Violence erupts at Ku Klux Klan rally in Anaheim, home of Disneyland

[kupfernigk]

@ficuswhisperer

It’s kind of amazing how seeing the rest of the world can change your views on things like racism and classism (sometimes for better and sometimes for worse).

Yes. After WW2 the attitudes of some British people were changed for the better by visiting the more enlightened parts of the US. But travel does not, as you say, always broaden the mind. Rupert Murdoch went from Australia to the UK and then to the US, and it has hardly caused an improvement.

[anon61221983]

I do think the internet helped with horizontal organization of right wing groups that are hard core white supremacists, although certainly right wing media helped consolidate a sort of mainstreaming of right wing views more generally, but not ones that are openly racist… (despite Trumps reluctance to condemn white supremacy) I don’t think that most mainstream right wingers see themselves as actively practicing white supremacy and would reject comparisons to groups like the KKK, various neo-nazi organizations, or people like Varg Vikernes or Anders Brevik… even if do think that Hitler “had a few good ideas”.

[subextraordinaire]

No, not at all. The founder was only part if the John Birch Society.

(My father never allowed us to visit KBF.)

[Daemonworks]

@Max_Blancke

Didn’t they have a big scare at the University of Missouri during the protests? I usually hear about them as a big, scary menace, not some pathetic looking misfits.

They really are pathetic misfits, and always have been… being a pathetic misfit doesn’t exactly stop you from being a violent nutjob.

[NickSay]

@euansmith

I’m always a bit disconcerted how “liberal” is an insult in the USA.

There’s just something so un-American about aspiring to liberty…

[Synesthesia]

Same here. It’s very, very telling. It’s spreading culturally, too. I’m beggining to see SJW and PC cries down here in argentina’s internet holes.

[LurkingGrue]

Just about nobody white, I think you mean.

I thought it was a given I was talking about white America in the 1940s. Most of the other animation studios of the time were far worse than what Disney was doing. Have you ever seen the stuff Walter Lanz was doing? Have you ever seen the horrible Scrub me Mama with the Boogie beat?

Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat

Hollywood wasn’t all that progressive in the 40s or even the 50s and while the Military let black people in they were not treated all that well.

Military history of African Americans | World War II

Yes, there was the start of some progressive moments right after the war but lets not kid ourselves that Disney wasn’t a part of the attitudes of the time.

I would also ask Floyd Norman how Walt felt about black people:

Disney's first African-American animator: Walt never cared about my color

[anon15383236]

@LurkingGrue

Yes, there was the start of some progressive moments right after the war but lets not kid ourselves that Disney wasn’t a part of the attitudes of the time.

Thanks but even if some animators were even worse, and even if Walt (supposedly) had a racism-absolving “black friend,” I’m still not buying the claim that in terms of its output, the company was ahead of the times in terms of race, instead of behind them.

[wrecksdart]

@L_Mariachi

One imagines Disney characters getting into a rumble with Klansmen.

I’d stick close to Donald Duck–he’s a battlefield beserker if I’ve ever seen one.

[LurkingGrue]

It was the culture of the time they were in, do you not understand that?

Hollywood in the 1940s was miles away from progressive for representation of black people.

The world moved on from there and you have to take those images and films in the context of the time they were made in and not now.

[LDoBe]

I’d get behind Hall of Presidents Lincoln. The guy’s a terminator

[nemomen]

How Disney controls the president:

[Ignatius]

@nevadasteve

How does mentioning Disneyland contribute to this story?

Better than “Home of the Anaheim Ducks.” And educational too. Now I have a pretty good idea why Disney started a hockey team in Anaheim of all places.

[Ignatius]

@myplane150

Does anyone else not see the irony of this. For decades the Liberal left has been the proponents of the right to assemble. Many times for something only ‘they’ believed in or for an unpopular subject matter. If that right is stepped on by protesters they, the left, are the first to cry foul.

Free speech means, among other things, that the government can’t stop you from assembling. Alarmingly this was sharply abridged during George W’s presidency and since I don’t have omniscience at this exact moment, I’ll pretend this isn’t actually a relevant point to bring up to you.

Free speech doesn’t mean that others can’t use their speech to contradict you (possibly best described as Dibs Speech because whoever speaks first is true and right forever … or until they cede their spot in the car).

None of which has anything to do with what happened at this rally.

The government didn’t stop anyone speaking or assembling (they almost never do when it’s the KKK or other violent and/or hateful right wingers … despite frequently doing it to liberals, environmentalists, and other hippie types for whatever reason I’ll also pretend isn’t relevant).

Instead, they enforced the laws against stabbing people with flag poles. And seem to have done a reasonably even job of it.

I feel that’s a sensible and evenhanded compromise from the police. I just wish the “liberal” protestors could get the same deal.