Trigger Warning: This might seriously upset you

[bondwooley]

To explain this week’s lesson on politics, we first need to address “trigger warnings.” This is when websites warn you that an article you’re about to click on might send you into trauma or a psychotic break because it reports on corn syrup. And maybe you just kicked the corn sugar habit and might fall off the wagon if you read it — or you might just go uncontrollably ballistic.

And now, Trigger Warnings are part of college classes. “Hey, we’re reading The Feminine Mystique this week, but if the concept of equal rights upsets you, it’s okay to sit this out and catch up on last season’s CSI: Kabul.”

This all started in 2012 with the best of intentions and probably stems from everyone’s basic desire to protect their many many friends who suffer from clustering allusions, hyperbolic discounting, illusory correlation or impact bias. But we got worried this week when Amazon put a Trigger Warning on some 70-year-old Tom & Jerry cartoons because an illustrated black maid (presumably human) is portrayed in a racist manner and an unidentified illustrated character smokes a cigarette.

Amazon put this warning on their streaming Tom & Jerry collection: “Tom and Jerry shorts may depict some ethnic and racial prejudices that were once commonplace in American society. Such depictions were wrong then and are wrong today.” Fair enough. We’re not contradicting that. It’s true. Parents should probably see a PG-13 rating on material like this in case they’re not ready to explain it, if they live in an America where racism doesn’t still exist, or if they have no idea that any film made in the 1940s is likely to have Stepin Fetchit embarrassingly shuffle past the camera with a cigar.

But this is being echoed in colleges, where people spend a lot of money to learn about the world around them. Even the ones who live in Texas or ended up playing for the Redskins.

Which brings us to this. This very short video is part of our history, too. Many have warned us that its ideas can poison your mind. But let’s see if we can learn something from it as we head into the midterm elections. Oh – Trigger Warning: It might upset you if you’re a Republican.

(Posted by original authors at http://lesterandcharlie.com)

[House of Roberts]

1. If I had a dollar

for every time Thom Hartmann has played this on his show, I'd be retired.

[bondwooley]

2. It's only been seen by 400,000 people

290 million to go.

[House of Roberts]

3. More power to you!

Don't forget the 'economic royalists' speech as a companion piece, it's a classic as well.

[bondwooley]

4. Where can i find that?

Curious.

[House of Roberts]

5. Speech before the 1936 Democratic National Convention

link

These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.

[freshwest]

6. Thank you! I'm going to try to get enough green together to buy the Burns series this fall after

seeing it for free on PBS. It was an eyeopener about what he had to go through in life and even told about compromises he had to make to win WW2. We were fortunate he was there. Thanks for the link to the transcript, too.

[cwydro]

7. I actually got lost

reading the text of your op.

[fayhunter]

8. I disagree

I don't believe in book banning but with the information overload that we're exposed to these days, letting rape victims at least prepare for content in a book about rape is no worse than warning smokers that it might be hazardous to your health.

[Sheldon Cooper]

9. I think those rape victims should just suck it up.

Compared to the great hardship imposed on others by requesting that they read, speak, or type those two extra words, rape victims should just deal with their PTSD on their own. I mean, it's two more whole words, for chrissake! How can we be expected to tolerate that???