The Wright Brothers - just "Dead White Males"?

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

So is it the customary practice at fashionable dinner parties to open proceedings by reminding everybody that the Wrights are just Honky stiffs? Nothing special at all?

How widespread is Wright-bashing?

[Caligastia]

Also, Laz, I think it's pretty pathetic to attack the author instead of the actual article.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Sorry. Let me address that.

I think the article is bizarre too.

[cinch]

Who is downplaying the Wright Bros.' achievements?

Everything they've said on the news that I've seen has been positive, "100 Year Anniversary of a Great Achievement", type stuff.

I mean... Pick your battles, man!

Also, I should note: I guess it's a good trade-off. Minorities get more attention for great achievements, but missing children who happen to be white get more attention than those who are a minority.

OH, how we suffer.

[Hueij]

Originally posted by Caligastia


I bet there are people on this forum who would support toning down the celebration of an achievement if the achiever is a white male.

Ahh... you poor white male... it must really hurt.

What a load of crap...

[Q Classic]

who was it here who said something about skin color not necessarily meaning you're black? sava, wasn't it ?

because kids, there are no such things as conservative blacks.

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
So is it the customary practice at fashionable dinner parties to open proceedings by reminding everybody that the Wrights are just Honky stiffs? Nothing special at all?

How widespread is Wright-bashing?

Did you even read the article? Ignoring the Wrights is just an example of how the diversity fanatics ignore achievements made by white males.

[Q Classic]

hey, everybody, let's all say awww.... for the poor put-upon white man!

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Caligastia
The point the author is trying to make is that the Wright brothers' achievement is being denigrated because they were white males.

By whom? Where? And for reasons of race? Please.

This author is grinding an axe on a fiction. I've never seen any criticism of the Wright brothers. I have seen recognition for the advances in early aviation being given to other people (and most of them also dead white males), but who is denigrating them?

The telling comment in the article is where he says there is no evidence the Wright brothers designed their machine just for white people. WTF? Who has ever asserted such a thing? Ludicrous strawman.

This author has a chip on his shoulder.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

To back up the points made by Cal and the goon who penned this work of satire, can anyone supply me with names of people who have been ignoring the Wright brothers?

[Boris Godunov]

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=wright+brothers&ei=UTF-8&fr=fp-tab-web-t&cop=mss&tab=

Tell me how long it takes you to find a page "denigrating" or "ignoring" the Wright Brothers acheivement.

[MrFun]

Re: The Wright Brothers - just "Dead White Males"?

Originally posted by Caligastia

The Wright stuff
Thomas Sowell (archive)


December 10, 2003


Alas, Orville and Wilbur Wright are today pigeon-holed as "dead white males" whom we are supposed to ignore, if not deplore. Had either of them been a woman, or black or any of a number of other specially singled out groups, this hundredth anniversary of their flight would be a national holiday with an orgy of parades and speeches across the length and breadth of the country.

This mania for "diversity" has spread far and wide. When I looked through my nieces' high school math book, I saw many pictures of noted mathematicians but -- judging by those pictures -- you would never dream that anything worth noting had ever been done in mathematics by any white males.

But history cannot be a reality check for today's fashionable visions when history is itself shaped by those visions. When that happens, we are sealing ourselves up in a closed world of assumptions.

There is no evidence that the Wright brothers intended the airplane to be flown, or ridden in, only by white people. Many of the great breakthroughs in science and technology were gifts to the whole human race. Those whose efforts created these breakthroughs were exalted because of their contributions to mankind, not to their particular tribe or sex.

In trying to cheapen those people as "dead white males" we only cheapen ourselves and do nothing to promote similar achievements by people of every description. When the Wright brothers rose off the ground, we all rose off the ground.

Cal -- are you just as paranoid or neurotic as Park Avenue when it comes to believing that white, straight men are being persecuted today?


First off -- we should never degrade achievements made by white, straight men -- that would be racist, and just plain anti-intellectual to cater to extremists who distort history.


Secondly -- never confuse intellectual, scholarly history that appreciates achievements made by various other groups of people who were not white, straight, Protestant men with rantings made by extremists who make it their hobby to degrade white, straight men.


Third -- as long as white, straight men control the world's wealth and resources, and as long as people of minority groups still face the legacies of past discrimination and persecution through today's poverty, white, straight men never have to fear "persecution."

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Caligastia
The point the author is trying to make is that the Wright brothers' achievement is being denigrated because they were white males.

Well, their "achievement" was also poorly documented, unwitnessed except by a few people working with them, and came a bit after the Froggy with the prop driven balloon who flew around Paris well before the Wrights did their thing.

It wasn't like it was a clean, unique advance in technology - the difference was that lift from the Wright aircraft was solely based on the airfoils, not on a hybrid balloon, but they did not have the first powered flight or controlled flight.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
To back up the points made by Cal and the goon who penned this work of satire, can anyone supply me with names of people who have been ignoring the Wright brothers?

I generally ignore them until someone mentions them. They are a bit overrated, after all.

[Caligastia]

To put it in the most basic terms possible, this article is about individuals who are willing to pervert history in order to serve their own ideology. That this happens is undeniable.

Laz, Boris, and others, you can stop knocking down that strawman now. Nobody is claiming evidence of some vast conspiracy against white males or the Wright brothers.