Diversity

[T.Q.]

Black Canadians really have a beef? Black Lives Matter Toronto? Really? Canada’s always been exceptional in that regard.

Off topic, but I'll briefly comment (before getting attacked by roaming jbots)... I think the new "black Canadians" either don't know the history of Canada or they think they're still in the USA and don't know the difference. If they knew the history, they'd be getting down on their knees and thanking their fellow Canadians for setting up the Underground Railroad and helping the escaping black slaves. Unfortunately, they're too easily manipulated by external forces to hate white people (why??? Canada had NO slavery!) and create racial tensions.

There’s something to that. I once asked my Millenial daughter to ask my black friends from the 80s if they experienced racism growing up in Canada. Her response was “even if they didnt recognize it themselves doesn’t mean it wasn’t happening”. Oy Vey! How condescending in itself. LOL

[ConchRepublican]

One of the things that always impressed me about the show was the easy relationship between Thomas and T.C. It was obvious T.C. was his closest friend, he was there to help Thomas during the most important times, but they never made a big thing out of T.C. being black. He was just T.C., and Thomas best friend. No one hitting you over the head, no cring-worthy "buddy-buddy white man/black man" message moments, just two men who experienced horrors together and formed a bond of trust and respect. You believed these characters were indeed close friends.

Yup, not to mention, they made TC the most level-headed, responsible, dependable of the three. Thomas was irresponsible with money, a mooch, etc., Rick was a hothead, a bit of a schlemiel at times, and owed a certain degree of his success to underworld connections. TC, on the other hand, was a successful independent businessman, volunteered with kids, and a completely dependable friend, who also at least had the sense to try to say no to some of Thomas and Rick's more harebrained ideas.

I always thought TC was a great character. I didn't even think of racial BS at that time. I just thought he was a great guy. In Canada, in the 1980's, there were very few black people here. Unlike the US, Canada had no history of black slavery, so basically the only black people here were descendants of escaped slaves from the US - which Canadians had helped across the border to safety. (see Underground Railroad). (In fact, I never even saw a black person in real life until I was in high school - and the solitary black guy I saw was an exchange student from New York.)

Unfortunately - according to "behind the scenes" accounts, the character of TC wasn't similar to the reality of how Roger Mosley felt. I've read that Roger Mosley almost got fired because he was so paranoid about the crew being "racist" against him. He didn't like Hawaii because there weren't many black people there. I was so disappointed when I read that because I thought he was the perfect example of how black people can easily get along with white people. Now I see that it was fiction all along.

I remember reading and hearing about that as well. I don't recall the firing part, but I remember him saying in a interview how he felt like a fish out of water. He's from Watts IIRC and Hawaii was a very different experience for him. I mean, I'm from Queens, New York, but it's Hawaii, I'd figure out how to make it work, but I also remember when a friend from work came to visit me. He was born and raised in a project and then lived in the Bronx afterwards. My neighborhood is relatively quiet (well, not enought for me but that's another story) and it freaked him out. He was uncomfortable without the hustle and bustle. I guess it's just what we get accustomed to.

[Gatchaman]

I'm equally disappointed Roger Mosley felt that way. I don't place blame on him, as he can't help how he feels, but disappointed he felt that way enough to express it in an interview. It won't make me look at T.C. any differently, though. I can separate the actors from the characters, otherwise there is a bunch of TV I wouldn't be able to watch!

But on the lager issue, I never look at diversity in a show. They are what they are. Even The Cosby Show, I wasn't like..."wow, all black people. I wonder if any white dudes will show up now and then." I personally think it's all b.s. I know it was very important to Gene Roddenberry to show it in the future, but I still think it's unnecessary. I could be very naive, I guess.

[ConchRepublican]

Black Canadians really have a beef? Black Lives Matter Toronto? Really? Canada’s always been exceptional in that regard.

Off topic, but I'll briefly comment (before getting attacked by roaming jbots)... I think the new "black Canadians" either don't know the history of Canada or they think they're still in the USA and don't know the difference. If they knew the history, they'd be getting down on their knees and thanking their fellow Canadians for setting up the Underground Railroad and helping the escaping black slaves. Unfortunately, they're too easily manipulated by external forces to hate white people (why??? Canada had NO slavery!) and create racial tensions.

There’s something to that. I once asked my Millenial daughter to ask my black friends from the 80s if they experienced racism growing up in Canada. Her response was “even if they didnt recognize it themselves doesn’t mean it wasn’t happening”. Oy Vey! How condescending in itself. LOL

It's scary when people go out of their way looking to be offended by something. There are enough really bad people and really bad things out there to be concerned about.

[Reef monkey]

One of the things that always impressed me about the show was the easy relationship between Thomas and T.C. It was obvious T.C. was his closest friend, he was there to help Thomas during the most important times, but they never made a big thing out of T.C. being black. He was just T.C., and Thomas best friend. No one hitting you over the head, no cring-worthy "buddy-buddy white man/black man" message moments, just two men who experienced horrors together and formed a bond of trust and respect. You believed these characters were indeed close friends.

Yup, not to mention, they made TC the most level-headed, responsible, dependable of the three. Thomas was irresponsible with money, a mooch, etc., Rick was a hothead, a bit of a schlemiel at times, and owed a certain degree of his success to underworld connections. TC, on the other hand, was a successful independent businessman, volunteered with kids, and a completely dependable friend, who also at least had the sense to try to say no to some of Thomas and Rick's more harebrained ideas.

I always thought TC was a great character. I didn't even think of racial BS at that time. I just thought he was a great guy. In Canada, in the 1980's, there were very few black people here. Unlike the US, Canada had no history of black slavery, so basically the only black people here were descendants of escaped slaves from the US - which Canadians had helped across the border to safety. (see Underground Railroad). (In fact, I never even saw a black person in real life until I was in high school - and the solitary black guy I saw was an exchange student from New York.)

Unfortunately - according to "behind the scenes" accounts, the character of TC wasn't similar to the reality of how Roger Mosley felt. I've read that Roger Mosley almost got fired because he was so paranoid about the crew being "racist" against him. He didn't like Hawaii because there weren't many black people there. I was so disappointed when I read that because I thought he was the perfect example of how black people can easily get along with white people. Now I see that it was fiction all along.

Ah, that sucks that he felt that way, though it's hard not to blame him, he grew up in Watts in the 40s and 50s.

I grew up in the South where we had lots of black people. The funny thing though is that black and white people in the south have been living side by side for so long, often with their families connected to each other for generations, and had to go through all the stuff together, end of slavery, integration, etc., that by the 80s, especially in the urban south, we had hashed through a lot of racial tension. I'm by no means trying to say it was a utopia of racial harmony, but I didn't really understand what real racial tension was until I went to visit my cousins up in Philadelphis. It felt much more "segregated" up there than down here.

[Cagliostro]

Black Canadians really have a beef? Black Lives Matter Toronto? Really? Canada’s always been exceptional in that regard.

Off topic, but I'll briefly comment (before getting attacked by roaming jbots)... I think the new "black Canadians" either don't know the history of Canada or they think they're still in the USA and don't know the difference. If they knew the history, they'd be getting down on their knees and thanking their fellow Canadians for setting up the Underground Railroad and helping the escaping black slaves. Unfortunately, they're too easily manipulated by external forces to hate white people (why??? Canada had NO slavery!) and create racial tensions.

There’s something to that. I once asked my Millenial daughter to ask my black friends from the 80s if they experienced racism growing up in Canada. Her response was “even if they didnt recognize it themselves doesn’t mean it wasn’t happening”. Oy Vey! How condescending in itself. LOL

I say this as a millennial (and no offense to your daughter): that’s a very foolish statement. One of the I’ve always loved MPI because of how deftly it handled issues like race. As to the new Magnum I’ve tried to watch it twice and I just can’t get into it, it feels too much like Hawaii Five-0. Also I’m annoyed that Jay Hernandez is playing Magnum because that probably means he won’t be reprising his roll as Havelock in the fourth season of The Expanse.

[eagle]

Applying 2018 ‘standards’ to the 1980s is a fool’s errand IMHO.

Applying today's standards to any point in history is a fool's errand, yet that is exactly what a large segment of the population is doing. The results of this exercise are things like the toppling of Civil War monuments -- people trying to whitewash history. As the saying goes, learn from history or repeat it. I fear that the choices many people are making will cause us to repeat history rather than learn from it.

[T.Q.]

Applying 2018 ‘standards’ to the 1980s is a fool’s errand IMHO.

Applying today's standards to any point in history is a fool's errand, yet that is exactly what a large segment of the population is doing. The results of this exercise are things like the toppling of Civil War monuments -- people trying to whitewash history. As the saying goes, learn from history or repeat it. I fear that the choices many people are making will cause us to repeat history rather than learn from it.

Yeah, they’re doing that in Canada now.

Removing Sir John A MacDonald statues (one of our ‘founding fathers’) because he was mean to the Indians, sorry aboriginals, sorry First Nations, sorry indigenous.... ARGH!!!

Sir John Alexander Macdonald (11 January 1815 – 6 June 1891) was the first Prime Minister of Canada (1867–1873, 1878–1891). The dominant figure of Canadian Confederation, he had a political career which spanned almost half a century.

[Reef monkey]

Applying 2018 ‘standards’ to the 1980s is a fool’s errand IMHO.

Applying today's standards to any point in history is a fool's errand, yet that is exactly what a large segment of the population is doing. The results of this exercise are things like the toppling of Civil War monuments -- people trying to whitewash history. As the saying goes, learn from history or repeat it. I fear that the choices many people are making will cause us to repeat history rather than learn from it.

Welllllll, yes and no. As a southerner, I’ve seen some of this stuff up close. The middle school I went to got renamed. It was Sydney Lanier Middle School. Sydney Lanier was mostly known as being a poet in the late 1800s, but because he served as a private soldier in the Confederate army, he was deemed not appropriate for a public school. I thought that was unnecessary, but at least they handled it smartly by renaming the school after an excellent former mayor who just recently died, Bob Lanier, so the name barely changed. It’s still popularly called Lanier Middle School. On the other hand, one of the high schools in the district was named Robert E Lee high school. It was only named this in the 50s, at the height of the desegregation fight, and now its student body is primarily African American. It is not appropriate for those students to have to go to a school named after someone who fought to keep them enslaved, and so named for that man as an act of defiance against efforts to give those students an equal and integrated education.

And these civil war memorials, most of them were not simply commemorations of the dead, they were erected in the time of Jim Crow to try to rewrite a treasonous rebellion against our democracy to preserve slavery as some kind of “noble lost cause”. The white washing of history was the erection of these memorials, not in the dismantlement of them. There is plenty of preservation of authentic Civil War history - federally preserved battlefields, etc - that preserves the true story of the folly and loss of life of this horrific war.

[eagle]

Applying 2018 ‘standards’ to the 1980s is a fool’s errand IMHO.

Applying today's standards to any point in history is a fool's errand, yet that is exactly what a large segment of the population is doing. The results of this exercise are things like the toppling of Civil War monuments -- people trying to whitewash history. As the saying goes, learn from history or repeat it. I fear that the choices many people are making will cause us to repeat history rather than learn from it.

Welllllll, yes and no. As a southerner, I’ve seen some of this stuff up close. The middle school I went to got renamed. It was Sydney Lanier Middle School. Sydney Lanier was mostly known as being a poet in the late 1800s, but because he served as a private soldier in the Confederate army, he was deemed not appropriate for a public school. I thought that was unnecessary, but at least they handled it smartly by renaming the school after an excellent former mayor who just recently died, Bob Lanier, so the name barely changed. It’s still popularly called Lanier Middle School. On the other hand, one of the high schools in the district was named Robert E Lee high school. It was only named this in the 50s, at the height of the desegregation fight, and now its student body is primarily African American. It is not appropriate for those students to have to go to a school named after someone who fought to keep them enslaved, and so named for that man as an act of defiance against efforts to give those students an equal and integrated education.

And these civil war memorials, most of them were not simply commemorations of the dead, they were erected in the time of Jim Crow to try to rewrite a treasonous rebellion against our democracy to preserve slavery as some kind of “noble lost cause”. The white washing of history was the erection of these memorials, not in the dismantlement of them. There is plenty of preservation of authentic Civil War history - federally preserved battlefields, etc - that preserves the true story of the folly and loss of life of this horrific war.

Hi Reef Monkey.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I don't claim to be the world's foremost historian, and I'm not here to argue. I think my point is true; maybe I chose a bad example, but the Civil War monument topplings I see have nothing to do with restoring history. Either way, I trust that you know more about history than I do, and will let you have the last word.

[Rembrandt's Girl]

Unfortunately - according to "behind the scenes" accounts, the character of TC wasn't similar to the reality of how Roger Mosley felt. I've read that Roger Mosley almost got fired because he was so paranoid about the crew being "racist" against him. He didn't like Hawaii because there weren't many black people there. I was so disappointed when I read that because I thought he was the perfect example of how black people can easily get along with white people. Now I see that it was fiction all along.

I remember reading and hearing about that as well. I don't recall the firing part, but I remember him saying in a interview how he felt like a fish out of water. He's from Watts IIRC and Hawaii was a very different experience for him. I mean, I'm from Queens, New York, but it's Hawaii, I'd figure out how to make it work, but I also remember when a friend from work came to visit me. He was born and raised in a project and then lived in the Bronx afterwards. My neighborhood is relatively quiet (well, not enought for me but that's another story) and it freaked him out. He was uncomfortable without the hustle and bustle. I guess it's just what we get accustomed to.

You guys might be thinking of this article: http://magnum-mania.com/Forum/viewtopic ... =15#p50683

[Pahonu]

Applying 2018 ‘standards’ to the 1980s is a fool’s errand IMHO.

Applying today's standards to any point in history is a fool's errand, yet that is exactly what a large segment of the population is doing. The results of this exercise are things like the toppling of Civil War monuments -- people trying to whitewash history. As the saying goes, learn from history or repeat it. I fear that the choices many people are making will cause us to repeat history rather than learn from it.

And these civil war memorials, most of them were not simply commemorations of the dead, they were erected in the time of Jim Crow to try to rewrite a treasonous rebellion against our democracy to preserve slavery as some kind of “noble lost cause”. The white washing of history was the erection of these memorials, not in the dismantlement of them. There is plenty of preservation of authentic Civil War history - federally preserved battlefields, etc - that preserves the true story of the folly and loss of life of this horrific war.

Reef Monkey, well stated, and you are spot on. Many Americans don't realize that the erection of most of these monuments and memorials occurred during two particular periods in our nation's history. One comes around the turn of the 20th century, after Plessy v. Ferguson, just as many Southern states were establishing repressive race laws. The second runs from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s—the peak of the civil-rights movement. These monuments reflect the era they were created in as much, if not more than, the era they are dedicated to.

Also, I think it's important to consider that monuments and memorials aren't about simply remembering history from a particular era. We have reams of original written accounts and records, photos, etc... of the Civil War, including the historic battlefields, as you mentioned. It will not be forgotten. Rather these monuments are about what a later generation chooses to celebrate and prioritize about the past. Again, they reflect the era they were created in as much, if not more than, the era they are dedicated to.

[Reef monkey]

Hi Reef Monkey.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I don't claim to be the world's foremost historian, and I'm not here to argue. I think my point is true; maybe I chose a bad example, but the Civil War monument topplings I see have nothing to do with restoring history. Either way, I trust that you know more about history than I do, and will let you have the last word.

No, I see your larger point, it's like the Founding Fathers, people like Washington and Jefferson. They owned slaves and there was the whole Sally Hemmings thing with Jefferson, so some people even question honoring them. I think we need to recognize that times were different, that people have always been and continue to be complicated, nobody is all good, we can continue to honor the positive contributions of people without condoning every aspect of their life.

[Amian]

Hi Reef Monkey.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I don't claim to be the world's foremost historian, and I'm not here to argue. I think my point is true; maybe I chose a bad example, but the Civil War monument topplings I see have nothing to do with restoring history. Either way, I trust that you know more about history than I do, and will let you have the last word.

No, I see your larger point, it's like the Founding Fathers, people like Washington and Jefferson. They owned slaves and there was the whole Sally Hemmings thing with Jefferson, so some people even question honoring them. I think we need to recognize that times were different, that people have always been and continue to be complicated, nobody is all good, we can continue to honor the positive contributions of people without condoning every aspect of their life.

You're right that no one is all good, but weighing the good/bad in each person is important, too. Slavery is a huge tip on the scales toward the bad side. Even in George Washington's time, there were plenty of abolitionist movements and politicians (including John Adams, the 2nd president) who didn't own slaves. Not to mention that George Washington cycled his slaves in and out of PA in order to avoid manumission laws from the time. At the same time, he was a great leader and upheld many wonderful ideals that are at the core of the American experiment. So, yeah, it's complicated. As times change, we reevaluate our past, which is necessary and good.

[Kevster]

Hi Reef Monkey.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I don't claim to be the world's foremost historian, and I'm not here to argue. I think my point is true; maybe I chose a bad example, but the Civil War monument topplings I see have nothing to do with restoring history. Either way, I trust that you know more about history than I do, and will let you have the last word.

No, I see your larger point, it's like the Founding Fathers, people like Washington and Jefferson. They owned slaves and there was the whole Sally Hemmings thing with Jefferson, so some people even question honoring them. I think we need to recognize that times were different, that people have always been and continue to be complicated, nobody is all good, we can continue to honor the positive contributions of people without condoning every aspect of their life.

You're right that no one is all good, but weighing the good/bad in each person is important, too. Slavery is a huge tip on the scales toward the bad side. Even in George Washington's time, there were plenty of abolitionist movements and politicians (including John Adams, the 2nd president) who didn't own slaves. Not to mention that George Washington cycled his slaves in and out of PA in order to avoid manumission laws from the time. At the same time, he was a great leader and upheld many wonderful ideals that are at the core of the American experiment. So, yeah, it's complicated. As times change, we reevaluate our past, which is necessary and good.

Though there are aspects of ancestral culture, like slavery, that are absolutely reprehensible and no excuses can be made for it being accepted today, there are facets of it that are absolutely lost in shadow of the moral outrage. As ugly as it was, the slaves of more "moral" owners were often well cared for, and even deeply adored (asexually). Southern plantations were often small communities unto themselves. Black slaves and black free men often worked the field in virtually the same capacity, but the free men did not have anyone "looking out for them" and their lives were harder than the slaves they worked with. Obviously, neither situation was acceptable, but the solution to the problem required an evolution of culture, mechanization of agriculture, and TIME. Examining the process is fruitful, remembering the cost is a great motivator, but adults throwing a temper tantrum over a statue of someone a community honored can galvanize far more resistance than support...

It's not always the behavior of those in the past that is the problem.