01-07-2020, 09:51 PM
16076
Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)
Well there’s a man I used to admire until I read this recently, John Wayne said this in a recently unearthed interview with Playboy magazine back in 1971 regarding Native Americans.
“I don’t feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them.
there were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves”
What did you expect them to do John, just roll over and let you walk in and take it?
“Particularly, Wayne was unsparingly unsympathetic to the plight of real Native Americans (still termed “Indians” in the parlance of the times) who had been portrayed as adversaries in so many of his films, expressing his viewpoint that they deserved whatever misfortunes had befallen them, and that modern Americans bore no responsibility for addressing wrongs done to Native Americans by previous generations”
I never knew the man was so nasty, that’s him off my Christmas card list.
That reminded me of an old story I heard in the local many years ago.
There was a Native Nigerian and a Native American working on a building site in London, it was their first day on the job and it was a very hot. As they were shovelling out a foundation the Nigerian couldn’t get over the lovely bronze colour of the Native Americans skin, it glistened as the Sun shone down on his bare upper body.
Then the Nigerian asks a question.
“Say man, are you a red Indian? I mean a real red Indian?”
“Sure am” says the Native American”
“I can’t get over the bronze colour of your skin, it’s fantastic”
“Well I can’t help that” says the man, who’s getting annoyed with the Nigerian staring at him all the time and just wants to get on with his work
“My God man!” says the Nigerian “There’s not many of you guys left is there?”
“No, and there wouldn’t be many of you guys left if they had cowboys in Africa?
No doubt led by John Wayne, still I’m a bit stunned about his comments, I was a big fan of his even though he was a lousy actor, but I always thought he was a nice caring liberal sort of fella, considering he was married three times and divorced twice. His three wives, one of Spanish American descent, Josephine Alicia Saenz, and two of Hispanic descent.
Who knows, maybe the 7th Cavalry will turn up just in time to save his statue, led by old yellow hair himself, no not General Custer, but that top Whitehouse basement inspector and Lord protector of statues—- Donald Trump.