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Nice piece by Eugene Robinson on addition of Tubman to $20 bill
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/it-matters-whos-on-the-money-and-harriet-tubman-fits-the-bill/2016/04/21/c819ef58-07f5-11e6-a12f-ea5aed7958dc_story.htmlConservatives should be delighted that Harriet Tubmans likeness will grace the $20 bill. She was a Republican, after all, and a pious Christian. And she routinely exercised her Second Amendment right to carry a gun, which she was ready to use against anyone who stood in her way or any fugitive slave having second thoughts. On her long road to freedom, there was no turning back.
Instead, weve had mostly silence from the right. Donald Trump did mouth off, of course, opining that slated-to-be-displaced Andrew Jackson had a great history and that substituting Tubman who, he allowed, was fantastic amounts to pure political correctness. Ben Carson defended Jackson as a tremendous president who balanced the federal budget. Both men suggested that Tubman instead be put on the $2 bill, which nobody uses. That would be a great recipe for tokenism. Im glad that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew made a bolder and more meaningful choice.
It matters whos on the money. Since the ancient Greeks began stamping coins with images of their gods, nations have used currency to define a pantheon of heroes. Tubman was a great hero not because of who she was but what she did: bravely fight to expand the Constitutions promise of freedom and justice to all Americans.Critics who polluted social media with invective after Lews announcement seemed to look past Tubmans deeds and focus on her identity. Yes, she was a black woman. If anyone cant deal with that fact, and doesnt want to use the new bills when they finally come out, feel free to send them to me.
Tubman was born into slavery on Marylands Eastern Shore around 1822. She escaped to Philadelphia in 1849 but returned to the South more than a dozen times, risking life and liberty, to lead runaway slaves to freedom. Slave owners reportedly offered bounties of thousands of dollars for capturing the diminutive woman known on the grapevine as Moses.I was conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, she said later in life, and I can say what most conductors cant say I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.
But that was just the beginning of Tubmans heroic service. During the Civil War, she guided a team of Union scouts operating in the marshlands near present-day Beaufort, S.C. In 1863, she led a raid on plantations along the Combahee River that freed more than 750 slaves becoming, apparently, the first woman to lead U.S. troops in an armed assault. Later in life, she worked alongside Susan B. Anthony and others in the crusade for womens suffrage. She died in 1913, frail yet still unbowed, having lived one of the greatest of American lives.Is it political correctness and historical revisionism to put her defiant likeness in our pockets? Of course and high time, too.
Instead, weve had mostly silence from the right. Donald Trump did mouth off, of course, opining that slated-to-be-displaced Andrew Jackson had a great history and that substituting Tubman who, he allowed, was fantastic amounts to pure political correctness. Ben Carson defended Jackson as a tremendous president who balanced the federal budget. Both men suggested that Tubman instead be put on the $2 bill, which nobody uses. That would be a great recipe for tokenism. Im glad that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew made a bolder and more meaningful choice.
It matters whos on the money. Since the ancient Greeks began stamping coins with images of their gods, nations have used currency to define a pantheon of heroes. Tubman was a great hero not because of who she was but what she did: bravely fight to expand the Constitutions promise of freedom and justice to all Americans.Critics who polluted social media with invective after Lews announcement seemed to look past Tubmans deeds and focus on her identity. Yes, she was a black woman. If anyone cant deal with that fact, and doesnt want to use the new bills when they finally come out, feel free to send them to me.
Tubman was born into slavery on Marylands Eastern Shore around 1822. She escaped to Philadelphia in 1849 but returned to the South more than a dozen times, risking life and liberty, to lead runaway slaves to freedom. Slave owners reportedly offered bounties of thousands of dollars for capturing the diminutive woman known on the grapevine as Moses.I was conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, she said later in life, and I can say what most conductors cant say I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.
But that was just the beginning of Tubmans heroic service. During the Civil War, she guided a team of Union scouts operating in the marshlands near present-day Beaufort, S.C. In 1863, she led a raid on plantations along the Combahee River that freed more than 750 slaves becoming, apparently, the first woman to lead U.S. troops in an armed assault. Later in life, she worked alongside Susan B. Anthony and others in the crusade for womens suffrage. She died in 1913, frail yet still unbowed, having lived one of the greatest of American lives.Is it political correctness and historical revisionism to put her defiant likeness in our pockets? Of course and high time, too.
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Nice piece by Eugene Robinson on addition of Tubman to $20 bill (Original Post)
MBS
Apr 2016
OP
elljay
(1,178 posts)1. Harriet Tubman was the perfect selection
I can't think of a better American or a better choice.
Chan790
(20,176 posts)3. According to my neighbor?
Jesus. We should have put Jesus on the $20. She argued that Tubman would have agreed with her...that's probably true but that doesn't make it a meritorious opinion.
Let me guess- we're talking about pale,blue-eyed, blond Jesus, not short, darker Jewish Jesus, right?
Chan790
(20,176 posts)5. I'm pretty sure her Jesus is Aryan and preaches a prosperity gospel. n/t
that if we put Jesus on the money we will have to even things out by also putting Mohammed on our money and the next thing that will happen is riots and Sharia law. It will make sense to her. Unfortunately.