Monday, June 29, 2020

Little Moves

My, how things change.
Lady Antebellum has become Lady A, in recognition of the somewhat tarnished glow of the "old south." A similar fate came to the country-music band Dixie Chicks who will heretofore be referred to only as The Chicks. And they will no longer be whistling, in case you were curious.
Pretty solid cosmetic changes, but changes nonetheless. People are starting to question just how woke they care to be. Many of us have been asleep for a long, long time.
Which is why, when I read the news that Disney was going to rework their Splash Mountain attraction to a Princess and the Frog theme, I took notice. For decades now, Disneyland has kept their little corner of Critter Country an embarrassing little sore that featured characters from their 1946 live action/animated feature Song Of The South. Zipadeedoodah indeed. A movie that is all but completely disavowed by the house that the Mouse built will now be moved to the "remember when" pile of rides. Recent live-action remakes of such classics as Lady and the Tramp and Dumbo have excised some of the more egregious dollops of racial stereotypes. Gone are the Siamese cats from Lady. Away went the crows from Dumbo. As it turns out, all of that pandering to baser elements was just lazy storytelling. Writing real characters with human concerns and complications instead of low-hanging cliches makes it a little more work. But it's worth it.
Speaking of children, at this same time I received notice that the Oakland School Board had voted to dismantle their police force. "School Security Officers" will stop being a thing at the end of 2020. They approved the “George Floyd Resolution” which eliminates the school district's police force of ten sworn officers and fifty unarmed campus safety officers. Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell wrote, "Police in schools are ultimately a symptom of much larger issues. If we are going to really make progress, it is not enough to merely remove the symptom. We have to transform the underlying conditions within the school system that have brought us to this place in the first instance."
Little moves. You can't turn an ocean liner around in a parking lot, it takes a lot of sea. But it can be done. 
Keep watching. And applauding. And helping where you can. 

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