Re: [TV orNotTV] Calls to drop John Wayne's name from OC airport

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PGage

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Jun 29, 2020, 10:05:38 PM6/29/20
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And yet, there are many people who call the Orange County Airport John Wayne.

On Mon, Jun 29, 2020 at 11:31 AM 'Bob Jersey' via TVorNotTV <tvor...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

M-D November, today (6/29):
Yeah, what was the rationale behind that, anyway?

Airports for the most part are named for where they are (sorry, NY), and many a SoCal'er knew there wasn't a city there named for Hope, so...


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Steve Timko

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Jun 29, 2020, 11:41:03 PM6/29/20
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What John Wayne said was inexcusable and likely he said much worse in private.
Two points in his defense:
His views were not that far from typical Republican views at the time (read transcripts of the Nixon tapes) and sadly not far enough from the beliefs of most white Americans.
He fully owned the racist character in "The Searchers" and Hollywood has produced few movies as anti-Trumpanzee as "The Searchers." 


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PGage

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Jun 30, 2020, 9:36:00 AM6/30/20
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I’m not sure your first point is a defense. Orange County chose to name the airport after him when it was proud of its identity as a bastion of white, conservative, Republican power in Sothern California, specifically to celebrate and brand itself with Wayne’s brand of thinly veiled racism and jingoism. The county is substantially (though not completely) different today, and no surprise a majority there no longer want the racist brand.

Steve Timko

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Jun 30, 2020, 11:44:36 AM6/30/20
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I am saying he wasn't much of an outlier in the Republican Party

PGage

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Jun 30, 2020, 3:49:46 PM6/30/20
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No. He wasn’t. I’m saying that too. But how is that a point in his defense?

Steve Timko

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Jun 30, 2020, 7:24:58 PM6/30/20
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Herd immunity. Everyone around him was infected with racism.

PGage

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Jun 30, 2020, 9:29:58 PM6/30/20
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That is a dubious argument for not defending adequately against COVID-19, and it is an even worse defense for John Wayne and Orange County. We are talking about 1979 (when they named the airport) not 1779. There were plenty of Americans who knew racism was wrong at that time. If a particular herd refused to see that, they are assholes, not immune.

Kevin M.

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Jun 30, 2020, 11:22:28 PM6/30/20
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On Tue, Jun 30, 2020 at 6:29 PM PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote:
That is a dubious argument for not defending adequately against COVID-19, and it is an even worse defense for John Wayne and Orange County. We are talking about 1979 (when they named the airport) not 1779. There were plenty of Americans who knew racism was wrong at that time. If a particular herd refused to see that, they are assholes, not immune.

Yeah, you’ve succinctly described the majority of Orange County residents.


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Dave Sikula

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Jul 1, 2020, 9:11:03 PM7/1/20
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Not to defend that mindset at all, but I grew up in La Mirada, which is about as far south as a person can go in Los Angeles County before crossing the Orange Curtain.

When we moved into our house in 1962, the realtor proudly told my mother that there was an agreement that the first one of them who sold a house to a Negro would be blackballed by the others.

There wasn't a Black family in town until 1972. A coalition of town fathers (among them a U.S. Congressman and the high school football coach) burned a cross on their lawn. It was we;-known throughout the town who had done it, but there was no way to get the case taken on by the authorities (who were, needless to say, in the bag).

So naming an airport--or anything--for any racist in that period wouldn't have given anyone a second thought--especially an airport right next door to Irvine, which was incredibly restricted until even more recently.

--Dave Sikua
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Brad Beam

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Jul 1, 2020, 10:58:01 PM7/1/20
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Amongst the extras on the DVD for “Stagecoach” was an episode of PBS’ “American Masters,” which detailed the relationship between John Wayne and director John Ford.

 

Despite his relationships with actors such as Wayne, Ford was mistakenly believed to be a Republican. In fact, Ford – who served as a Naval documentarian during WW2 – teased Wayne (who was exempted due to family and age) about becoming rich and famous under a Democrat like Roosevelt.

 

After the war, Ford would became a self-described “Maine Republican” (e.g., Susan Collins), and ended up supporting Goldwater (1964), Gov Reagan (1966/70), Nixon (1968), and American involvement in Vietnam.

 

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|_>|_>  Brad Beam- Belle WV

|_>|_>  http://www.facebook.com/74bmw

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PGage

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Jul 1, 2020, 11:22:02 PM7/1/20
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Again, this is true, but it is the problem, not the defense.

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Kevin M.

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Jul 1, 2020, 11:36:29 PM7/1/20
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On Wed, Jul 1, 2020 at 8:22 PM PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote:
Again, this is true, but it is the problem, not the defense.

I too lived behind the Orange Curtain. And while I clearly do not subscribe to the man’s politics, I do enjoy John Wayne westerns (his war movies are beyond bad, and Big Jim McLain was Trump-caliber propaganda). But fan or not, John Wayne’s presence in Orange County was pervasive, even decades after his death. Everybody knew where he lived, everybody knew which boat was his, everybody knew his favorite restaurant. Until Dennis Rodman came along with his vulgar Hummer covered in naked women, Wayne was THE larger-than-life celebrity in the area (and it wouldn’t surprise me if Rodman gets things named after him too, eventually). I wasn’t around when the airport got its name, and maybe his politics played a direct role in it, but it could easily have been a bunch of crusty white men in a smoke filled room saying “Well who else could we possibly name it after?” I mean, Irvine named every other damned thing after himself, but nobody knew who he was, and I doubt most who currently live in Irvine know it’s even named after a person. 



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Dave Sikula

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Jul 2, 2020, 3:51:11 AM7/2/20
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Understood, and not offered as any kind of defense, but more as perspective on the idea that, by 1979, all right-thinking people had rejected discrimination. It was (and still is, to a degree) a pretty popular idea down there to the point of naming an airport after one of their own.

--Dave Sikula

PGage

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Jul 2, 2020, 9:39:52 AM7/2/20
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 Lived in the San Fernando Valley in the 1970s (which had its own serious problems, but was not Orange County). But my family was involved in protests about naming the OC Airport after Wayne. Clearly he was revered in the very conservative parts of that county (so was the John Birch Society), and few would have singled out his racism as the main reason for the reverence - though many would single out his standing up to the Hippies, the Women’s Libbers, the (what they still called then) rebellious Negroes, the militant Indians and the Homo-Sexual Agenda. There was very little doubt what the debate was about (two different visions of what it meant to be American, much as we have today). The protests had no chance, since inside the county support was overwhelming. In my family we refused to use the name, and always called it the Orange County Airport.

My brother and his family, and my wife’s sister and her family, now live in OC, which still has pockets of rabid ultra right conservatives (I took my daily walk from my sister in laws house last year and ran into several racist signs and well manicured lawns), but is much more diverse, progressive and tolerant than it was in the 20th century. This of course is reflected in the party affiliation of the congressional delegation from the region.

All that to say, OC names it’s airport after Wayne because of his hateful, intolerant views, not because they were not aware of them. If a video of his hateful comments had been released in the mid 1970s, it would not have derailed the plan to name the airport after him, it would have made the mice even more popular.

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Bob Jersey

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Jul 11, 2020, 7:15:57 PM7/11/20
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A USC exhibit devoted to Duke will be removed, after months of b*tching by students that keeping it implied endorsement of the guy's biases...


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