What the Frak?
I thought I might take a look at a hundred-year-old newspaper (today’s comes to you from the Charleroi Mail in Charleroi, Pennsylvania) and get a few ads about how women should be baking pies and gratefully (and solely) attending to mens’ needs, when my eyes caught sight of ignorance on a much larger scale.
While the other newspaper items I pulled out for today’s post are (arguably) funny, here is one that had me sitting, slack-jawed, staring at the page wondering how a joke about shooting someone based on race was ever funny. I normally don’t post anything controversial, and I know with our current climate regarding immigration, this might throw a few rocks at the hornet’s nest, but I don’t think it needs to. Regardless of stance on immigration, I think jokes degrading another person’s gender, race or sexual orientation are best left to the makers of South Park, not a local newspaper.
Can we ever judge history from the perspective of the present?
I can, and I will, if what I’m judging is ignorance, hate, and failure by a community leader (newspaper) to consider a world larger than it’s homogenized cup of whole milk.
All right, all right. I’m off my soap box. Here is some brevity from this 100-year-old rag:
Feel free to argue with me in the comments below. Do you feel it’s fair of me to judge a 100-year-old newspaper for racist and ignorant comments? (Keep in mind that my readers are both conservative and liberal, and while I welcome all arguments, you may end up arguing with each other.) 🙂
Love, Marla
