(Snicker, snicker)
Posted on 02/22/2019 6:56:32 PM PST by massmike
An LA Times column that called for the removal of John Wayne’s name from California’s Orange County airport is stirring up a lot of debate on social media.
It all started after a 1971 interview the late actor did with Playboy magazine resurfaced earlier this week. Here are excerpts, via Mercury News:
In the Playboy interview, Wayne, then in his 60s and fresh off his Oscar win for “True Grit,” discussed a range of topics, from working in Hollywood to race and sex. One of the more noteworthy quotes in the interview came up in a discussion about African-American political activist and academic Angela Davis.
“With a lot of blacks, there’s quite a bit of resentment along with their dissent, and possibly rightfully so,” Wayne said. “But we can’t all of a sudden get down on our knees and turn everything over to the leadership of the blacks. I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility. I don’t believe in giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people.”
[…]
Also in the interview, Wayne, whose Western films like “The Searchers” were accused of perpetuating stereotypes about Native Americans, accused Native Americans of “selfishly trying to keep (North America) to themselves.”
The Times columnist, Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Hiltzik, wrote in a Thursday piece that the “outspoken racist and homophobe”‘s views no longer represented Orange County. But more than that his argument seemed to boil down to being more about something else.
See if you spot it:
It may have had something to do with Wayne’s status as a rock-ribbed Republican conservative, which was Orange County’s self-image in that period.
But that Orange County no longer exists. That should be evident from the results of November’s election, in which voters turfed out the county’s last remaining GOP members of Congress — some of whom had embraced Donald Trump in a fruitless effort to save their careers–and elected an all-Democratic congressional delegation.
Orange County today is such an economically and ethnically diverse community that it’s hard to justify asking any member of that community to board planes at an airport named after an outspoken racist and homophobe, with his strutting statue occupying a central niche in front of the concourse.
Get it? This is really about politics to Hiltzik. The good Democrats of Orange County shouldn’t have to put up with being subjected to seeing the name and image of someone who was known as a “rock-ribbed Republican conservative” every time they have have to fly out of the county. Because safe spaces and stuff.
For anyone reading this who thinks, “Hey, this isn’t a big deal. It’s one columnist!” – remember this: It only takes one person to start a movement. Consider the fact that this interview resurfaced thanks to a guy on Twitter who has less than 1,000 followers. The Sunday tweet where he references the nearly 50-year-old interview has over 11,000 retweets as of this writing. And a national conversation on the “issue” has now started.
So if you live in Orange County you might want to, as Joe Biden would say, “gird your loins” and prepare for the “REMOVE IT!” movement. It’s coming.
Because in spite of the strong likelihood that the vast majority of people who fly in and out of that airport are not offended by Wayne’s name and image, you will be made to care.
It has already happed to William McKinley here in far northern California... His statue is being deported to Ohio...
Only if JFK is also renamed...
Why do they need an airport at all? AOC’s green new deal does away with airplanes.
Santa Ana was a racist murdering pedophile and enemy General but nobody is saying his name should go
Santa Ana = Saint Ann(e)
The Kennedy Center could be renamed “The Ronald Wilson Reagan Center for the Performing Arts” and I would be quite pleased.
It is ontersting the libtards rip white people for buying and annexing by wars and such parts of America, yet think the african and muslim invading non-assimilating foreigners invading America and Europe are not guilty of doing the exact same things.
We have not seen one thing positive happen in S. CA for years...Everything we vote for fails. It just gets worse in every direction. Pretty much sucks watching this go from the crown jewel of the U.S. to the overcrowded disaster it is today. Good job Democrats. Wait till the pump in 10,000,000 more into the region from needy countries to show how compassionate they are. They’ll be in power for life.
oooooo
Thanks. If you need me, I’ll be the one sitting on the corner stool with the dunce cap on. lol
The Left doesn't waste time when they get power like Republicans do.
I knew this was coming.
The Confederate Flag was the opening salvo.
John Wayne was more of an American than this LA Times writer will ever be. He fought the reds in Hollywood and helped save the careers of some anti-communists, including Ward Bond but he couldn’t save Adolph Menjou.
That is why this LAT clown hates Wayne, because he fought against extremists like him.
I fled Calif 45 yeas ago and have never looked back.
The L.A. county sheriffs office were conducting food riot control drills in the case of a 7.5 or worse earthquake.
Remember, food and water are ALL imported to southern Cal.
Unless of course you can like on citrus and avacados
LOL ... now THERE was a blast from the past!!
I am sorry you have to do what you are having to do. If i were politcally selfish I’d chastise you for weakening further the Conservative vote in Orange County, by your departure, but I can’t and won’t do that. I understand completely.
Where are you looking to go?
BTW we now call the LA Times, The El Segundo Times. They moved from the old location downtown LA to a new location in El Segundo about 15 miles south of the city.
Wayne’s attitudes about “blacks” at the time reflected the simple non-racist ignorance of knowing only what you are familiar with, and I think his range of familiarity with “blacks” at that time was limited; and led to him accepting some stereotypes as always valid. He obviously did not know or see “blacks” that were around then who would and could have given him very different attitudes about “blacks” in general. I am not “blaming” him. That’s just how it was.
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