This is a very thought-provoking piece, Matthew. I do have a bit of a problem with your discussion of Birth of a Nation, however. I'm a film student and thus have had experience with the film in a classroom setting. Your arguments against the film are justified but ill-informed.

The film doesn't remain a classic because of it's controversial imagery, but rather despite it. It is the oldest example of a film of its type and demonstrates numerous techniques that were considered bold and experimental for the time. By some chance of fate, D.W. Griffith's films are some of the best preserved of the silent era and thus he often recieves a bit more credit than he should, but nonetheless the film is a remarkable technical and narrative achievement. Supposedly it is the first film to have even featured the technique of cross-cutting simultaneous events in two separate narrative threads - a technique we take very much for granted now. It's important to know the history of the medium when you're learning to make - or study - the art of film.

Also, you mention that the film continues to be dicussed "despite its racial overtones." Are we not meant to discuss things simply because they are controversial? It's also a mistake to think that we don't discuss those things as well - much was made in my film history classes about the racism of the film and how it related to American history and, particularly, the history of the KKK. We still watch Nazi propaganda films including Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, but this isn't turning us into a classroom of Nazis. It's possible to reach a level of critical distance from a work - we don't study these films for entertainment but for scholarship.

Your link on the Ted Danson bit doesn't go to a picture of Danson but back to the original picture of the "offensive" image.

Some of your language leaves a little ambiguity about your motives, for example:

"Offensive racist images of the past, including this one, are never going to have complete acceptance."

What kind of acceptance are you talking about here?

I'm not knocking you, just pointing that out.

Anyway, I think (as a white person who considers himself to be an anti racist activist) I would say that the images are worth looking at and studying because of what they say about our history. Many people are ignorant of the terrible oppression that we subjected African Americans to.

I can't say how many white men have talked to me about how angry they are about affirmative action and supposed special treatment for African Americans. I try to explain to them that there is a whole historical context of violence, lynching, terrorism, and cultural genocide against the people who were brought here as slaves. Any time we talk about racism in todays society, we need to talk about that history.

Its very easy to forget what America was like 40 years ago - and when we forget that, we are more likely to perpetuate stereotypes today. That is, if we are not aware of the roots of our stereotypes, we can't understand them fully.

Any discussion of racist imagery is useful for reminding us of what was, not too long ago, absolutely normal. Luckily, now this sort of racist artwork has moved to the edges - it is either produced by outright racists, or it is used by black comedians to make us laugh, and maybe to make us think a little bit about race in our society.

The model in the picture is obviously having a little fun. You might even think that she's mocking what is represented by the statuettes. She is clearly not looking uncomfortable or pissed off. She has moved on. Maybe you can move on, too.

The model in the picture looks quite young, perhaps too young to remember when those old stereotypes were used to perpetuate the myths that supported segregation, disenfranchisement, and other forms of oppression and tyranny.

Maybe the fact that a young woman -- likely born in the 1980s -- looks at such imagery as a joke is a sign that the generations coming up now view those issues as ironic anachronisms from some bygone era, ancient history that is ridiculous, rather than offensive, in the context of the 21st century.

And futuregeek is right, we must never forget our history, not only so we don't end up repeating it, but so we can realize just how far we've come in the last half-century or so.

Brother McKay makes some good points about the founding classic of cinema, Birth of a Nation.

However, I'm going to have to go ahead and disagree with his first sentence calling this a "thought-provoking piece." In fact, that is exactly backwards. I'm sure Matthew wasn't framing it as such in his mind when he wrote it, but the point of this is in fact thought suppression. We shouldn't be looking at this or that "offensive" image.

So of course, that should be the first order of business. Matthew should have displayed the supposedly controversial image for us to make up our own minds rather than just telling us that we should be offended.

This whole article is, however unintentionally, a perfect small illustration of the actual illiberalism of modern leftists, concerned with suppressing historical artifacts or "racist" thoughts more than with doing anything to actually help people.

I suspect that the bad thing here is supposed to be her smiling reaction. I doubt Matthew would have been upset if Ms Provide had an appropriate scowl on her face, giving off the proper sense of victimhood and outrage.

Besides which, I don't see what's so outrageously "racist" about these little coin banks. I suppose you could call them "racist" because they are caricatures, with big lips. Then again, Ms Provide has some big lips there, too- except they look a lot cuter on her than on a piggy bank.

There are plenty of similar vintage caricatures of hillbillies, and my neighbors don't have fits of hurt feeling when they see them. Personally, I'd love to have some advertising images of the original Mountain Dew icon, with the hole shot through his cap, presumably from feudin'.

To get the proper offense, you have to carefully load onto these 50 or 100 year old knick-knacks every bit of bad racial history in the country. You CAN decide that you're going to make these meaningless little hunks of metal into powerful evil symbols of slavery and Jim Crow- but that's an arbitrary insertion on your part, not necessarily having a thing to do with the thoughts of the creators of these pieces.

Whereas, I look at the picture and see a strong black woman who isn't going to have her itty bitty feelings hurt by some meaningless trinkets from before she was born. They may mess up the progressive mind of Mr Milam, but they obviously have no power over HER.

But far worse would be Mr Milam's apparent desire to suppress Birth of a Nation. That would be really, really wrong. That film is critically important in film history. It's pretty much the first real movie, as we would understand such a thing today. That makes it a vital historical document.

The racial issues of the film make it yet even far more valuable, a unique and eloquent window into the thinking of the time. Now, if it makes you feel better, you can just say BOAN is RACIST, Griffith BAD, and leave it at that. He has bad, wrong attitudes, so we shouldn't hear what he was saying.

Or if you actually want to understand something of our history, and the motivations of people whose outlooks we think are wrong, perhaps you need to STUDY that thinking. What was Griffith thinking? Did he have animosity towards black people? Not really, not on the basis of his film, anyway. Crippling paternalism would be a better general description of his apparent attitudes toward black folk. It would behoove one to spend a little time untangling his thinking to see what his concerns were, and in exactly what ways he was wrong- or maybe even right on some points.

Uh oh- bad thought, must backtrack! Griffith had NO legitimate thoughts. He was a bad, bad man. Do NOT look at his movie. You will become a racist and go to hell.

Titus 1:15 - Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.

Stereotypes are everywhere, and always will be. For instance, I'm 2nd generation Irish-American, which people often find difficult to believe because I'm not a redhead and my eyes are brown. Go fig. My wife is a German citizen, but she's not the Aryan stereotype, either.
But we all know that the Irish or drunken brawlers and Germans are all militaristic, right?
Here's how to combat racial and ethnic stereotypes--accept them for what they are and render them impotent by saying, "and your point is..?"
NWA, regardless of what you may think of their music, did just that by proclaiming themselves "Niggas with Attitude", in effect disarming critics in their tracks, at least in stereotyping them. You turn the racists' weapons against them.

Ray, I'm seeing actually specifically the opposite of your point about NWA. It's one thing when Richard Pryor is turning the word inside out, but NWA were at great pains to perpetuate the negative stereotypes of black people. I don't see any irony, or rebellion against negative stereotypes when, for example, Eazy E (I think it was) declares that "I'll blast them [cops] now and not next time, cause I'm sneaky as f(*k when it comes to crime."

How is that NOT simply a perpetuation of bad images of blacks, and upping the ante by being PROUD of being a violent criminal? Not that it ain't a classic song, but it does seem to work directly counter to improving the image of his people.

Now there's a stereotype, one that's self-inflicted at that, worth worrying over. That gangsta image is detrimental, and anyone who thinks it ain't has got a screw loose.

Everything is racist if you're a racist racial demogogue yourself. And America is full of these types which perpetuate the idea that if you're no white you're allowed to do or say anything without reproach.

Take the duke rape case. A black woman accuses several white men of rape and automatically the men are guilty and if they are not found so it is because of racism. yet you have supporters of the woman on tv screaming black power... and that's not racist?

Anyone who wasn't in fact racist would say that in a case like this all of the facts should be obtained that possibly could be obtained and the fact that there people of different races involved doesn't matter.

Some people say it does matter though. They that motivation matters after a crime has been committed, such as where hate crimes are concerned. Well the law doesn't care about motivation and neither should we if we really want to be color blind.

I did preface that statement with "regardless of what you think of their music." For good or bad, it did render the so called "N" word impotent.
I'm not saying that there aren't negative aspects to that culture, but if you saw "Jackie Brown," you have to admit Samuel L. Jacksons character would have not rung true if he said, "Why you wanna do a young, disenfranchised African-American that way?"

Ray, I'm not at all arguing against any use of "the N word," but about the NWA usage. There are all different types of usage of the word by different people of different races in Tarantino movies, and the word means significantly different things depending on the character. You might look at that as breaking down the word, and dispersing the supposed evil potency of the term.

But NWA means pretty much exactly one thing with it. It's not particularly the one word that is problematic, but the whole idea of what they're saying. All those things are adding to, and purposely, consciously aggravating and adding to the worst possible ways you could take the word "nigger." There's no obvious ironic distance. I totally fail to see how "F*#k the Police" renders the word impotent. It would appear to directly EMBELLISH the meaning of the word.

Perhaps NWA was a bad analogy, but at the time, they did alter the culture of the word. My point is only that stereotypes are just that, and to turn them against the racists is inherently a good thing. Unfortunately, sometimes the weapons backfire.

Al said:

This whole article is, however unintentionally, a perfect small illustration of the actual illiberalism of modern leftists, concerned with suppressing historical artifacts or "racist" thoughts more than with doing anything to actually help people.

I like the way you just had to throw in a cheap shot at the 'libruls' here. Trading in racist stereotypes for political ones, eh?

Many blacks have large lips, get over it. The people of the generation that created the little figures were simply not yet programmed to ignore reality and regurgitate PC fantasy as many today are. If you could see through your effiminate liberal white guilt you would realize that many stereotypes were total malarcky but others, and here's the scary part for you to admit, were true.

Stereotypes speak of unfortunate realities that we choose to suppress or ignore rather than face. The facts of life are this, all men were not created equally. Genetics beyond our control limit the potential for our hair color, athletic and musical ability, intelligence, temperament, perceived beauty or ugliness, body type and weight, sex and sexual orientation, susceptibility to addiction and specific diseases, and yes even the size of our lips and width of our nose.

Those traits are passed to individuals from their parents and families who got them from theirs. Different groups, tribes, families, and races contain different proportions of differing characteristics.

If admitting that genetic differences in individuals, families, and in what we term races exist in areas that affect life outcomes is racism then count me in, only I'd prefer that we start calling it by its real name, science.

You regurgitate that racism is ignorance, I say that choosing to believe a pleasant lie over an unfortunate truth is the height of stupidity.

RedTard that sound suspiciously like a lecture on evolution?

I believe evolution to be true and that we are still in the process. We have removed many of the natural selections that plagued us for millenia and replaced them with others but we haven't stopped evolving, just changed the direction that it takes.

Eugenics is moot for me, we will be able to directly manipulate DNA sequences long before humans change much from our current state. No need to kill (or let die) dummies, fatasses, or carriers of genetic disorders, just give their kids a little DNA upgrade.

If a little prenatal investment in gene therapy now can prevent a lifetime behind bars or a government sponsored quadruple bypass in the future it' only a matter of time till it becomes reality, the modern kinder and gentler eugenics.

Redtard, you just gave credence to the premise of de-evolution. Liberalism has nothing to do with this--and, since I am a liberal who is not opposed to kicking ass when necessary, I will say that whatever gene pool coughed you up hopefully has gone dry by now.

Because I advocate gene therapy? You're having quite a reaction to my opinion. Who programmed that into you and what were there motives?

I understand why you choose to take the easy road and ignore reality, it's convenient, it doesn't get you shunned and threatened.

As for deevolution, I'm not sure I understand what you mean unless you wre talking about bringing back extinct beings or something. There is no such thing as de-evolution, it's just evolution in a different direction.

Redtard,

Are you saying that there is such a thing as race?

RedTard, I just was studying your comment 15, and I am Deeply Offended. Your comments would appear to be mere excuse making, attempting to get the oppressive white patriarchy ie the Bush family off the hook for having oppressed the shit out of everybody. Boo! Down with The Man!

Bad Tard, no biscuit.

What would give you that impression Al? I believe in a colorblind society based on merit and not race/ethnicity. There are only a sparse few examples of legalized discrimination left and almost all of them favor minorities and women.

The wealthy class is very white and the certainly scratch eath other's back, but there's nothing really stopping anyone from joining them other than lack of ambition/talent. The internet is a great example. No one can look at a site a determine your race. Tons of people had made millions or billions and still the majority of the ones I have noted are men of either white or Indian descent. Why is that? I don't have the answer but I know it's not my fault and I get tired of getting blamed for this or that groups lack of success.

As someone who makes a living off the Internet (I own a website design business) I have to tell you, RedTard, that making "millions or billions" is still done the old-fashioned way. If you want to start the next Yahoo, you will need things like venture capital. You will need connections and help from people who are already in the business world. Sure, in the dot-com boom, companies popped up like mushrooms after a rain, but they shrivelled up like mushrooms in a drought, too, exactly _because_ they didn't have the background or the connections to succeed with whatever idea they were running with. They had the ideas (and some were even good ones) but they didn't have the business support system. And, sad but true, much of that support system _is_ still the "old boy network." Tribalism is alive and well -- people want to deal with other people they think are like themselves. It might be the color of their skin, or where they went to college, or their religion, or something else, but it exists. And it comes in all colors. FUBU anyone? No one can tell your race, your sex, or whatever, from your website -- but that website is only the last step in building a business online.

There are a lot of reasons people don't succeed in business. Just wanting something really hard isn't good enough. You need everything else, from your own skillset to your business concept to your support system, all optimal. If you're lacking any one of those ... no skills, dumb idea, no support, etc. ... you will fail (over 80% of new businesses do within their first couple of years). If you happen to be starting out hampered in one of those areas, your chances of failing are much, much greater.

Ambition and talent are not enough. They're simply two of the things you can't survive in business without. But they're only two out of many, and those other elements are not always distributed equally.

For your information I don;t need to defend the shot. To me it ia a comment on the day to day racial minefield some of us still have to step through.

Some have racism, and some have racism to an even worse degree. The bottom line is that in 2006 being called nigger, being referred to as colored, being job denied, seeing new suburan homes go up with "lawn jockeys" on the property, and the list goes on should not be occuring today.

My email is open for questions or corrections to my way of thinking but the author seems to have his answers.