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Fastolfe · 01-07-2011, 02:31 AM

The famous controversial comic book Tintin in the congo depicts black people with the usual prejudices of the day: shiny black skin, caricatural faces, and mildly derogatory names such as Snowball. No wonder, it was drawn in 1930 by a Belgian, whose country owned the Congo at the time. Duh...

This one can't be "cleansed". There are offensively-drawn black people from start to finish. Should it be taken off the shelves outright? Of course not. Stupid knee-jerk anti-racist groups would want no better, but intelligent ones should use it to educate children on how people of the past century viewed different people.

Counter-productively, If Tintin in the Congo disappears or Huck Finn becomes PG-13, today's kids won't be able to learn what people of the past did to their fellow human beings, and what they themselves shouldn't be doing. Not to mention, they'll never learn to recognize irony when they see it, as in the case of Mark Twain: whoever thinks the use of the word nigger in Huck Finn is gratuitous should take lessons in rhetoric.

It's not limited to racism either: for example, since the end of WW2, Jewish organizations the world over have lobbied for a strict ban on Nazi literature and memorabilia, as well as criminalizing antisemitic speech - and they got it in many countries. The net result is, there has never been so much antisemitism around since the 20s. Why? Because people are attracted to forbidden things.

Let speech be free, and let education and intelligence help people make sense of it. If you ban it or clean it, whatever you banned or cleaned will rear its ugly head again some day.

01-07-2011, 02:31 AM	#88
Fastolfe Bookworm Posts: 98 Karma: 55796 Join Date: Dec 2010 Device: Sony PRS-650	The famous controversial comic book Tintin in the congo depicts black people with the usual prejudices of the day: shiny black skin, caricatural faces, and mildly derogatory names such as Snowball. No wonder, it was drawn in 1930 by a Belgian, whose country owned the Congo at the time. Duh... This one can't be "cleansed". There are offensively-drawn black people from start to finish. Should it be taken off the shelves outright? Of course not. Stupid knee-jerk anti-racist groups would want no better, but intelligent ones should use it to educate children on how people of the past century viewed different people. Counter-productively, If Tintin in the Congo disappears or Huck Finn becomes PG-13, today's kids won't be able to learn what people of the past did to their fellow human beings, and what they themselves shouldn't be doing. Not to mention, they'll never learn to recognize irony when they see it, as in the case of Mark Twain: whoever thinks the use of the word nigger in Huck Finn is gratuitous should take lessons in rhetoric. It's not limited to racism either: for example, since the end of WW2, Jewish organizations the world over have lobbied for a strict ban on Nazi literature and memorabilia, as well as criminalizing antisemitic speech - and they got it in many countries. The net result is, there has never been so much antisemitism around since the 20s. Why? Because people are attracted to forbidden things. Let speech be free, and let education and intelligence help people make sense of it. If you ban it or clean it, whatever you banned or cleaned will rear its ugly head again some day. Last edited by Fastolfe; 01-07-2011 at 03:32 AM.