President Andrew Jackson's portrait on the twenty dollar bill will be replaced, by 2030, a long fucking time from now in my opinion, with a portrait of Harriet Tubman, a former slave who became a Union spy, abolitionist, and part of the Underground Railroad getting slaves out of the South.
Jackson's been on the twenty since 1928, the 100th anniversary of his becoming president. He was a Southerner, regarded too, at the time, as a Westerner, since, as a politician, he came from beyond the Appalachian Mountains when the nation largely consisted of the East Coast.
Donald Trump on this morning's Today Show, said that "Harriet Tubman was a fantastic person."
Why do I suspect that Trump, before yesterday, never heard of Tubman? In any case, he added that Jackson should remain on the twenty, expressing his admiration for that president's accomplishments without naming any of them, such as Jackson's decisive role in the War of 1812, or his founding of the Democratic Party.
Jackson, too, said something Trump and the entire Republican Party, and many of today's Democrats, would disagree with:
"It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes."
A follow-up announcement from the Treasury Department about the next twenty dollar bill suggests that Jackson won't be removed from the denomination after all, but will share it with Harriet Tubman, who will get the front, while Jackson moves to the back. How lame is that?
It'll be a bill with two faces on it, so Jackson's image may as well be regarded as the retainer of the bill's identity. Jackson, of the forced relocation of the Cherokee Nation, sharing space with Tubman, who set people free. I don't know who came up with this stupid compromise, but if the idea initially was to honor not only women, but African Americans, they decided subsequently to take a shit on their own good idea by not giving the bill entirely to Harriet Tubman.
I don't think it really matters who's on our money. When I have a twenty, or three or four of them in my pocket, I feel good. If Jack Ruby were on the twenty dollar bill, it would still be worth twenty dollars.
Putting a Black woman on American money shouldn't be controversial, whether she be Harriet Tubman or Diana Ross, but this is a nation of people who get bent out of shape about minor issues, like when a new Apple product comes out and the company hasn't got all the kinks worked out just yet, so the new product fails in various annoying ways. Problems of first world citizens, in other words; not like being bombed by the Russian Air Force as it supports the Assad dictatorship, or having to deal with famine and war--as in Yemen--or malaria epidemics, or the quashing of free speech. On American TV, ads depict well-dressed clean people holding phones and complaining about poor signals, or upper middle class people in their thirties bitching about their insurance.
If we can't figure out whose portraits to put on our money, isn't that the kind of problem an ordinary Afghan citizen would envy?
Donald Trump, asked by Matt Lauer on Today about the Tubman twenty, gave a measured but vague response. His vagueness didn't surprise me; the man is allergic to details. I am a bit startled by how journalists, since Trump won the New York Primary, have been referring to his behavior of the past few days as "presidential." In other words, he hasn't cussed, he hasn't blared insults in his usual gauche manner, his vocal tone has been a bit quieter; even so, he's called for Ted Cruz and John Kasich to drop out of the race for the nomination. On the surface, he's certain of his eventual success, but nevertheless he's intimidated by what they can still do to him when it comes to the all important delegate aspect of the Republican Convention this summer.
But is it presidential to suddenly not bray insults at opponents, minorities, women, after months and years of doing so?
Hey America! I'm not an asshole anymore!
I don't believe it, and if I could buy it for twenty dollars, I'd take someone to a movie instead, where I could see a made-up story more believable than change flowering in the mind and wicked heart of Donald Trump.
Vic Neptune
No comments:
Post a Comment