Don't Forget To Duck

Now I don’t claim to be a fan of the show “Duck Dynasty”.  I have never seen it, and only know of it due to the mass branding of the ‘label’ on just about everything in Walmart the last time I went there to buy dog food.  (Really, Duck Dynasty sleeping bags and lunch boxes?....who are these guys?)

So when I scanned over the most recent uproar over something one of the cast members said, the first thing that comes to mind is the old adage, there is no such thing as bad publicity.  The show is not shot in real time and the interview in question was given weeks if not months ago.  Being dropped from the show indefinitely with three to four episodes already ‘in the can’ is sort of meaningless.  A&E isn’t going to stop airing the show for the rest of the season (I am sure Walmart and the lunch box manufacturers in Taiwan would sue if they did).  After all, it all about the money in the end.

But of even more interest is this other comment on racism that is also attributed to the Duck Dynasty star:

"I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once," he told GQ. "Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I'm with the blacks, because we're white trash. We're going across the field. ... They're singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, 'I tell you what: These doggone white people' -- not a word!  Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues," GQ quoted Robertson as saying.

I read this statement after recently reading a segment of Tom Brokaw’s book, ‘The Greatest Generation”, in which he recounts the memories of an African American soldier in WWII that had to battle racism at home and in the military AND battle the Germans. 

The African American later works his way up to real estate entrepreneur who owned several low income rentals in a major urban area.  The war hero laments the coming of the government entitlement programs of the 1960s and stated that once the young African American males found out they didn’t have to work they just waited around for the government checks every month.  He stated that the welfare system destroyed all sense of black drive and motivation.

Spoken by a white person, this would be considered extremely racist, but since it comes from the other side of the fence it is acceptable. 

I don’t know Mr. Duck Dynasty, but simply expressing your opinion regarding that you have seen and experienced in your own life in an honest and forthright way should not be something for which there are negative consequences. 

Being extremely politically correct does not do service to anyone and only tends to white wash the truth of our past and who we are as a people and a culture.