| |
Yes, ideally we would have no need for such a thing as Black History Month. Just look at the obvious problems of things like Kwaanza which are historically fraudulent communist Trojan Horses smuggling in the celebration of such things as cooperative economics and collective responsibility.
But ideally we would not live in a society where there are people alive who in their youth knew people who had survived the racist and statist Irish Potato Famine or chattel slavery, for that matter. I can't particularly say what real accomplishment there is for an Objectivist to celebrate on Saint Patrick's Day. But what was once seen as a defiant celebration by the victims of anti-Irish bigotry is happily now a mere cliché. What child in America today suffers anti-Irish bigotry?
There is anti-black bigotry in America. Still. It is obviously not to be remedied by some artificial month-long celebration of a race as such. But I, frankly, find the true meaning of Martin Luther King day infinitely less offensive than the supposed meaning of Thanksgiving. The only problem I have with the celebration of that man's birthday is that it was accomplished by downgrading the celebration of another great black hero, Abraham Lincoln. (Of course there are many here who revile Lincoln as a statist and a tyrant, so not all of you may agree with me on this point.) But the idea of celebrating people of great achievement who happen to be black cannot hurt the cause of ending bigotry.
Of course we have to choose the right type of heroes to celebrate, acceptable, clean cut men like Orenthal James Simpson, and men like Barack Obama who can speak without a black dialect unless he wants to . Celebrating pierced and tattooed athletes and freaks whose only accomplishment is their commercial success in popular entertainment of the most vulgar kind will not do. No, we can't celebrate anything by means of such affronts to our national pride as that uppity pants-wearing "Queenie" singing the national anthem as if it were a gospel song. Everyone knows it's a broadway show tune.
You betta work!
(Edited by Ted Keer on 3/05, 10:02pm)
|
|
