Ten Little Indians

Ten Little Indians

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Some high school drama group wanted to do the Agatha Christie play, Ten Little Indians. And of course, someone from the ACLU went ballistic. Why? Because of the word Indian.
According to Sudie Hofmann in her article, ‘Rethinking Agatha Christie,’ the original 1943 theatrical version of Christie’s book was called Ten Little Niggers. Okay, so if we must, let us euphemize the word nigger; although for artistic reasons I'm not entirely sure we should do that – a persons work, in this case, Christie's, should be left as the artist intended it.
But I suppose for the sake of prudence I could embrace the omission of the N-word for high schools and lower grades of government supported education. My reasons are many, but chiefly among them, is that I hate the word. Also, the terrible horror of slavery that this country practiced against its own people, its own Declaration of Independence, (…all men are created equal), and its own Creator, should be argument enough; the buying and selling of human beings after the manner of livestock is an unconscionable and hideous stain on America.
It is, I think, her greatest sin.
I also think we owe it to black people, white people, any people, and of course most of all, we owe it to God, to distance ourselves as far as reasonably possible from such a blight on humanity as watching our brothers and sisters traded like goods, cattle, and pigs.
Now to the Indian thing.
We don’t have a history of institutionalized slavery with the Indians. All we did was take their land…just like the Sioux took the Cherokee’s land. And the just like the Apache took the Arapaho’s land and the Choctaw took the Pawnee’s land, and the English took the Irish’s land and the Germans took everyone’s land…or tired to, at least.
We need to be al little tougher when it comes to words.
Certain words should be looked at for possible proscription, but let us be very careful when doing so. We’re getting to the point where certain words like nigger, kike, spic, and others are almost felonious, while f***k, p***y, c***k sucker, and other obscenities are celebrated as no more than demonstrating freedom.
If I call you a fag because you’re homosexual, I’m a bigot. If you call me a Nazi because I’m a Christian, you’re simply exercising your Darwin given rights. How many times have you heard someone harangued for calling a conservative a fascist for being a conservative?
I have an idea: Let's make it so that no one is offended by mere words at all. You know, the ‘sticks and stones’ philosophy? How about let's get people to the point where they are so self-assured and so confident that they just shrug off racist remarks and language, and treat it as useless drivel from idiot racists who are too stupid to warrant legitimacy.
Are we to remove the word nigger from Uncle Tom's Cabin so no one is offended? That is a book about Christians fighting against the evils of slavery. While we're at it, let's take out Sterling Hayden's role in Francis Ford Copolla’s, The Godfather so that New York cops aren't offended. And we can't have Hattie McDaniel's amazing performance as Mammy in Gone with the wind for fear that showing a black person in a role as a slave might offend black female housekeepers.
We need to show pre-abolition America with both white and black slavers and both white and black slaves because to be fair, we want everyone to be equal and make sure that no one is offended…right? Better yet, when we depict American slaves in film, television, or literature, we should show them not only as black, but white, red, brown, yellow, and all colors of the ethnic spectrum. The same with the slave owners, let’s not forget them. In fact, we shouldn't allow the reality of the time in a period piece to intrude on our sweet and vulnerable sensibilities, should we?
And for WWII movies we’d better have an equal number of Black, Asian, Mexican, Jewish, Indian, and all other races to portray the Germans because Germans might be hurt. And, just because the Germans were, well, German, that's no reason to actually have them played by German looking people. Hell, let’s have Danny Glover play Hermann Goering. Let’s have Woody Allen play Adolph Eichmann. And as for the big man himself, well, we can’t have the whole gender controversy rear its ugly head, either. The women might feel left out. Who should we get for the Jew and Christian hating Chancellor, the leader of The Third Reich, Der Fuhrer?
How about if Beyonce plays Hitler?
Yeah, why not? She has the right to the role just as much as anyone…doesn’t she? (actually, if she wears that little leather Nazi outfit, I think I could go for it).
So let’s implement the true Bolshevik ideal that no one be put before another, that no one be chosen over anyone else, no matter what the position. Then I’m sure all will be well with the world and we won’t have to ever worry about anyone being destroyed by those terrible flesh piercing, limb hacking, entrails extracting things known as-WORDS.
Here’s a word – emetic!

Keck