This is NOT Censorship

[Lew]

I'd post a link, but then I'd get some nasty email from Gae about how I did it wrong and screwed-up the server. I'm in reference, of course, to the Lakota/"Then Little Indians" flap, it's all over the Enquirer.

OK first off, in good lawyerly fashion, let me be clear about my use of the term "censorship" in this instance. I am referring to government censorship, and how it relates to the first amendment.

The Constitution provides that the government cannot abridge the citizens' freedom of speech. Obviously it's a little more complicated than that, but not so much that our schools couldn't teach students about it so we don't have to read such idiotic columns and dissertations written by (and for) people who have no idea what they're talking about.

First and foremost, the Supreme Court has held that constitutional "rights" (as we've all come to know and love them) are not held to the same scrutiny when it comes to children, especially within the context of their school. Nor should they be. For example, take school newspapers. Every now and then you'll hear some student whining about how their "freedom of press" rights were violated. The Courts have held that student newspapers are not the "press" in the traditional sense; they are basically a school extra-cirricular activity and subject to regulation by the school.

Well, same thing here. The government is not prohibiting the Lakota students from reading "Ten Little Indians" on their own. Hell they're all free to get together and perform the play on their own nickel. But there is absolutely no "right" to perform a play, and the school's decision to cancel it is within the purview of the school (obviously I'm not suggesting that kids have no rights; for example, suppose Lakota performed a play but wouldn't let black students participate; in that case there would be a problem). But in this case, Lakota is free to to have a play (or not have it) and they're also free to decide what that play should be.

Now, the foregoing notwithstanding...

Just because I said it wasn't censorship, that doesn't mean I'm implying that it's not stupid. It is absolutely disgraceful that the board allowed Gary Hines to bully them like that. Perhaps they do need more "diversity" training within the Lakota school district. But if that's the case, what they should do is find out Mr. Hines' primary competitor, and award the contract to them.

[gae]

Lew baby, it works like this.

Link to Wiki entry

A couple of things should be noted. First, the play was never published in the US with the hated "N" word. And second, that same "N" word did not and does not have the same connotations in Brit speak as it does here.

(So sayeth she who just finished The Complete Sherlock Holmes and learned the difference between black Indians and red Indians, as opposed to Hindoos and Eskimeaxs.)

Mr. Hines needs to go out and get a damned life.

[Lew]

I concur, Gae. And look, I'm not one of these "this is political correctness out of conrol" types. The fact is, there are legitimate instances when action needs to be taken for the right reasons. For example, it wasn't that long ago that, by law, children born out of wedlock were known as "bastards" (and the statutes governing them known as the bastardy laws). Well obviously as that term had such negative connotations, the legislatures wised-up and changed it to "children born out of wedlock." Now I would hope that no one in their right mind would look at that and say "this is the PC police again."

But when I read where Hines not only believes Lakota is in need of more "diversity training," but that, lo and behold, he just happens to own a company that provides such services.....well, there you go. I wonder if all of this was brought precisely because they haven't retained him. Or to put it another way, if he was a customer of theirs, would he have been making this flap?

[LanDroid]

Instead of fretting about how this play was originally titled, perhaps Hines should turn on a rap music station for 8.6 seconds and worry about that language. [img]redface.gif[/img]

Anyway, the play is now on:

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.d...WS01/311290037

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ November 30, 2007 03:45 PM: Message edited by: LanDroid ]</font>

[Lew]

And don't get me wrong, Lan- if your read through the people who've posted on the Enquirer's board, there is no shortage of the "this is PC gone wild" crowd, and as I said, I am most certainly not of that mindset.

And I will fully concede that Cincinnati does not exactly have the best track record when it comes to race relations. Again, this is demonstrated on the Enquirer board as well.

But like Gae said, the title of the play is "Ten Little Indians," and I actually didn't know that was it's title, I always knew it as "And then there were none." I had no idea of its original title, and truth be told, I have no problem with pointing that out to people.

You've read my throughts on history, I am in favor of throwing it all on the table, not whitewashing it. When I was a kid we used to sing "Swawnee River" in gradeschool (using what I did not know where the "new" lyrics). Not so long ago, I discovered the original lyrics to it, and let's just say, it would be wrong for school kids to sing the original song today.

And let's say a school chorus was going to sing the original song, then yeah, I could see people getting upset. And they would be right, I don't want to go see a bunch of 4th graders singing about "darkies." But if the lyrics have been changed so they aren't offensive...I mean, isn't that what we want?

And there is a context to all of this as well. I do NOT support editing the text "Huckleberry Finn." I'm not sure it's for kiddies, and I think anyone adult-enough to understand it knows Twain's underlying thesis. But if a gradeschool were to put on a play about it, then yeah, I would expect them to clean it up.

[gae]

Lew, you bring up some interesting points, but you have to remember that it's not just race.

As mentioned above, I've been immersed in A. Conan Doyle for the past week and a half, and that is male chauvinism at its finest.

Does that mean that no one should ever read of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson? Hell, I *could* get offended, but I don't.

[LanDroid]

"You've read my thoughts on history, I am in favor of throwing it all on the table, not whitewashing it."

That's what I like about it too, but this doesn't happen often for general public consumption. For example we discussed the opinions of MacArthur and Eisenhower on dropping A-bombs on Japan. Whether they agree with them or not, every American should be aware of those opinions. They are rather shocking, but I think they are that important. But no, I'd guess less than 1% know of those opinions. (Heh, well given that probably 40% don't even know we dropped those bombs maybe that's not so bad. [img]redface.gif[/img] ) The general public prefers a good ol' fashioned whitewash - it blends so well with spin-doctoring, secrecy, New Speak, and so on that completes our decor...

[Lew]

I was gonna say, Lan, the A-bomb debate probably wasn't the best example you could give. Suppose you and I were going to debate this event at a local high school. We never really would be able to get to our actual debate points because we'd have to spend all our time explaining that there was this guy FDR who had the same job as Bush today, and there was, like, this war or something between all these countries...

Now on the other hand, if we debated Kanye vs. Fitty, well, now you're getting somewhere....

[LanDroid]

[img]tongue.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/smarty.gif[/img]

Obviously concern for the missing white chick du jour or details of the celebrity rehab of the week rank way up there in importance too...