Political nuances

The subtitle is: "If we insist on holding cultural history to contemporary standards, what will we have left?"

I'm not sure if I agree with that as an argument. The other argument I'm not sure I'm on board with is in the article by Katha Pollitt is that racism and whatnot exists in our society, so it's going to be in art works. The author doesn't write the headlines.

Rewriting the Hardy boys to make it not racist just makes sense. Like it's some stain that can't be removed. I'm not sure if it blots out the beauty of every work. It mars the beauty and I hate to say it, but racism in fiction, rooted in an author's imperfections, might not stop me from reading Laura Ingalls Wilder. 

I feel like Shakespeare is dramatic enough so that he can portray racism, anti-semitism, sexism in his current society, but he's not necessarily condoning, perhaps showing the tragedy. 

Also, I don't feel sad that the family who owns the copyright pulls low selling books that contain racist images. The red herring chasers of the right made hay among the imprecise and biased. 

I saw a meme that if they threw out the racist sexist operas, they would only have 25% left. I'm OK with that, honestly, though I'm not who decides. I guess in the end selling seats decides. I read this discussion on Reddit. I tend to agree that Otelo is about racism in Shakespeare and the opera is based on that, so not racist. Turandot is discussed next. People think you can easily remove racist content. 

"Parsifal and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg are quite overt in their anti-semitism." Wagner was an overt anti-semite, but if you see that documentary by Stephen Fry, he still goes to the operas. I guess everyone has to make up their minds.

Someone asserts, "Magic Flute is hands down my candidate for most sexist and racist opera. " Someone counters, "Not performing it at all is also whitewashing." That's a unique argument, doesn't really land with me.

I liked this post: [start]

Pearl Fishers. Bizet did not give a damn about where it was located. He settled on Ceylon (Sri Lanka) because it was the most "exotic" sounding.

Madame Butterfly is a white man's interpretation of another white man's book based on another white man's journal of traveling through Japan.

Die Entreuoeuschrs aus dem Seriglio straight up says black people are rapists and savage. Probably can add that one "moor" too from Die Zauberflote.

The Mikado. Sure, it's supposed to be a mockery of British politics, but whyyyy did it have to be set in Japan with yellow face? [end]

I wouldn't die if they didn't put on these operas. I felt like Madam Butterfly was racist when I watched it.

One person from Columbia says it's not considered racist to use blackface. I wonder if America gets caught up superficially in small things so it can largely ignore deeper analysis.

Pollitt discusses this: "Consider our de facto segregated public schools and neighborhoods, our crumbling de facto segregated public housing, our shocking rates of child poverty, ill health, and low literacy, and the shocking violence of everyday life to which so many children are exposed. Given these serious—and growing—problems, it’s not whataboutism to wonder why these old books get so much attention."

I like the idea of whataboutism. I learned about a forest shower the other day and I'd say maybe these two things are some modern I can use. I can't use "woke culture" and "virtue signaling"--they smack of jealousy and smoke and mirrors right political blather.