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Sep (lord of all I survey) ([info]sepiamagpie) wrote in [info]unfunny_fandom,
@ 2011-01-01 21:21:00


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Twitter rant: Read bottom to top
To begin with, a sock twitter account for Laura Ingalls Wilder (the writer of the Little House On The Prairie books) was giving out the tweets of her family for New Year's.

Here's the one for her Ma:

HalfPintIngalls Laura Ingalls Wilder:

Ma's resolutions: knit more; be less racist.

Well... anyway, a nineteen tweet rant from another user followed. It's sort of epic.


troposphere
troposphr troposphere
:



@HalfPintIngalls @sippey 'Be less racist'? That's what I call a cheap, defamatory shot. I read those books 100s of times, and

the only racism one can take away is whatever pre-existed in your own racist, bigoted head,

wherein you ascribe to an individual you've never met character traits based on nothing other than their skin color.

'Ma resolves to be less racist.' HAHAHA, that's teh funny.

If you'd actually read the books you would know that a black doctor treated them when they were all sick; that they

had never seen a black person before. You're incapable of reading any text & not injecting your defamatory illogic

whether or not the text in any way supports it. Bcs you were never college-educated, only college-indoctrinated

and taught to label all whites as racist and evil, and that the Indians/'First Nations'/Native Americans never went

around scalping one another, because you were brainwashed into believing any person of color is morally superior

You know who needs to make a new years resolution to be less racist? YOU do.

You don't understand, and therefore mock, people who actually apprehend God (the REAL God, not your crappy morally

relativistic 1, which you actually created in YOUR own image, whether they lived a century or two ago, a millennia

or 2 or 4 ago, or are one of your own contemporaries. In this regard you are hopelessly ignorant and blind; having

no idea of why you are even here in the first place. Blind, misled, and believing only in your psychobabble B.S.

What else have you been "taught"? To smear & denigrate the WASP pioneers/founders who made this country

the greatest nation in the history of mankind -- actually, they were only instruments of GOD, which you do not &

will never comprehend, because you don't know God and in fact have been taught to be actively hostile towards Him.

People like you, who have no comprehension of the what or why of the most basic principles of what this country is

about are simply tools, useful idiots, in the hands of those who seek to destroy America -- the REAL America, not

the bastardized, self-hating, self-loathing, apologetic, Marxist/Fascist false Obamatopia you seek to compel your

fellow citizens into climbing aboard that space-shuttle-disaster-in-the-making piece of crap Marxist state where

you believe there will be no more HAHA-Racist-HAHA Ma's -- only sub-human fascist slave-drones like yourselves.



(please note, the reason that it's formatted like this is because it was a series of nineteen tweets, which can only be 140 characters in length and each time they had to include the name of the people they were addressing)

And what does our dear Laura Ingalls Wilder have to say?

Laura Ingalls Wilder
HalfPintIngalls Laura Ingalls Wilder
:


@troposphr You really ought to have Dr. Tann look at that muskrat bite because you're foaming at the mouth.

And that's that.

I think it's hilarious, in the same way I think watching my cat totally lose it on a paper crane is hilarious, but the topic of racism and racism in the Little House books as potential for discussion is definitely unfunny, so I put it here.


(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)


[info]kookaburra
2011-01-02 05:08 am UTC (link)
Also, in one of the books Pa participates in a minstrel show. I remember when I read that as an adult and going D:

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]tomato_ja_nai
2011-01-02 05:12 am UTC (link)
...I'm now wondering if I did not so much forget as repress.

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[info]iamnotyourmuse
2011-01-02 06:21 am UTC (link)
My mother read the first four books out loud to me when I was little. I think she probably skipped over a number of things so I wouldn't have to repress them later.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]kookaburra
2011-01-02 06:47 am UTC (link)
Well, I know at least for me, when I read them as a child, I was completely ignorant of what a minstrel show was and what it really was about, so I didn't remember it.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]catmoran
2011-01-02 05:19 am UTC (link)
Oh wow, I'd forgotten about that. o_0

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]funwithrage
2011-01-02 04:29 pm UTC (link)
Seriously. It's one of those things where...yeah, time it was written and whatnot, but still has some seriously cringeworthy bits for modern readers.

See also: Doctor Dolittle, HOLY FUCK.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]shinysandals
2011-01-02 05:24 pm UTC (link)
See also: Tarzan. It's too bad you can't throw a Librivox audiobook across the room...

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]kosaginolegion
2011-01-03 01:14 pm UTC (link)
In Doctor Doolittle's favor, however, the most recent edition was, with Lofting's family's permission, rewritten to take the worst of the racist stereotypes out.

Mileage will vary, of course, but I think they did a good job of it. I wouldn't want the same for Huckleberry Finn because the racism in there was part of the point, but for the Lofting books I think it's a good idea.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]funwithrage
2011-01-03 04:03 pm UTC (link)
I tend to agree. Keep the originals around for college-level "racism and general WTFery in children's books" courses, or whatnot, but if you're dealing with kids and the plot doesn't address racism, take that shit out.

Might not be a bad idea with LHOP, either.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]kosaginolegion
2011-01-03 04:16 pm UTC (link)
I figure if the kid is ready to deal with dystopian SF like "The Hunger Games" they're probably ready to deal with Huckleberry Finn on its own terms. LHOP* at Middle School age as well.

But I only ever liked the first of the series so I'm not in a position to say much about it. Except to note that my great-great(?) grandma Ada Pocahontas hated the First Nation people, as well as her middle name, so it's not out of line for Laura's mother to be racist, or for Laura not to notice it as a bad thing. It's the teachers and readers who need to be discussing it.

*LHOP. Is that anything like Little House of Pancakes?

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]librarianmouse
2011-01-04 05:31 am UTC (link)
They did something similar with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, if I recall correctly. In the original version, the Oompa Loompas were very, shall we say, problematic.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]sepiamagpie
2011-01-04 05:32 am UTC (link)
hell, in the new movie they're little tribespeople he's paying in candy.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]librarianmouse
2011-01-04 06:06 am UTC (link)
In the original, they were banjo-playing African Pigmies he was doing experiments on (while allowing them to eat candy).

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]kosaginolegion
2011-01-04 02:43 pm UTC (link)
Out of curiosity, around when?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]librarianmouse
2011-01-04 03:57 pm UTC (link)
I want to say late sixties? Jane Yolen wrote about it in Touch Magic.

To quote:
"Another author forced by changing attitudes to rework published material was Roald Dahl. In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the original Oompa-Loompahs were little chocolate-colored pygmies who had been discovered in darkest Africa, and who now play their banjos by the side of the chocolate river in Willa Wonka's factory. There they are used by Wonka in a variety of experiments. But - my! are they happy.

"I was a junior editor at Knopf in the early '60s, working on the manuscript of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, having held my job there for less than a month. Dahl was asked by the editor-in-chief to make the Oompa-Loompahs some color other than black, and to drop the references to playing the banjos by the side of the river. But Dahl replied, "Racism is an American problem," and insisted the manuscript not be changed.

"Years later, when racism was also a British problem, Dahl bowed to pressure and changed the Oompa-Loompah's to tiny green-skinned people, shifting their place of origin to a South Sea island. This only slightly mitigated the problem of a different-skinned people being held in semi-benign captivity for the reward of food and a place to live."

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]kosaginolegion
2011-01-04 04:02 pm UTC (link)
Now I realize why I'd not seen quite as much unfortunate racism in the story. I'm young enough (HAH!) to have never so much as laid eyes on the black Oompah Loompahs.

There's still a certain amount, but at least it's not as blatant as dem ol' banjos, I suppose. Still has the good old protectionist attitude, though.

And now I want to see someone writing a story focusing on the Oompah Loompah and having some going to college and becoming something more than just the innocent native protected from the Real World by the White Man. Could even have Charlie helping the kid(s) do so.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]theorclair
2011-01-04 11:13 pm UTC (link)
I saw the movie first, so I always pictured them as orange with green hair. Since it was a tribe that didn't exist in the first place, so their being paid in chocolate didn't bother me.

However, I did find an old edition of the book where they were black pygmies, which was the one I read first. I just mentally substituted the ones from the movies, as even as a seven year old that struck me as off.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]cmdr_zoom
2011-01-05 06:24 pm UTC (link)
OH ROALD DAHL NO

(Reply to this)(Parent)


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