the Nazi Party held rallies and parades in downtown Chicago. We didn't agree with anything the party stood for, but we didn't get irate and offended. We just chose not to attend. It was free speech. That's how it works.
It's beyond sad to me that we cannot show respect to each other. I've lost friendships with friends not because they were liberal, but because they became so hateful towards people who disagreed with them.
For the record, I am a conservative. For the most part, that means I vote Republican. I don't always agree with everything Trump says or does. There are many Republicans I don't care for and not too many Democrats I do care for. But I try to give consideration to all.
I think political correctness has reached the level of insanity. Does anyone remember Don Rickles? He made a career of insulting people. Look how far we've come. Nowadays, you can't say or do anything without being accused of some kind of racism or (fill-in-the-blank)-phobia or cultural misappropriation, no matter how innocent or trivial your transgression might be.
You are welcome to your opinions. But so am I. So is everyone.
I grieve for the loss of mutual respect and constitutional rights. If that makes me racist, fascist, or some kind of phobe, then so be it. But I'm willing to support your right to disagree with me. Are you willing to do the same?
As a moderate, I think that this is one of the best posts I have read, EVER, and especially what I bolded. Thank you.
(However, I do think that you are incorrect in one way, and that is that plenty of people did get irate and offended at Nazi rallies, and I definitely agree that they should have. The difference, though, is that -- so far as I know -- rallies usually didn't result in violence, or counter-violence.)
What I think is odd is how we as a country have swapped from being outraged by actions to outrage by thoughts or spoken words.
We have thousands of migrants on the way to test our border and their actions are not as condemned as the words are that those against them use.
I'm sure there are plenty of people that have donned black face for Halloween and with social media their image can be flashed round the world to spark outrage, boycotts and the death penalty in the court of public opinion. It is rather ridiculous that someone can't even talk about a topic even in the realm of history without chancing that their world will be shattered.
Have the adults left the room that we are now responding with knee jerk reactions over anything that is perceived as racist? Have we taken a big step backwards in race relations that some things are taken out of context?
Donning black face to make yourself a fool and a walking joke of someones race is one thing but is it that bad if a person wanted to dress up as say BlackPanther and represent himself as a proud, strong and brave character that happens to be black?
Racism is in the eye of the beholder and it is a popular and unpopular topic at the same time in todays America.
Blackface is on a different level, implying things much greater than "Insensitivity." Its more than just insensitive, it implies a history of racist and offensive entertainment.
That's the big deal.
As to their firing?
Free Speech protects you from prosecution from the government. It protects your newspaper from being shut down. It protects your TV Station from being shut down.
It doesn't protect the TV Station from having its advertisers pull out, and it doesn't prevent me from firing you from my TV Station. I'm paying you, so if I want you to recite the Soviet Anthem or the Bible or anything else, you'll do that, or be shown the door.
No one is entitled to someone else's megaphone, or protected in the use of their megaphone (or Newspaper, or TV Station.)
Maybe in New York and other centers of advanced thought, but elsewhere blackface was no big deal.
And not only blackface. Ethnic jokes, Tarzan movies, Charley Chan movies, all kinds of ethic stereotyping were common and not eyebrow raising.
Except, I guess, among the raised eyebrow set.
I was "elsewhere." I was in the South from the 50s on, and appearing in blackface had been considered uncouth in public for a good while even then.
Go back and look at national movies, advertisements, and television from the 50s forward. How many entertainers do you see still doing blackface, if it was so acceptable?
Other types of stereotyping are not relevant to this discussion. We're talking about white entertainers painting themselves black and pretending to be blacks.
The issue of black face is a difficult one somewhat dependent on how it was being used. Al Jolson, for example, was highly regarded by the Black community.
No, he wasn't "highly regarded by the black community." And Al Jolson was dead by 1950.
As a moderate, I think that this is one of the best posts I have read, EVER, and especially what I bolded. Thank you.
(However, I do think that you are incorrect in one way, and that is that plenty of people did get irate and offended at Nazi rallies, and I definitely agree that they should have. The difference, though, is that -- so far as I know -- rallies usually didn't result in violence, or counter-violence.)
True. Those Chicago Nazi rallies were only held after they won the 1977 National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie Supreme Court case...which means there were certainly people opposed to them serious enough to take it to the Supreme Court.
I was "elsewhere." I was in the South from the 50s on, and appearing in blackface had been considered uncouth in public for a good while even then.
Go back and look at national movies, advertisements, and television from the 50s forward. How many entertainers do you see still doing blackface, if it was so acceptable?
Other types of stereotyping are not relevant to this discussion. We're talking about white entertainers painting themselves black and pretending to be blacks.
The circumstances Megyn Kelly talked about weren't movies. She said for Halloween. She comes from a fairly affluent and public employee area. I take her word for it when she describes what was acceptable in her community.
Jim Kimmel was not alive in the 1950's. His blackface skit wasn't that long ago. Judging from the audience's reaction, it went over pretty well.
The circumstances Megyn Kelly talked about weren't movies. She said for Halloween. She comes from a fairly affluent and public employee area. I take her word for it when she describes what was acceptable in her community.
Jim Kimmel was not alive in the 1950's. His blackface skit wasn't that long ago. Judging from the audience's reaction, it went over pretty well.
As has already been said, the offensive thing about Kelly's statement was an apparent failure to understand what "blackface" means in today's parlance and an unawareness of the current cultural attitude toward that word that should not be the case with any prominent entertainment celebrity.
If it was acceptable in her community when she was a kid, she should know about modern cultural sensitivities today.
For instance, I certainly can't refer nostalgically today to what might have been acceptable male ideas about women back when I was a teenager. And I know that. And we expect any male celebrity to know that.
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