Context Matters

<hauls out soapbox. Again.>

Content Warning - this episode of Jenn Does Not Grok contains adult language that Jenn - yes, that Sailor-Mouth Jenn - never actually uses. Statements are made from a point of cishet white privilege. Also sarcasm, grumpiness, and horrified incredulous laughter.

I had a person (a fair-skinned, blonde femme person who I think was female, but I don't want to assume) say something to me today - apparently in all seriousness without a trace of irony - that shocked me into you-have-taken-it-too-far mode. I am not generally that person, the one who thinks "all this political correctness has gone too far," but this one made me WTF all over the floor.

They said, "We shouldn't teach any of the old authors to our kids; even Shakespeare was a sexist, racist, transphobic cunt."

Leaving aside for the moment the dichotomy of (evidently a white woman) using that particular derogatory word for a woman in a speech about how sexist long-dead male authors were (and the speaker was not audibly British, Australian, Kiwi, or any of the other countries that use this slur as a crude term but not an actual swear), how can they actually say that with a straight face? I mean, of course, Shakespeare was racist and sexist by the standards of 2018. (I can only assume that "transphobic" was included in their list because of the crossdressing-for-disguise in plays such as Twelfth Night and As You Like It.)

But those plays were written four hundred-plus years ago. In a different time, a different country, and you really think we shouldn't teach them because they come across as racist and sexist now? My teenager - hell, my tween - know better than that. They can be indignant about the unfairness of things but understand that it's a different time and place and fiction.

I mean, I kind of get it for current folks who are still alive. I'm not an Orson Scott Card fan, for instance; although I can acknowledge that he is an excellent craftsman in his writing, I don't like his personal views. I have lots of friends who despise JK Rowling for racism (of the skin tone variety) at Hogwarts and for straying from her lane in the mythologies in Fantastic Beasts. The Bills (Clinton and Cosby), etc. (and I'm not including the likes of Trump or DeVos or McConnell or Kavanaugh here; as far as I can tell they haven't done anything at all for the good of anyone but themselves and others like them. Harvey Weinstein seems to me to be somewhere between these two categories).

I don't understand it as much for the Susan B. Anthonys of the world. She was racist, certainly, but we continue to get up in arms about her racism a hundred and ten years ago, when - I feel - we should be celebrating her work in women's rights. And that sort of racism was common at the time, even expected. To me, Susie B is about context and baby steps.

Do we just toss out all of someone's good works because, in retrospect, they were racist, or sexist, or whatever? And how far back do we go? Stan Lee just died, and there are allegations about him. Do we toss out the baby with the bathwater and never web sling again? How about Gene Roddenberry? He was a total horndog who had multiple affairs, but he brought us some of the most forward-looking social-justice-aware fiction of its time. Susan B Anthony? William Shakespeare?

I would be sad if these people had to be absolutely perfect by today's standards in order for us to enjoy all the good things they've done.

And don't start with me one the outliers. Yeah, yeah, Hitler loved his mom. Mussolini made the trains run on time. Not the same thing at all. I'm talking about people who have done a lot of good (how many kids did Lee or Cosby inspire, for instance?) but have done things that sucked. Really sucked. Who did horrible things to people, or were sexist asshats or whatever.

I believe that gender and sexuality and mental processes are on spectra. Do we have to be so binary in our judgment?

I hope not.