That Charge

That charge is "racism." I come across this frequently when I am doing research. It is not a charge that is old, but fairly new. Everything, it seems, is racist, especially when referring to the past. If you don't agree, you are part of the problem. You are racist.

I am not a fan of the charge or of the people who make it as a product of their agenda. Something about it reminds me of the "purity" test that people had to go through to make sure they could speak or write about an issue. This purity test was one of the ways in which totalitarian governments kept opinion in line with their own opinion. Or else.

Unfortunately, what we are seeing these days is an embrace of this "purity" where we least expect it. Very early in my research, I made a promise to oppose this "purity" if it was not in keeping with the many facts I was coming across or the width of the issues involved that this "purity" ignored.

One of the charges is about Charlie Chan. Now I realize that depending on how it is said, just saying "Charlie Chan" can be a weapon. Yes, the actors who played the role, played it in "yellow face," another relatively new expression that was never used before. I am aware that the first widely known Chan was Warner Oland, a Swede. But I saw recently two Oland films: One had him singing to a group of Asian children (they could have been the fictional sons and daughters of the fictional Chan) a Chinese song, in English, of course. It was a very sweet moment. But I could not help but think that the agenda-driven ones would have a different take. The other film is one I saw the day before: CHARLIE CHAN ON BROADWAY. It also starred Oland. It was made in 1937. There was a humorous line in the dialogue about pigeon-English. But it was a line that was said about "Brooklynese" and a police inspector speaking Brooklynese that others could find peculiar. Slyly, this referred also to Chan speaking in pigeon-English. Yes, Chan speaks this way, but what about his "No. 1" son? No, he speaks English that all other young men of his age speak who go to college and listen to records, etc. So, Chan speaks pigeon-English. So what? All emigrants speak English with a noticeable accent, unless they have been brought up going to an English school. Go to any of the ethnic neighbors here in America. And, of course, Chan is the smartest man in the gathering and solves the murder. And, of course, China had its own Chan films. But let's use Chan as an example of Hollywood's "racism."

Chan is just one example of the charge of racism by the "pure" ones, those who are guided by a modern-agenda and, it seems, little else. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and a detective is just a detective.