It is all getting rather silly.
In the wake of a killing of black man in the United States, as tragic and unjustified as it was, we have been subjected to an onslaught of morality-warriors once again telling us what to think and how to behave.
Yes, I know the killing of George Floyd is just the tip of a deep malaise, but it has led to one of the silliest slogans ever—Black Lives Matter (yes, they do and so does mine)—and a bitter and ill-targeted reaction, including defacing statues, rewriting history and the call to rename streets, towns and even regions because they are now deemed to unacceptable and/or offensive.
Okay, it’s the issue de année. Last year it was the Me Too movement, and this too will pass. But what is galling is that any gains made by such movements and no matter how laudable the intent, they are soon spoiled when they lapse into sheer silliness. The latest is this.
It seems that a recording studio has returned a series of 60s pop posters to the person who gifted them to the studio, because the posters, mostly of white artists such as the Beatles, Elvis, Yardbirds, etc, didn’t give a broad enough representation of gender or race to be featured in [the studio’s] context.
In other words they are no longer appropriate.
That is ridiculous. They are what they are—a visual representation of the culture of the time. The fact that time is in the past doesn’t make the posters unacceptable and offensive let alone racist today.
The best that could be said for the recording studio's action is at least they didn’t destroy them. But it is still an over-reaction.
So, let’s put a stop to this silliness. Let’s acknowledge that there are wrongs being perpetrated in the world and they need to be addressed. But let’s also acknowledge that stifling the past rather than learning from it is not the way to do it.
As the Beatles said: Let it Be.
