DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... PC Insanity Alert: Thomas & Friends is racist...

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Thomas & Friends is Racist: Only "good" engines pour out white smoke...

Wow.

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You ain't kiddin on the "WOW".. The makers of this cartoon should be dragged out into the street and stoned.

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PC Insanity Story of the Day: “Thomas & Friends,” the cartoon series featuring Thomas the Tank Engine and his other little talking train buddies, is racist. The reason? Only Thomas and the “good trains” pump out white smoke, while the “bad trains” pump out – wait for it – black smoke.
So, has political correctness finally gone ’round the bend? Not according to Tracy Van Slyke, writing for The Guardian:
For every Sesame Street, there is an annoying Caillou or an acid-trippy Yo Gabba Gabba. But Thomas and Friends is the one show with enough subversive messages to make me turn it off for good.

Thomas and those friends are trains that toil away endlessly on the Isle of Sodor … and, on its surface, the show seems to impart good moral lessons about hard work and friendship.

But if you look through the steam rising up from the coal-powered train stacks, you realize that the pretty puffs of smoke are concealing some pretty twisted, anachronistic messages.
Ms. Van Slyke is particularly miffed by an episode in which one of the trains has his red paint removed – and is repainted pink. To her shock and dismay, the other trains make fun of the newly-pink “James.” But it’s her analysis of the train engines’ smoke that takes the cake:
For the record, all the “villains” on Thomas and Friends are the dirty diesel engines.

I’d like to think there was a good environmental message in there, but when the good engines pump out white smoke and the bad engines pump out black smoke … it’s not hard to make the leap into the race territory.

As Zip over at Weasel Zippers observed, it appears that we’ve finally reached the pinnacle of PC insanity.

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Wow people just have too much time on their hands...sad that some of you might actually think that cartoon is racist. The symbolism has ZERO to do with race. Has to do with good being out in the light and evil hiding at night. NOTHING to do with someone's skin color. Then again sleeping on clean white sheets is probably racist to some too

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Wow people just have too much time on their hands...sad that some of you might actually think that cartoon is racist. The symbolism has ZERO to do with race. Has to do with good being out in the light and evil hiding at night. NOTHING to do with someone's skin color. Then again sleeping on clean white sheets is probably racist to some too

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This is a rather European idea. Some would say, why is this so prevalent that light = good in European culture, is it because they associate their skin color with good?

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What if a told you that there have been studies that asked black children under 5 which doll they preferred, a white doll or a black doll? In the study it showed that the majority of the black children wanted the white doll because the white doll was ”good” and “pretty”, and the black doll was “ugly” and “bad”. Would that change your outlook?

2nd question since the studies are factual and well documented, how and why do you think that the children feel that way?

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jc

i'm about race equality.

but some people try way too hard to try to find racism in every little thing.

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because they watch too much tv or thier parents are bums and they envy the other kids. You can make a study to say whatever you want these days by stacking who you put in it.

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Wow people just have too much time on their hands...sad that some of you might actually think that cartoon is racist. The symbolism has ZERO to do with race. Has to do with good being out in the light and evil hiding at night. NOTHING to do with someone's skin color. Then again sleeping on clean white sheets is probably racist to some too

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This is a rather European idea. Some would say, why is this so prevalent that light = good in European culture, is it because they associate their skin color with good?

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Yeah so now the Chinese are raciest because of yin and yang ... or maybe since diesel trains actually blow black smoke they were just being realistic. Steam engines let off white smoke or actually vapor. But yeah they are raciest. Give me a freaking break. so tired of all the bull crap. Me and most of the rest of the world don't care about someone's skin color.

Now you wanna dress up like a hip hop artist spewing out gang lingo then I am happy to demean your culture because of its violent words and actions but i'll think of you as the same trash whether its white, black, latino, asian, or whatever else is out there.

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This is a rather European idea. Some would say, why is this so prevalent that light = good in European culture, is it because they associate their skin color with good?

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I am curious, if you feel this way can you answer my questions I posed to Razor?

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Everyone knows the bad guys wear black and the good guys wear white.

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j/c

I believe racism does in fact exist and is alive and well.

But I believe when it is trivialized and searched for in any lame thing that can be found, like this as an example, it causes the "cry wolf effect" to the point people begin to lose some interest in the subject.

If people concentrated on issues where racism really does exist rather than to try sensationalize it, people would focus on the real issues that exist rather than water it down in such ridiculous subject matter like this.

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When I do engage, I try to refrain from the sensational,

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Don't sell yourself short, I think most of your posts are sensational.

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We still have issues of Gerrymandering, red-lining, ballot manipulation, inequities in education, etc.- all of which have their roots in our segregationist past... but those issues are now treated on equal par with stuff like this thread's subject.

It cheapens Real Talk about real issues and leads to the same entrenched exchange of talking points that get trotted out every time ANY story regarding race comes up.

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Yours post was fine.... Then you ruined it with the last paragraph and the last sentence of the first.

Most? You're right... Most of the world does still care about skin color.

In India, the lighter skinned you are, the more success you have, they even go so far as to bleach their skin sometimes.

In Asian countries, it's honorable for a woman to marry a white guy, but a lot of families forbid their daughters dating black or Hispanic.

Should I keep going?

The majority doesn't care HERE in the USA. But the rest if the world? It's still a problem.

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Thomas & Friends is Racist: Only "good" engines pour out white smoke...

Wow.

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Be nice GM be nice


It must be nice for this witch to have nothing better to do than sit around watching kids cartoons, and worry about crap like this while the rest of us hard working folks are busting our ass everyday just to make a living