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[–] 90 points 2 days ago (45 children)

All this means is that the Thomas franchise has existed long enough to be publishing books since when that word was still in common parlance. I'm sure if you looked at anything from that era, it wouldn't take long to find something that appears problematic through a modern lens.

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  • [–] 21 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (27 children)

    Believe it or not, it was not "normal" to use slurs in children's books in 1952.

    There are Marvel comics from the 1940's with characters straight out of ministrel shows and they still don't use the word. Would you like to guess why?

    Edit: not that it stopped Dr Seuss a couple times in the 30's, mind you, but he reserved it for comics and not his children's books, those only got racist caricatures.

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  • [–] 24 points 2 days ago (25 children)

    The word carried somewhat less of a charge in the UK at the time, where black people were relatively uncommon until waves of labour migration from the Caribbean in the 1950s, than in the US, where it was freighted with the weight of slavery, the KKK, Jim Crow laws and such. Agatha Christie could call a book “10 Little N_s”, alluding to a children’s rhyme. This was an age in which the children who casually sang that rhyme probably had golliwog dolls.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 days ago (18 children)

    Sure, absolutely no history of slavery and colonialism in the UK. There definitely aren't a dozen Kipling stories where he calls anyone not a WASP by the term.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 days ago (16 children)

    While Britain participated in the slave trade, they went out of their way to not do so in Britain; the slaveholders kept their slaves abroad and out of sight, in places where the laws of civilisation which rule such institutions to be obscene are waived. (Sugarcane plantations in the Caribbean were one such place.) And it was impolite to inquire too hard about the sources of fortunes that built stately homes.

    The difference being that when the N-word was uttered in Britain, it was belittling and condescending in an exoticising way, like a colonial-era picture book of funny foreigners in their traditional costumes. In America, however, it had a more immediate edge of aggression and violence, implying an other that’s here rather than far away, and firmly below the speaker in the established racial hierarchy, and who must be kept there using tools including designating them as a (N-word).

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  • [–] -1 points 2 days ago* (14 children)

    The garbage eurotrash will spread to pretend they aren't and haven't been virulent racists is pretty amazing.

    IT's eXotiCisiNg NoT a ToOl oF oUr RacIaL ImpEriAl HeiRARchY

    Meanwhile, at the absolute kindest Br*tish imperial racists are being:

    https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_burden.htm

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago (12 children)

    You're bringing up fucking Kipling of all people, the one poet everyone knows for being mega into colonialism. That's like me pointing at the Grateful Dead while saying Americans need to lay off the acid.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (9 children)

    One of England's favorite poets unti public displays of explicit racism were no longer de rigueur.

    He's a perfectly valid example of the feelings of the nation at that time.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 day ago (6 children)

    It's a cherry-picked example if I ever saw one, I could just as well go and point at Wilberforce to underline early 19th century attitudes to slavery and I'd be making the same error as this.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (5 children)

    You cannot use the term "cherry-picked" to refer to a man who is such a prominent cultural icon. His art captured the essence of an era.

    It's even more valid when taken in light of more recent wars of colonial aggression involving the UK in which the terminology and lies used mirror the justifications of the 19th century. The behavior and attitude of the UK government towards former colonies when it comes to the topic of reparations and the belated return of stolen artifacts is no different now as it was when the enslaved peoples of the West Indies were granted their "freedom"

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    Kipling has been subject of debate since the height of his career. it would be inaccurate to claim he represented unchallenged universal attitudes.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

    Who said anything about "universal"?

    The views of the Anglican church have been debated for centuries that doesn't negate their power and influence. Theirs was very much the voice of the establishment, ala Kipling.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago (2 children)

    Nor can you select the worst examples of someone else's country to defend America's conduct on patriotic grounds which is blatantly what's happening here.

    There's a massive Americentrism problem in the wider West that both the US left and right wingers absolutely hate being challenged, they are exactly alike on this issue as far as I am concerned.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 child)

    Who here is defending America?

    Reminding the world that Britain has done a lot of evil and exposing how contemporary Brits justify said evil acts does not equate to defending America.

    Some of us can walk and chew gum simultaneously. Cute deflection though.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    I just checked my copy of the book. Even though it was first published in 1939, my copy was still published under the original titlein 1963.

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  • [–] -1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    Setting aside the incorrect notion that there weren't black people in England until the 50s, the story in question was published in 1951 and remained in print into the 1970s.

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  • [–] 14 points 2 days ago (15 children)

    pretty sure that racism in the days of yore was still racist (please remember who decided what was appropriate in common parlance back then)

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  • [–] 39 points 2 days ago (10 children)

    And nobody denied that. The statement was "racism was normal in those days", and not "the n-word wasn't racist in those days".

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  • [+] -27 points 2 days ago (8 children)

    You're not allowed to criticize or point out Southern Klans members because it was the style of the time.

    Lemmy's just becoming worse and worse these days.

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  • [–] 18 points 2 days ago (4 children)

    ...are you okay? automatically assuming the worst possible meaning of ambiguous statements doesn't seem healthy.

    what about this: "pointing the klansmen out to people back then was harder because the average person was more racist."

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  • [+] -13 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    I grow more and more tired of humanity being a constant idiot parade but that's nothing new.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 days ago*

    Just because you refuse to understand that acceptance of a word, no matter how foul, was entirely dependant on the region it was used doesn't mean Lemmy or anyone else is accepting it. People here just understand that Britain in the 1950s was far different in cultural acceptance than the US in 1950.

    Just like the USA using "That's gay" as a casual insult as late as the mid 2000s is now considered inappropriate today. I'm queer and I know Brits who still say "pass me a fag". Guess who isn't upset about hearing that because I'm not a moron.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago

    "If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole."

    or, of course, it could be that you're just so much better than everyone else, right?

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  • [–] 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    the hays code didn't apply to colloquial speech, it applied to movies.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    The Hayes Code didn’t apply to books at all, it was movie specific. I assumed they were talking about the dominant culture at the time.

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