THBBM - Putting Grandfather to bed

Putting Grandfather to bed
They can't do this to me… why it's.. It's un-American!
5-7

A conversation I used to have a lot with my students dealt with the power of words. We talked about how certain words seemed to exude strength, while other words only garnered their effects from their contexts.

The word we spent the most time on (although we never actually said it out loud) was "nigger." Such a horrible, ugly word even without it's societal connotations, there may not be another word in the American consciousness that carries such an electrical charge.

My students, many of whom were African-American, had heard all before about the origins of the word, had experience with people who tried to tell them that it's nothing more than a word - a collection of letters; it was not to be reviled - or even paid attention to. It was the person saying the word you should be concerned about.

But many of them seemed to nod in agreement when I told them my opinion that, If I were to say the word out loud in a certain tone of voice, that the feeling would be much the same as if I walked up to them and punched them in the stomach. The presence of hate, and the fear and mistrust that comes with it has elevated this word to the point where it is almost looked upon as a weapon.

There are a handful of these words, these sharpened edges that should not be thrown around in a decent society. Words with like "Jap," "Gook," "Kike," "Cunt,"… there's just no need to even have these terms. Like missiles and nuclear bombs, having them available without using them does not create an atmosphere of peaceful cohabitation. Having them there means someone could actually get into the secret places we hide these words, and unleash their hurtful, destructive power before they even realized what they were doing.

No matter our best intentions, hate does exist. Like a mold, it grows in hidden, dark places, attaching itself to stronger, healthier vegetation until it becomes a part of the landscape. All we can do then is attempt to garden this infestation out, cut it away without hurting the roots of the saplings all around.

The move to suppress such dark spores from our atmosphere is known as understanding. However, it's more popularly known in this country as political correctness.

The problem is, even if we all want to stamp out this plague from our lives, none of us wants to have the finger pointed at us, no one wants to be thought of as the responsible party. You hear the same old tired lines, "I don't know why you are mad at me, I didn't own any slaves…" or even worse, "I have plenty of friends who belong to minority groups."

Unable to bear the burden that comes from having the yoke of racist being hung about their necks, society has attempted to divert this notion by focusing the crosshairs of political correctness at the language itself. Over the past few decades, there has been a slew of surgical changes to language and imagery that could be construed as offensive. The move was made to protect those who might be offended by these words and sights.

People just don't get it.

Locking the word "nigger" in a closet will not save the world. Creating a blacklist of terms that show how much we care about equality is in my mind a horribly patronizing thing to pass off on minorities around us. While terminology like African-American creates a safe line between heritage and inclusion, all too often it seems like it's used as a garnish to dress up a meal. When a policeman refers to a suspect as an African-American gentleman, are we supposed to throw roses and give him a cookie for not saying "boy" in public?

You can't put your alcoholic uncle in a nice suit and fill him full of coffee and expect to fool anyone. Why treat race relations the same way?

Each of us has to take responsibility for our part of creating the atmosphere of segregation that this country has tried so hard to deny.

My high school was a magnet school. In other words, it pulled students from all over the school district who showed a higher academic aptitude and put them in an accelerated environment where there talents could be pushed to the fullest. The school itself was located in one of the oldest inner city neighborhoods in Jacksonville. A predominantly black neighborhood. There were fences all around the school.

Fences topped with barbed wire.

Those fences were not there to keep us from getting out. Those fences were there to keep the locals from getting in.

Inside was a (fairly) equitable atmosphere of different races -- many different shades, but still all eggheads trying to fast path their lives towards college. I do not consider myself a racist. But if someone were to look through those fences at my school, if someone were to get the idea that a fast path towards college (or a chance towards college at all) was something that only white kids deserved… If that person were to change their approach towards their future because of that idea, then my being a part of that picture does bestow me with a partial responsibility to that crime.

I hate the feeling that comes with that responsibility. But I cannot deny it. Racism is not just throwing around offensive words. Racism is throwing a party and not letting certain people come in because of what they are.

My penance is to find a way, no matter how small; to make sure that those fences come down, to do something to help dissolve the preconception that education is only for a chosen few. And to watch the world around me carefully, and do what I can to assure that preconceptions do not poison those around me.

My job is to make sure that the term African-American never becomes as hateful as the word "nigger."

On Friday, under pressure from their parent company Time-Warner, the Cartoon Network announced that it was pulling 12 " racially charged" Bugs Bunny cartoons from the lineup of their annual "June Bugs" special.

One of the few words that attack my senses in a way similar to what I imagine the pain that racial slurs bring to minorities is censorship. As a writer, an artist, and someone who likes to consider himself a free thinker, the mere thought of someone dictating the limits and intentions of someone else's creativity is distasteful to me.

Art is to be appreciated, analyzed, and understood. Through art, people express their emotions, react to the world outside them. Sometimes that expression is not pretty. But being animals with light and dark sides, I feel in my heart that the dark side needs to be acknowledged and understood just as much as the happy side.

So when I heard that they were banning Bugs Bunny cartoons, my initial reaction was one of anger and disappointment.

I am a huge cartoon fan. Bugs Bunny is as much, if not more of an American icon than baseball and apple pie. The animations he starred in were fast-paced, scathingly funny, and inventive in every way. Originally created as short films that preceded newsreel films and movies, Looney Tunes were kids fare with an adult edge, grown up comedy outlined in a clown's greasepaint.

Bugs first came to screens in the 1930's. Cartoons had been around for some time by then, and even though the Warner Brothers characters are the most fondly remembered animations from that time, they certainly weren't the only ones around. MGM and Paramount had it's own stable of characters who were as, if not more popular than Bugs and his pals at the time.

This was a time when the big studios controlled the movie houses. Radio was king, television was a novelty at best. This was also a time when we were at war with Germany, about to be engaged in a war with Japan.

Unfortunately -- it was also a time when this country was only beginning to come to terms with the way we felt about the different types of people who lived here.

Minstrel shows featuring white actors in blackface doing over-exaggerated portrayals of black society were on Broadway. Al Jolson, perhaps the most famous of the blackface performers was an international superstar. The growth of swing music and jazz occurred during this golden age of animation, but its impact on society was still something that was viewed from a distance.

What's that line from the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic, "The Music Man?"

Now one fine night they leave the pool hall

headin' for the dance at the Armory

Libertine men and scarlet women and ragtime

Shameless music that'll grab your son, your daughter

into the arms of a jungle animal instinct- massteria!

Friends, the idle brain is the devil's playground, trouble!

Cartoons in the thirties and forties took satire to a new level, lampooning society and the world at large with both barrels blazing. But satire is a mirror pointed back at the world it discusses.

Bugs Bunny has never said the word "nigger." Be clear about that. However, in "All This and Rabbit Stew" he distracts a black rabbit-hunter by rattling a pair of dice. In "Any Bonds Today?" he appears in blackface. Then there's "Frigid Hare," where Bugs calls an ungainly, bucktoothed Eskimo a "big baboon."

Outside of Looney Tunes, there were cartoons like "Uncle Tom's Bungalow," "Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs," and "Goldilocks and the Jivin' Bears."

In a 1937 short called "Clean Pastures," caricatures of popular black musical stars of the day (Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, and Jimmie Lunceford) are seen as angels in heaven, where they "liven things up" by playing "Swing For Sale."

During the forties, there were several Popeye the Sailor cartoons where Popeye, a member of the US Navy effort in the Pacific Theater was confronted by ships of squint-eyed, large-toothed Japanese sailors who repeatedly said the phrase "tho-thorry, tho-thorry." Popeye would eat his spinach, and sink the ships single-handedly. These shorts were played regularly on Warships in the South Pacific.

It's hard to understand it now, but in the 1940's -- this was acceptable. We were at war with Japan.

Anti-censorship groups and cartoon historians will tell you that this is part of cartoon history, a history that is not always pleasant. And they are right. As an educated person, and a free thinker, I don't want this censored. I know who Cab Calloway was. I am aware of the minstrel shows and the unfortunate use of blackface to characterize African-Americans. Trying to forget trials he had to endure would be like ignoring that they ever happened. It insults Calloway's memory as much as it insults my intelligence.

But this cartoon was not banned in order to protect Cab Calloway, or to choose my thoughts for me.

This cartoon was banned because of the way it might affect a young African-American mind if he or she were to see this on television.

With no way to guarantee that children could accurately put a context to these films as part of a pre-war, pre-civil rights society. There's just no real way to tell what the effect these animations might have on their viewers.

When cartoons made the move from movie-houses to television in the late 50's, cartoons were labeled "children's programming" almost without a thought - and this single move more than anything else is what has created all of this continuing controversy. As attitudes and ideology has changed and evolved, these cartoons have been edited again and again in an effort to cover the tracks of history.

Suggestions of violence, drug use, suicide were all removed over the years in an effort to "clean up" the various animations. But even with creative cuts and careful rewording, there's really no way to change the era that these films were made in.

It says a lot about the state of the animation industry to know that instead of making newer animations that reflected a more balanced ideology, the studios continually went back and edited these films, some of which are sixty and seventy years old.

And this is where the problem comes in. The Cartoon Network was set up initially as a network that celebrates the history and advances that were made over the years in the field of animation. Sort of a history channel for cartoons. However, being a 24-hour a day cartoon showcase means that children are naturally going to be watching.

For a long time, the network broadcast films with questionable themes late at night, and often with the disclaimer, "Cartoon Network does not endorse the use of racial slurs. These vintage cartoons are presented as representative of the time in which they were created and are presented for their historical value."

But the danger still exists that some of these films could be misconstrued. Just because something is historical does not mean it can't be insulting. Just because something has a warning label on it, doesn't mean that children aren't going to test those boundaries.

I wish there were another way, but I think that in the end the decision that Cartoon Network president Betty Cohen made was the right one.

Frame the historical cartoons within a documentary structure, or perhaps air them on a different channel, but don't allow the mistaken prejudices of our past put up even more fences between us.

Special thanks to Toonzone.net, Spumco.com, and Yahoo news for background information and images.