Historical or political correctness?

[Tingkai]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Chris 62
Let me guess, you don't know much about the Pacific war either, do you?

I never bothered with this movie, but I understand they built up Dorris Miller, the Black mess boy that grabs a gun and start's blazing away.

For the record, his shipmates felt his heart was in the right place, but he was more of a menace to them then the Japs! (A good source of eyewitnesses to this is Walter Lord's "Day of Infamy", written in the 50s from first hand accounts of the attack.

The PC crowd of that era (much like you now, Tinky) wanted to change history, as the movie makers did, and make it seem he did more, like shooting down several Jap planes, and so, he was awarded a valour medal. (Dorris Miller was fleet boxing champ in the 1930s, and didn't survive WWII ).
[QUOTE]



Uh, Chirs62. My previous message was a lighthearted statement. You know something that is supposed to make you chuckle, not ROTFL, but not serious either.

I'll help you out. The movie Pearl Harbour ranks as one of the worse movies ever made. So anyone who didn't see it should consider themselves lucky. Get6 it? Probably not.

Miller was not awarded the medal for shooting down "several Jap planes" as you claim. He was awarded the medal "distinguished devotion to duty, extraordinary courage and disregard for his own personal safety" which he displayed by manning a machine gun. The movie tried to make him bigger by showing him shooting down aircraft.

Did the US gov't make a hero out of someone who was not? Maybe. The US needed any hero it could find to boost morale. If a hero was manufactured, it was not for "PC" reason. I mean come on. This is 1941 when segregation is alive and well. The politically correct thing at that time was to lynch blacks.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Tingkai: If you aren't the biggest fool here this side of Giancarlo, I don't know who is!

An improbable tale:
A sudden wave of realization hits Imran. "I shouldn't have written that message. The biggest fool here this side of Giancarlo is not Tingkai. I can see the fool clearly now," Imran says to himself as he stares into the bathroom mirror.

Improbable because it would require self-awareness.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Oh, and news for ya... to stare into the bathroom mirror, I couldn't read the computer screen. Moron.

And it is Improbable because I'm not a fool, yet by your statements on this thread (and others), you most certainly are.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


Oh, and news for ya... to stare into the bathroom mirror, I couldn't read the computer screen. Moron.

Very good Imran. Thanks for pointing out the useful fact that you can't look at a computer screen if you are staring at a bathroom mirror. But, uh, what does that have to do with my story about you. Did I say you were using a computer. No.

[Chris 62]

Originally posted by Ramo
The people Columbus mass-murdered were no better than him? I was not aware of the Arawaks in Hispaniola committing genocide at the time (in the most literal sense - complete eradication) or anything morally comparable to such an act.

You know Ramo, since your in smart-ass mode, perhaps you would like to describe these so called mass-murders.

Good luck, cause that only exists in your imagination.

Tinky, read what I said more carefully, and don't try to play that you know history better, we already danced that dance, remember?

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Chris 62
Tinky, read what I said more carefully, and don't try to play that you know history better, we already danced that dance, remember?

Is that the time when you kept tripping and ended up with your foot in your mouth?

[Chris 62]

Originally posted by Tingkai
Is that the time when you kept tripping and ended up with your foot in your mouth?

No, that was in your imagination.

I referring to your being embarrised, made a fool of, and proven wrong by myself and several other posters, go back and look if you have forgotten so soon.

[Berzerker]

Natan] -

It seems to me that the message sent by changing their ethnicities is "we like you and we like what you did, but we'd like you better if you looked more like us." And I don't think that's a message we should be sending to anyone.

Another valid point.

[Ramo]

You know Ramo, since your in smart-ass mode, perhaps you would like to describe these so called mass-murders.

Good luck, cause that only exists in your imagination.

Are you not aware of the Spanish tribute system? In the words of Fernando Columbus (the son of Christopher):

"[The Amerindians] all promised to pay tribute to the Catholic Sovereigns every three months as follows: In Cibao, where the gold mines were, every person of 14 years of age or upward was to pay a large hawk's bell of gold dust; all others were to pay 25 pounds of cotton. Whenever an Indian delivered his tribute, he was to receive a brass or copper token which he must wear about his neck as proof that he made his payment. Any indian found without such a token was to be punished [the punishment was to chop off the person's hands, and leave him to bleed to death]."

This atrocious system turned out to be too impractical eventually, in terms of limiting El Capitain's profits, so he instituted de-facto slavery ("economidia," IIRC) in its place, which caught in the other Spanish colonies.

According to Bartolome de las Casas:

Spaniards "thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of the blades."

Also:

"The husbands and wives were together only every eight or ten months and when they met they were so exhausted and depressed on both sides [...] they ceased to procreate. As for the newly born, they died early becaus their mothers, overworked and famished, had no milk to nurse them and for this reason, while I was in Cuba, 7000 children died in three months. Som mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desperation. [...] In this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work, and children died from lack of milk [...] and in short time this land which was so great so powerful and fertile [...] was depopulated. My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I trembel as I write."

This is at level of what you expect to hear about Auschwitz, about atrocities by the SS. It's the very definition of mass-murder! Thanks to Columbus and his successors, the entire island of Hispaniola was depopulated of its native inhabitants by 1650 from a population between 3*10^5 and 3*10^6 (although disease probably decimated, more or less, the population without Colombus' help).

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Tingkai
Imran . . . stares into the bathroom mirror.

Improbable because it would require self-awareness.

No, improbably because he's having a staring match with me!

[Chris 62]

That's very interesting, Ramo, but how does that make Columbus a mass murderer and not a man of his times?

Why did the Spanish treat the natives this way?

Could it have something to do with the fact that after peaceful contact, the natives murdered all the men he left behind when he returned to Spain, showing them what they were like?

Ask yourself these questions before you climb that high horse.

Columbus day celebrates the day Spain found a new world and opened it for Europe, a monumental turning point in human history, that should never be belittled or forgotten.

Show me one European colonial power or native tribe with clean hands and I'll change my opinion, not before.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
No, improbably because he's having a staring match with me!

Hey! No fair... you can't wear sunglasses!

[Ramo]

That's very interesting, Ramo, but how does that make Columbus a mass murderer and not a man of his times?

Frankly, Columbus astonishes me in terms of his duplicity, praising the Arawaks one moment, slaughtering them the next. He wasn't simply a man of his times.

But the SS of the Third Reich were men of their times, right? They weren't murderers, just a little misguided. Their morality was different from ours, therefore, their actions should be trivialized.

Could it have something to do with the fact that after peaceful contact, the natives murdered all the men he left behind when he returned to Spain, showing them what they were like?

Only after his men roamed the island looking for gold, women to rape, and slaves, were they slaughtered in battle! You call theft, rape, and enslaving "peaceful" behavior?!

Columbus day celebrates the day Spain found a new world and opened it for Europe, a monumental turning point in human history, that should never be belittled or forgotten.

Whatever. Columbus' atrocities, sure as hell, shouldn't be belittled or forgotten.

Show me one European colonial power

Colonialism implies subjagation. Trying to find clean hands among colonial powers is an exercise in futility.

or native tribe with clean hands and I'll change my opinion, not before.

AFAIK, most Arawak tribes had relatively clean hands, for instance.

Most hunter-gatherer groups had clean hands.

But you certainly won't find many American cultures that were as atrocious as the the colonial powers.

[Hoek]

Here is why it was a bad idea to alter it: had they not done so, nobody would have been upset. Blacks and Hispanics (and other firefighters from non-white backgrounds) would not have been offended because it would simply be a portrayal of the most striking photo from September 11. To keep it authentic would in no way imply that non-white people were not killed. Who exactly does the artist need to convince of this? The purpose, it seems, is not to honor firefighters but to do a little bit of social engineering. This ulterior motive is what made this so controversal. If form is to follow function, then the artist should have left it as the picture showed it. Either that or choose another photograph. I admit that I am white, and I don't think that this was the proper venue to debate race relations. There are proper venues for the debate, and it is a real issue, but it was inappropriate to inject the race debate into a sculpture honoring firefighters.

[Tingkai]

If they put up a completely realistic statue of the three white guys then the wrong message would be sent. The statue would be seen as honoring the three guys raising a flag rather then all firefigthers - those who died, those who tried to dig through the rubble to save people and the three men.

Even worse, a completely realistic statue would be completely boring and few people would noticed it once it is made. Even with the change of race, the statue is pretty bad from an aesthetic point of view.

The current design has generated controversy that will at least make many people think every time they see and that's a good thing. Art should make us think. It should make us remember. Mind you, I prefer to see a memorial that does that in a positive way (Think of the power of the Vietnam monument in Washington) rather than negative. The artist took the easy way out on this one.

Anyone have an alternative suggestion for a statue that will honour the NYFD?