[Vision2020] How to Handle Political Correctness in the Interest of Real History?

[Paul Rumelhart]

Personally, I'd prefer historical accuracy over political correctness.  
I'm sure I'm not alone.  The use of the "N-word" would probably be even 
more effective today in highlighting the cultural differences between 
the two time periods.

Our silly overreactions to these things need to be tamped down.  People 
should, in my opinion, take context into account.  The use of the word 
in a historical context should be just fine, in the name of 
authenticity.  Getting bent out of shape about it doesn't serve us as a 
culture very well.  Stop it's use as an aggressive slur against a 
segment of our society, sure.  But ban it because someone might find the 
word itself offensive, even when it's not being used in a negative way 
(except in the context of the movie or book or whatever)?  Probably 
going too far.

Paul

bear at moscow.com wrote:
> Visionaries,
>
> I ran across this article about a remake of a WW2 movie and wanted some
> input from the great  "unwashed masses" so to speak, of how to handle real
> history in the age of political correctness.
>
> Should the poor dogs real name, in the interest of political correctness,
> be changed?
>
> I fought this battle before in the Army when I was teaching military
> history and wondering what your thoughts are on it.  The incident of
> history that  I ran into was that prior to his rise to command all of the
> US troops in Europe during WW1, General John Pershing was called "Nigger
> Jack"  by his contemporaries to derisively refer to his being in command
> of black troops rather than white soldiers.  The popular thought at the
> time was that he never commanded real troops, just black ones. It was a
> startling discovery at the time I was doing the research, that because of
> the army promotion system, Captain Pershing couldn't be promoted to
> Colonel by the President of the US, but Teddy Roosevelt, solved the
> problem by promoting him to Brigadier General which he was able to do.
>
> NEW DAMBUSTERS MOVIE
> "Dog's name in Dambusters remake causes headache for filmmakers
> It is not the full-scale replica of a Lancaster bomber nor the special
> effects that are causing problems for the makers of a multimillion-pound
> remake of the classic British war movie The Dam Busters.
> The Lord of the Rings trilogy director Peter Jackson is producing the £21
> million movie, to be filmed in Britain and New Zealand, and he has
> promised to be true to the original story.
> However RAF hero Guy Gibson, head of the mission that destroyed German
> dams during the Second World War, had a dog called Nigger and filmmakers
> are now wondering whether they dare utter the N-word in 2009.
> The canine with the politically incorrect name, who featured in the 1951
> book The Dam Busters, was mentioned 12 times in the 1954 film starring Sir
> Michael Redgrave."
>
> =======================================================
>  List services made available by First Step Internet, 
>  serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.   
>                http://www.fsr.net                       
>           mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
> =======================================================
>
>