Utopia Talk / Politics / John Wayne Airport must be renamed!

Victim Member	Mon Feb 25 09:26:22 He represents everything that is wrong with old white men. http://www...erview-sparks-controversy.html I believe in white supremacy!' Calls for John Wayne Airport to be renamed after screen legend's 1971 Playboy interview resurfaces sparking outrage over his racist and homophobic views John Wayne Airport is the official name for Orange County airport in Santa Ana A 1971 interview Wayne gave to Playboy magazine showed the prejudice the actor had towards gays, blacks, Native Americans, young people and liberals With such outdated, unpopular views, there are calls for airport to be renamed Others are calling for calm and worry about the cost involved to change names 24 February 2019 There are calls for John Wayne Airport to be renamed after a 1971 Playboy interview resurfaced in which the screen legend made comments that were racist and homophobic. Now a debate has been sparked over whether his namesake Southern California airport in Orange County should get a new title. John Wayne died nearly 40 years ago at age 72 but the latest uproar concerns remarks he made in an interview when he was 63 where he spoke of how he believed in 'white supremacy,' at least until 'irresponsible' black people became more educated, and that Native Americans were 'selfishly' trying to keep their land. 'I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility. I don't believe in giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people,' he said. He added that he 'don't feel guilty about the fact that five or 10 generations ago these people were slaves,' adding 'it's just a fact of life, like the kid who gets infantile paralysis and has to wear braces so he can't play football with the rest of us.' He went onto say that he even believed black people had more advantages in America than whites. But the insults didn't stop there. When asked which films he considered perverted, Wayne listed 1969's Easy Rider and Midnight Cowboy, before using anti-gay slurs in discussing the films further. 'Orange County today is such an economically and ethnically diverse community that it's hard to justify asking any member of that community to board planes at an airport named after an outspoken racist and homophobe, with his strutting statue occupying a central niche in front of the concourse,' wrote columnist Michael Hiltzik wrote in a Los Angeles Times opinion piece. Hiltzik wrote how in 1979, Orange County was a strongly conservative area which may have influenced the decision to name after Wayne - a hero of Westerns and outspoken conservative. Once the name was chosen, the John Wayne Associates commissioned sculptor Robert Summers to create a nine foot bronze statue of 'the Duke' - which remains in the Thomas F. Riley Terminal on the Arrival Level to this day. But the areas demographic has long since changed with a more liberal and progressive community making up the majority of the population. 'That should be evident from the results of November's election, in which voters turfed out the county's last remaining GOP members of Congress — some of whom had embraced Donald Trump in a fruitless effort to save their careers--and elected an all-Democratic congressional delegation,' Hiltzik wrote. 'Wayne was a few weeks shy of his 64th birthday when the interview appeared in print,' Hiltzik continued. 'It was 1971, so the civil rights revolution had been going on for years; Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated three years before. Wayne wasn't expressing the tenor of the times — he was reacting to the advances being won by African Americans through demonstrations and legislation.' Nonetheless, there are those who defend Wayne given the almost 50-year gap since the comments were made and that he was merely expressing commonly-held view at the time of the interview. 'Removing his name from Orange County's airport now only validates what many Americans are coming to believe: You can't say anything anymore, darn it, without being discovered and punished by the mob,' Madeline Fry wrote in the Washington Examiner. Fry suggested finding the hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars it would take to rebrand the facility Orange County Airport. 'But for goodness sake, not yet,' she adds.
Sam Adams Member	Mon Feb 25 09:40:50 Nuke berkeley and rename it the john wayne center for genetic excellence
kargen Member	Mon Feb 25 10:57:15 Michael Hiltzik and Madeline Fry both white getting all bent out of shape over a racist comment made fifty years ago. I'm guessing minorities that use that airport put what John Wayne said fifty years ago way down on their list of priorities when flying somewhere.
State Department Member	Mon Feb 25 11:37:31 But when mere 10 year old homophobic blog posts by Joy Reid are dug up, that's a modern day lynching and she gets to keeps her job.
Paramount Member	Mon Feb 25 11:37:57 if people take offense why not change the name. A public airport should not offend any citizen. Finding a more neutral name can’t be dificult. Besides, changing the name will create some jobs. A new logotype has to be designed. New signs has to be made and put up. Printed matters has to be reprinted, etc and so on. So all in all, changing the name is good for business.
CrownRoyal Member	Mon Feb 25 13:51:45 I always like that Kirk Douglas's story, how Wayne once watched some movie where Douglas played a role of a sissy of some kind, if I understood it right, and afterwards Wayne started to heap scorn on Kirk, saying that real men like Douglas and himself should only play real men. You know, so the impressionable youngsters don't get some fag ideas or something. To which Douglas replied, "You know John, none of it is real. You are not really John Wayne." Supposedly Wayne too offense to that.
CrownRoyal Member	Mon Feb 25 14:00:58 I found it, Douglas played Van Gogh. http://www...d-live-to-100-thats-shocked-me "..he recounts that Wayne attended a screening of Lust for Life, Douglas’s heartfelt 1956 biopic of Vincent van Gogh, and was horrified. “Christ, Kirk! How can you play a part like that? There’s so few of us left. We got to play strong, tough characters. Not those weak queers,” Wayne said. “I tried to explain: ‘It’s all make-believe, John. It isn’t real. You’re not really John Wayne, you know.’ He just looked at me oddly. I had betrayed him,” Douglas writes."
kargen Member	Mon Feb 25 14:36:58 If people take offense let them go to the next closest airport.
Paramount Member	Mon Feb 25 14:45:17 Where is the next closest airport? So if everyone goes there instead, then the John Wayne airport will go bankrupt. Is this what you want?
Im better then you 2012 UP Football Champ	Mon Feb 25 15:12:42 WHY THE FUCK is an airport named after an actor?
obaminated Member	Mon Feb 25 16:02:33 because that actor left an incredible legacy that this stupid liberal uproar is trying to tarnish.
kargen Member	Mon Feb 25 16:27:36 I don't care where the next closest airport is and I don't care if that one goes under. I'm getting tired of touchy-feely people trying to somehow feel better about themselves by digging up past statements and acting all indignant about it. Fuck em. We need to quit judging past actions by today's standards. That would be a start in the right direction. The funny thing is it is white people bitching about this. If you go and look at complaints about the airport most people are concerned with noise pollution.
Y2A Member	Mon Feb 25 22:22:53 Repubs got wiped out in Orange county. Sweet.
smart dude Member	Mon Feb 25 23:25:30 "a 1971 Playboy interview resurfaced in which the screen legend made comments that were racist and homophobic." What forces decide when these old interviews "resurface?" This exact same interview "resurfaced" in 2016 and everyone got outraged, then calmed down, and now it has "resurfaced" again. Are attention spans really that low? Are people's senses of outrage really that fickle?
chuck Member	Tue Feb 26 05:40:12 The world has changed a lot from the days of watching westerns and Bond movies on TBS growing up. The greatest superpower for surviving in the world today is selective ambivalence. I deploy my level 87 ambivalence at this whole story. Don't really care what a dead guy said in 1971, what people think about it now, or what the name of that airport is.
Paramount Member	Tue Feb 26 12:35:42 ”We need to quit judging past actions by today's standards.” Well, I guess you are free to judge past actions by past standards. Past standards in the US said that slavery was okay. Past standards in Germany said that killing Jews was okay. If this is okay for you, it is up to you.
Cherub Cow Member	Tue Feb 26 13:11:04 [Sam Adams]: "Nuke berkeley and rename it the john wayne center for genetic excellence" lol.... that's turrible :p .. [kargen]: "I'm guessing minorities that use that airport put what John Wayne said fifty years ago way down on their list of priorities when flying somewhere." Considering that people will fly Frontier Airlines despite the seats being thin pieces of plastic set exactly one thigh bone behind the seat in front of it — simply because it's a cheap Airline — yeah, I kind of doubt that budget travelers care about airport names when they see Google Flights sorting the cheapest fairs at the top. Most people would probably fly to "Adolf Hitler Was Right to Attempt Genocide-Eugenics in the Modern Era Airport" in San Francisco if it could undercut SFO prices. This question of renaming an airport isn't really about raising human dignity considering that travelers tend to be unwilling to pay $20 more for an airline that doesn't put cowbells on its passengers. .. [smart dude]: "What forces decide when these old interviews "resurface?"" I think that networks just have a list of stories sorted by outrage potential, and when the race-bait stories haven't been fresh then they'll just dip into cold stories.. kind of like movie studios remaking popular movies. So John Wayne airport is like "Ghostbusters" (2016) ;D
Im better then you 2012 UP Football Champ	Tue Feb 26 13:23:48 Change the name to Tom Hanks airport.
hood Member	Tue Feb 26 13:28:57 "because that actor left an incredible legacy that this stupid liberal uproar is trying to tarnish." As little as I care about this story, it's always amusing to see mt get offended whenever anyone makes fun of Hollywood. As if anyone actually gives a shit about their incestuous circle jerking.
cthulhu Tentacle Rapist	Tue Feb 26 14:02:52 I hate faggots niggers airport would be a fitting name after this outrage!
kargen Member	Tue Feb 26 14:21:28 "Well, I guess you are free to judge past actions by past standards. Past standards in the US said that slavery was okay. Past standards in Germany said that killing Jews was okay. If this is okay for you, it is up to you." I knew someone would try this argument. It is almost word for word what gets brought up every time. Twas idiotic the first time it was tried and is more so now. The killing of Jews in Germany wasn't standard thinking. There was a whole war about it and everything. Same with slavery. Most of John Wayne's generation were brought up with the idea that black people were not as intelligent as white. His thinking according to that statement was that black people needed to become better educated. School segregation was still prevalent at the time and we all know equal but separate was a myth. It was popular opinion that black people in general were not well educated. His comments should be considered with that atmosphere in mind. Maybe he was advocating for school integration? Doubtful but we don't know. And why should he feel guilty about slavery. He didn't own slaves.
Paramount Member	Tue Feb 26 15:57:49 ”There was a whole war about it and everything.” Lol. The war started because Germany invaded Poland. The war wasn’t about stopping Germany from killing jews, but to stop German aggression in Europe.
Paramount Member	Tue Feb 26 16:06:05 ”Most of John Wayne's generation were brought up with the idea that black people were not as intelligent as white. ” Yeah? And most Nazis had the idea that jews were vermin. It was kinda a popular opinion in Europe at the time.
swordtail Anarchist Prime	Tue Feb 26 17:21:46 "Same with slavery." states rights ring a bell?
kargen Member	Tue Feb 26 17:41:54 Either way most people were of the opinion that killing Jews was probably wrong. Yeah states right does ring a bell. Big fan. But basic human rights overrides states rights. Took us a while to figure that out.
Forwyn Member	Tue Feb 26 17:53:16 Indeed, the right to secede is the epitomic state right.
kargen Member	Tue Feb 26 19:20:06 Not any more. I think it was 1869 when the Supreme Court decided states couldn't secede. The constitution doesn't give a process for seceding so the Supreme Court ruling is the law of the day until a constitutional amendment overrules the Supreme Court.
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