There used to be a reporter in the newsroom a few years ago that could not understand how phrases or attitudes, judged by modern standards to be offensive, were ever allowed to happen in the past.
We talked about cartoons when I was little that contained inappropriate stereotypes of Indians and Japanese. We talked about the commonly accepted name for a game of tackle-tag that contained a homophobic term and how the story of Br’er Rabbit was printed in childrens’ books.
This young reporter simply couldn’t believe that people could be so obtuse to other cultures and lifestyles. He couldn’t understand how people could be so insensitive as to paint a rosy picture of anything having to do with the old south.
Some of the older members of the staff tried to explain that based on the generation you grew up in, the uproar about racism and homophobia was not as loud as it is now. It takes some light for a plant to grow and unfortunately the seeds of equality spent a lot of generations closed off in darkness.
Through generations the treatment of different races, sexual orientations and genders has improved, though clearly it has not yet reached even ground. Basically, your interpretation of inequality as a white male relies, to some extent, on the time period in which you lived.
I didn’t live through segregation, so to me separating races is a ridiculous idea. But I grew up in an era when a top-rated TV show featured a confederate flag painted on the roof of an iconic car named after a southern Civil War general. That doesn’t mean it was right, but I can better understand how it came to be that the nation wasn’t outraged.
But to the young reporter, wrong was wrong, and it should have been seen as such at every turn. He felt that the nation was morally corrupt back then and blind to feelings of minorities.
In trying to reason how generations can appear so tone deaf to social issues, I stumbled upon a explanatory prediction – some day the statue of Jack Hanna will be torn down.
Follow my logic. The poor treatment of animals in circuses has led to the industry all but vanishing. While zoos don’t treat animals so poorly, they do keep them from their natural habitat so that we can pay money to see them up close, through glass and bars. Sure there are conservation and education storylines attached, but there are already those who think zoos are barbaric and all animals should live free.
It shouldn’t be impossible to envision a future where zoos are the target of mass protests and public opinion begins to tilt. California decides to close all zoos, followed shortly by Oregon. When the facilities in Texas set their last animals free, zoos no longer exist in the United States.
And the statue of Jack Hanna, the once beloved director of the Columbus Zoo, is removed by the order of the Ohio Governor and thrown into a store room.
Seems outlandish to us now, doesn’t it? The Columbus Zoo is a treasure that delights all. It is affordable family fun and a source of learning for school trips. And Jack Hanna – well he’s Crocodile Dundee without a knife. He is a ball of energy with personality and worked for decades to improve the zoo.
But now put yourself 30 years after zoos have been outlawed – shuttered relics of an unenlightened time. How could people have been so heartless as to pay money to gawk at these poor, caged animals? And they built a statue of the man who worked the hardest to capture the most creatures. People in those days lived in a culture of cruelty. If you gave one cent to a zoo you must have been evil to the root.
We know that isn’t true. We know good people visit the zoo for enjoyment because it is an acceptable form of entertainment in our era. Will we be judged as devils by future generations? Entirely possible.
I’m not trying to draw any parallels between the plight of caged animals and people. Slavery, homophobia and the fight for women’s equality each have their own unique stain in history.
What I am trying to explain is how a Civil War general can be memorialized by one generation and demonized by another, how the reputations of presidents can be flipped in a way they would have never realized, how the lives of an entire generation of people can be tarnished when viewed through the lens of history.
It doesn’t make it right, but it is possible to live through dark days and never realize it.
-Chad Williamson is the managing editor at the Journal-Tribune.