All this means is that the Thomas franchise has existed long enough to be publishing books since when that word was still in common parlance. I’m sure if you looked at anything from that era, it wouldn’t take long to find something that appears problematic through a modern lens.
Believe it or not, it was not “normal” to use slurs in children’s books in 1952.
There are Marvel comics from the 1940’s with characters straight out of ministrel shows and they still don’t use the word. Would you like to guess why?
Edit: not that it stopped Dr Seuss a couple times in the 30’s, mind you, but he reserved it for comics and not his children’s books, those only got racist caricatures.
The word carried somewhat less of a charge in the UK at the time, where black people were relatively uncommon until waves of labour migration from the Caribbean in the 1950s, than in the US, where it was freighted with the weight of slavery, the KKK, Jim Crow laws and such. Agatha Christie could call a book “10 Little N_s”, alluding to a children’s rhyme. This was an age in which the children who casually sang that rhyme probably had golliwog dolls.
Setting aside the incorrect notion that there weren’t black people in England until the 50s, the story in question was published in 1951 and remained in print into the 1970s.
Sure, absolutely no history of slavery and colonialism in the UK. There definitely aren’t a dozen Kipling stories where he calls anyone not a WASP by the term.
While Britain participated in the slave trade, they went out of their way to not do so in Britain; the slaveholders kept their slaves abroad and out of sight, in places where the laws of civilisation which rule such institutions to be obscene are waived. (Sugarcane plantations in the Caribbean were one such place.) And it was impolite to inquire too hard about the sources of fortunes that built stately homes.
The difference being that when the N-word was uttered in Britain, it was belittling and condescending in an exoticising way, like a colonial-era picture book of funny foreigners in their traditional costumes. In America, however, it had a more immediate edge of aggression and violence, implying an other that’s here rather than far away, and firmly below the speaker in the established racial hierarchy, and who must be kept there using tools including designating them as a (N-word).
Just because you refuse to understand that acceptance of a word, no matter how foul, was entirely dependant on the region it was used doesn’t mean Lemmy or anyone else is accepting it. People here just understand that Britain in the 1950s was far different in cultural acceptance than the US in 1950.
Just like the USA using “That’s gay” as a casual insult as late as the mid 2000s is now considered inappropriate today. I’m queer and I know Brits who still say “pass me a fag”. Guess who isn’t upset about hearing that because I’m not a moron.
All this means is that the Thomas franchise has existed long enough to be publishing books since when that word was still in common parlance. I’m sure if you looked at anything from that era, it wouldn’t take long to find something that appears problematic through a modern lens.
Believe it or not, it was not “normal” to use slurs in children’s books in 1952.
There are Marvel comics from the 1940’s with characters straight out of ministrel shows and they still don’t use the word. Would you like to guess why?
Edit: not that it stopped Dr Seuss a couple times in the 30’s, mind you, but he reserved it for comics and not his children’s books, those only got racist caricatures.
The word carried somewhat less of a charge in the UK at the time, where black people were relatively uncommon until waves of labour migration from the Caribbean in the 1950s, than in the US, where it was freighted with the weight of slavery, the KKK, Jim Crow laws and such. Agatha Christie could call a book “10 Little N_s”, alluding to a children’s rhyme. This was an age in which the children who casually sang that rhyme probably had golliwog dolls.
Setting aside the incorrect notion that there weren’t black people in England until the 50s, the story in question was published in 1951 and remained in print into the 1970s.
“relatevily uncommon” != “there weren’t”
Yes, and Black soldiers took part in D-Day seven years prior.
Sure, absolutely no history of slavery and colonialism in the UK. There definitely aren’t a dozen Kipling stories where he calls anyone not a WASP by the term.
While Britain participated in the slave trade, they went out of their way to not do so in Britain; the slaveholders kept their slaves abroad and out of sight, in places where the laws of civilisation which rule such institutions to be obscene are waived. (Sugarcane plantations in the Caribbean were one such place.) And it was impolite to inquire too hard about the sources of fortunes that built stately homes.
The difference being that when the N-word was uttered in Britain, it was belittling and condescending in an exoticising way, like a colonial-era picture book of funny foreigners in their traditional costumes. In America, however, it had a more immediate edge of aggression and violence, implying an other that’s here rather than far away, and firmly below the speaker in the established racial hierarchy, and who must be kept there using tools including designating them as a (N-word).
Those were exceedingly good stories though!
I just checked my copy of the book. Even though it was first published in 1939, my copy was still published under the original titlein 1963.
pretty sure that racism in the days of yore was still racist (please remember who decided what was appropriate in common parlance back then)
And nobody denied that. The statement was “racism was normal in those days”, and not “the n-word wasn’t racist in those days”.
You’re not allowed to criticize or point out Southern Klans members because it was the style of the time.
Lemmy’s just becoming worse and worse these days.
Again, nobody said that. You keep just making shit up.
…are you okay? automatically assuming the worst possible meaning of ambiguous statements doesn’t seem healthy.
what about this: “pointing the klansmen out to people back then was harder because the average person was more racist.”
I grow more and more tired of humanity being a constant idiot parade but that’s nothing new.
Just because you refuse to understand that acceptance of a word, no matter how foul, was entirely dependant on the region it was used doesn’t mean Lemmy or anyone else is accepting it. People here just understand that Britain in the 1950s was far different in cultural acceptance than the US in 1950.
Just like the USA using “That’s gay” as a casual insult as late as the mid 2000s is now considered inappropriate today. I’m queer and I know Brits who still say “pass me a fag”. Guess who isn’t upset about hearing that because I’m not a moron.
they do say that if you always expect the worst you’re never disappointed… but it definitely won’t make you happy.
the hays code didn’t apply to colloquial speech, it applied to movies.
The Hayes Code didn’t apply to books at all, it was movie specific. I assumed they were talking about the dominant culture at the time.
it just cracks me up because if you look for Hays violating shit, it’s everywhere back then. If they wanted to sing about sex, they sang about food.
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See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Then_There_Were_None (Agatha Christie, 1939)