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It's getting to the point where you simply cannot do anything but laugh at the utter stupidity that rears its head every single day.
It is sickening, as this has been a tactic of the leftists for some time. Remember them removing D. W. Griffith directors award because he directed the movie Birth of a Nation ?
I wonder how they will feel about future generations (following in their footsteps) start removing tributes to people like MLK, JFK, and anyone of a liberal mindset. Remember the pendulum swings both ways, and just like communism was stigmatized back in the day, it will be again.
It is sickening, as this has been a tactic of the leftists for some time. Remember them removing D. W. Griffith directors award because he directed the movie Birth of a Nation ?
I wonder how they will feel about future generations (following in their footsteps) start removing tributes to people like MLK, JFK, and anyone of a liberal mindset. Remember the pendulum swings both ways, and just like communism was stigmatized back in the day, it will be again.
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I keep waiting for the day when PP founder Margaret Sanger is recognized for the racist/eugencist that she was. She was very clear in her opinions of minorities.
The irony here is that Laura Ingalls Wilder is the perfect girl-power role model: bright, studious, ambitious and successful. That she could be thrown under the bus for having been a white settler in Indian territory shows us the relative priorities of the post modernist left.
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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The irony is the most beloved left wing SCOTUS justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg said the purpose of abortion is to control the Black population and yet Liberals defended her blatant racism. I'd say calling for abortion to be used to wipe out a race of people is far worse than anything Laura Ingalls Wilder ever did. If you are on the Blue Team you can be as racist as you want and it's OK.
They changed the name of a literary award to better reflect our current times. That is all.
It reflects the twisted mindset of current literary types and academia, which is bad enough. If we reach the point where such thinking is typical of the broader society, that will be much worse.
The irony is the most beloved left wing SCOTUS justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg said the purpose of abortion is to control the Black population and yet Liberals defended her blatant racism. I'd say calling for abortion to be used to wipe out a race of people is far worse than anything Laura Ingalls Wilder ever did. If you are on the Blue Team you can be as racist as you want and it's OK.
They will probably ban her books from all public libraries, next.
Actually - librarians are the keepers of the Grail when it comes to censorship. They fight for the freedom to read and fend off ill-considered and conceived efforts to censor on a very regular basis. Just ask any public librarian.
As for Laura Ingalls Wilder, her books are classics and are in no danger of being removed from libraries. However, they are fiction, historic fiction based on the author's early life, but nonetheless fiction. They also portray a much earlier time and were originally published in the 1930s and 1940s.
"Little House on the Prairie", the second book in the series but the best known due to the TV series (which I disliked - the pilot was okay but it was downhill from there), includes a number of descriptions of members of minorities. At one point, a kindly black doctor saves the lives of the Ingalls family during an epidemic - "Dr. Tan" was based on a real pioneer doctor by that name.
Caroline Ingalls, Laura's mother, dislikes and fears Indians and makes no secret of it. However, at one point when she is alone in the house, a small group of Indians - hunters - come calling and she cooks their just-killed game for them despite her fear and feeling of coercion, thus preserving the peace (the Indians are wearing fresh, untanned skunk skins, which doesn't help matters).
At another point, a long line of Indians passes the Ingalls' little house, heading west by forced removal. Little Laura questions where they are going and is told by Pa Ingalls that they're going west - because "that's what Indians have to do".
Laura, portrayed as about five or six in the book (in reality she was much younger when the Ingalls lived in Indian Territory) catches sight of an Indian baby being carried "west" by its mother, loses her heart to it - and begs Ma for the baby. Something about the baby's bright black eyes entrances Laura, and she tearfully continues to beg for the baby even after being told it belongs to its parents and she cannot have it. Laura cannot explain why she wants it, of course, but she never forgot that little child and her attraction to it... and she included this incident in her book,
So the portrayal of minorities in "Little House on the Prairie" is inconsistent, yet very much from the viewpoint of a small white child of the mid 1870s, as portrayed by that same child as an older adult writing for children in the 1930s. Dr. Tan is portrayed very positively, while the Indians are portrayed as being very exotic, different, dangerous and "savages" according to the fearful, conservative, determined pioneer mother Caroline Ingalls, yet attractive and intriguing to the more daring young Laura.
Whether these factors justify renaming the ALA award or not is debatable. I would have voted no, if I had had a vote, given the stature and influence of Laura Ingalls Wilder in American children's literature. But I would also encourage parents and teachers introducing her books to their children and students to discuss them and these concerns, and to use other material about the period alongside them for a richer, more nuanced understanding.
Last edited by CraigCreek; 07-02-2018 at 01:13 PM..
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