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ArrestDeathSantis t1_j06cu0m wrote

Reply to comment by djpresstone in Adam Sandler wins the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor by ZylonBane

That's so weird though, I feel like it's missing the point.

Mark Twain was a product of his time but he was also trying to change things, to make them better than they were, to end slavery.

Ofc it doesn't shield his works from criticism yet whenever they are being critiqued it should be taken into consideration.

I'm black and I like Mark Twain. He probably would've looked down on me because of my skin color, after all he wouldn't know better, but I still like him because he helped the idea "colored people should be free too" to propagate.

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LasciviousApemantus t1_j06misv wrote

Have you read his "who is a republic" speech? Honestly its one of the most beautiful inspiring pieces of american writing i have ever read.

If you think N***** Jim was racist then you probably don't understand satire. Its like saying Orwell was a Stalinist or Kafka advocated senseless bureaucracy. The whole point is to skewer the ideology through its satirical portrayal. I mean, by no means was he "politically correct" even for his time. xD But the guy was a champion of liberty and justice for all 100%.

I mean just listen to this excerpt:

"--This Republic's life is not in peril. The nation has sold its honor for a phrase. It has swung itself loose from its safe anchorage and is drifting, its helm is in pirate hands. The stupid phrase needed help, and it got another one: "Even if the war be wrong we are in it and must fight it out: we cannot retire from it without dishonor." Why, not even a burglar could have said it better. We cannot withdraw from this sordid raid because to grant peace to those little people on their terms--independence--would dishonor us.--"

Straight up championing filipino independence and civils rights when no one else would. Speaking the truth with a sharp tongue thats still even more relevant today than it was then. Anyone who shits on Mark Twain has clearly never read Mark Twain.

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ArrestDeathSantis t1_j089fxf wrote

I agree with you, that's exactly what I mean when I say that it's missing the point.

Even when he's being "racially insensitive", he's not doing it to promote a bigoted ideology or as an easy way to fame like modern right wing comedians are doing, he's doing it for the exact opposite.

It's like being mad at Schindler for making Jews work in his factory, basically.

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NURGLICHE t1_j0krihd wrote

Taking jobs away from hard working free people!

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Sad_Butterscotch9057 t1_j092fee wrote

I firmly believe that 'Huckleberry Finn' wasn't banned for racist language: that was the excuse to ban it for teaching youth to make their own ethical choices in rebellion against an unjust society.

I was raised in a staunchly Catholic home, but it was a scene in Huckleberry Finn that helped free me from 'the Church': Huck decides that if freeing Jim would send him to hell (as he was taught) he'd far rather the company in hell.

"It was a close place. I took . . . up [the letter I’d written to Miss Watson], and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: “All right then, I’ll go to hell”—and tore it up. It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming."

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LasciviousApemantus t1_j0bgyyo wrote

Its kind of a theme in Twains writing. That doing the right thing often comes at the cost of doing the wrong thing in the eyes of the public.

This passage is straight up burned into my brain. I think about it so often and it kind of informs my whole moral philosophy: "Every man must speak, and it is a solemn and weighty responsibility not to lightly be flung aside at the bullying of the pulpit, press, or the empty catch phrases of politicians. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may. If you alone of all the nation shall decide one way and that way be the right way according to your convictions of what is right, hold your head high, you have nothing to be ashamed of."

Like god damn dude. Still gives me chills every time i read it. Like its not just a responsibility to fight for what you think is right but also to not fool yourself and fight for a cause you know deep down isn't right and convince yourself that it is. So many people harbor insincere causes or bear flags for a false sense of justice and false sense of morality either because its easy or because it benefits them but he's straight up saying that they're cowards for taking the easy way out. And that real truth and real justice is never the easy road, it's the path less traveled and it takes real courage and conviction to walk that path alone.

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Sad_Butterscotch9057 t1_j0blu27 wrote

Absolutely correct, although it's worth it to reexamine one's convictions, conventional or otherwise.

Also Thoreau:

"Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already."

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andre6682 t1_j08mlmj wrote

well, people are often stupid, like a few centuries ago, when they misinterpreted macchiavellis il principe as an instruction for dictatorships, ignoring the essence of his discorsi as his magnum opus, while the former was just the things he saw were happening and not what he liked, but thought of empirical facts (or at least what he percieved)

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LasciviousApemantus t1_j0bhbdn wrote

I feel like il principe was more a guide on how to navigate a fucked up world that has to operate like this rather than advocating for a world that does operate like that. More pragmatism than nihilism.

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88leo t1_j09pjgw wrote

Its only an insult and completely derogatory now because it was the commonly used adjective at that time. At that time it was just the word used.

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LasciviousApemantus t1_j0b1plg wrote

Yeah theres a lot of stuff that falls into the "euphemistic cycle" where words develop a negative association and are replaced by euphemisms that in turn develop a negative association and are replaced by further euphemisms through a linguistic process called pejoration.

Its Karen's Maxim: All words are doomed to become offensive given enough exposure to time, resentment and sheer boredom.

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88leo t1_j0f78uh wrote

He said N*** Jim to make sure people knew he was referring to a black man, not to be insulting in a sarcastic way, and when you look at it that way he actually may have moved the meaning of the word from a commonly used neutral word to a negative.

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Accomplished-Ad4334 t1_j079bxv wrote

Interesting point. I took a Africana studies class in college and one of the debates with this opinion is that by believing someone was a product of their time, it erases the people who actually did believe that black people deserved rights and were equal like the whites during this period.

Just food for thought.

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ArrestDeathSantis t1_j07ci75 wrote

I understand, but that's not exactly the point I was making.

Mark Twain, for example, did believe that black people deserved rights and deserved to be treated like white people, but he still held some beliefs that conflicted with these ideas.

I'm not saying we should completely ignore the second part to focus on the first, I'm saying we should look at the second part under the light of the first part.

If, on the other hand, he had openly argued in favor of slavery, in favor of an unjust society, then it would be a completely different situation but this is not what he did.

An other good example of this, Schindler. Schindler was antisemitic, he even joined the Nazi party, but he ended saving thousands of Jews by risking his life every second of every day.

John Brown held some racist beliefs too, but he died, hanged, trying to end slavery.

These are people of their time but they elevated themselves above it, above their misconceptions and their prejudices, to fight for what they believed was right.

This not like saying "General Lee was a man of his time", for example.

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WobblyBlade t1_j092tin wrote

"A product of their time" is a reasonable framework to compare people to, because it highlights the areas where they were pushing forward toward something better. It shouldn't be a justification for people that did nothing, or doubled down on the status quo. When someone says look at mark Twain the man was a racist, comparing him to his time is like using a red filter to find the blue lines in a hidden message picture. It highlights the ways they were different and progressive. Or at least it can. Everyone is a product of the culture they came from. What's important is how they pushed forward. We do need to remember that no one breaks the mold completely. We just get to make sure the next generation's mold is better.

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wadamday t1_j07idhc wrote

I'm a pretty big fan of Mark Twain and Tina Fey. I like the self deprecating misdirection of the joke. I don't necessarily agree with the criticism of Mark Twain but at the same time if someone wrote a satirical n***** Jim character today it would not be well received. It's also interesting that Fey made that comment in 2010 and roughly 10 years later several black face scenes from her show 30 Rock have been pulled from streaming services. Some of those scenes I think most people would agree were in bad taste.

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ArrestDeathSantis t1_j07oa8g wrote

I'm not really familiar with Tina Fey's work to be honest, but is she using her work in a politically engaged manner like Mark Twain?

Because that's specifically why I'm defending Mark Twain, he was using his work for equality. He didn't used these words to diminish black people like black faces were used, he used them to promote black people, he used his work that contained some measure of racism to advocate for our rights.

That's completely different than say a modern right wing humorist who makes racist jokes to appeal to a specific audience or to promote a bigoted ideology.

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wadamday t1_j07rqrj wrote

From her sitcom 30 Rock and her time at SNL I would say her political engagement is minor, mostly due to the format of those shows. They often make fun of right leaning people/beliefs but it's not very deep. The comedy style is silly and absurd.

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BadMedAdvice t1_j08evud wrote

Eh... Maybe? He did use a lot of racist speech. But last I looked, the characters that act as racists are portrayed in ways ranging from ignorant to outright stupid. And Mark Twain was a character himself, playing a more yokel type personality than Samuel Clemens really was.

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ArrestDeathSantis t1_j08f1kt wrote

Yes, that's what I said, it's missing the point

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BadMedAdvice t1_j08k9qc wrote

Well, yeah. But you said you think that Mark Twain would likely look down on you for being black. I'm suggesting that may not be true. That the man behind Mark Twain wasn't a racist, by measure of his time or ours. That Mark Twain was a character that was deliberately rough around the edges, and pretty anti-racist by free standards of that time... Which implies that the guy considering that character a hick was less racist than that.

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ArrestDeathSantis t1_j08nv35 wrote

Oh, I hear what you say.

Have you ever heard the expression 'mansplaining'?

I don't particularly agree with it but it's an useful device to explain my point.

Men who are said to mansplain are not necessarily men who hates women, who want to see them enslaved or so, they just have a tendency to believe women know less than them.

This is still sexism. Anyway, so I theorized that it might be possible that he would have seen me in such a way, because of the prejudices and because of the situation of the black population at that time.

That's what I meant by that, and I could be completely wrong, either way I'm not too flustered about it.

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BadMedAdvice t1_j099k3i wrote

Oh, man. Sorry. Didn't intend to make you feel like I was trying to talk over you. I was more trying to play devil's advocate.

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ArrestDeathSantis t1_j09h8tr wrote

Oh nah, we good?

I was just explaining my thought process here, nothing against you, I thought you'd understand where I came from.

Edit: Oh god no that wasn't aimed at you, that was just, as I said, a device to explain what I meant in my original comment that you asked clarification about.

I was just explaining that it might be possible that a man from this era, as enlightened as they may be, may hold similar "soft" prejudices against someone of my complexion, especially in that era.

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88leo t1_j09p7xu wrote

words had different meanings 100 years ago. People now are completely and stubbornly immune to any appreciation of that. Even if understand that there was a different thing being said it doesn't sink in.

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CatchMeWritinQWERTY t1_j08owyk wrote

Yeah I mean she is basically indirectly making that same point. Her statement is not a put down of Twain. She doesn’t see herself as racist and she doesn’t do things in the spirit of putting down marginalized groups but she is acknowledging that she (like Twain and literally every other comedian and satirist) is a product of her times and will have hundreds of jokes or bits that don’t “age well”

I see it as a statement that any comedian who takes risks will say or do something that will cross a line in someone’s mind now or in the future. No one is immune, even the most socially conscious individual.

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ArrestDeathSantis t1_j08pr64 wrote

Well, hear me here.

Doing bigoted jokes because that's en vogue is not the same as doing bigoted bits to deconstruct the idea.

I'm not familiar with Tina Fey's work, as I already pointed out, but it can only be similar if her goals were similar.

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