No More (White) Heroes (Or Heroines)

It appears that nothing is sacred anymore ....

Helen Keller (L) in 1952 Middle East

Take, Helen Keller, the heroine of disability rights .... well up until now.

I don't know about you, but the Helen Keller story was my first introduction into the world of disabilities (She was deafblind, but gained a university degree aged 24 in 1904), and how they can be overcome. She was also a woman, which ticked another 'achievement' box.

But apparently, she, like all white people, is now fair game for American Black Lives activists .... Anita Cameron, a black disability rights activist was invited to comment on an article in Time magazine, written in recognition of International Day of Persons with Disabilities. The article highlighted Helen Keller's role in disability rights, and analysing the way Helen's life is taught in US schools. In particular the fact that her actions as an adult in later life are often ignored (she allegedly flirted with the eugenics movement - a position not uncommon at the time), in favour of her childhood, and early adult struggles against her disabilities.

Ms Cameron described Keller as "just another, despite disabilities, privileged white person"  .... apparently her fame has shaded the recognition of dues to Black people of disability who also battled adversity. Ms Cameron feels that Keller gets the press because her family were white and wealthy (with a family history with connections to the Southern Confederacy), not poor and black (and with slave connections). Ms Cameron thinks the US should instead celebrate and uphold people like Geraldine Lawhorn, who was the first deafblind African American to get a college degree in 1983 at the age of 67. A laudable aim I'm sure, but surely not at the cost of a character assassination of a dead white woman?

However, its difficult to sympathise with Ms Cameron, as its hard to consider a person being blind and deaf as, just another 'privileged white person'. Its also very easy to attack dead people who can't defend themselves, and ascribe today's values as those that people from the past should have lived up to.

So perhaps she and TIME magazine were being a bit naive if they didn't expect a backlash (especially in the very divided current USA), so needless to say that's what they got. Donald Trump jnr and Senator Ted Cruz led the charge ...

The Expected Backlash Led By The Expected Voices

Trump Jnr tweeted "Holy shit... they’re now canceling Helen Keller for being white. You can’t make this crap up anymore. You can never be woke enough." White Cruz tweeted "This is INSANE. Woke Lefties are now attacking Helen Keller?? As “just another, despite disabilities, privileged white person”?? There are many adjectives one can use to describe the extraordinary Helen Keller. “Privileged” is not one of them."

It appears that the race to be the next Republican candidate for President in the 2024 elections is already under way .... and with much the same agendas that we have finished the last election race with ...... we are doomed to re-fight the same issues (at least in the USA, but probably the copycat UK as well) for the next few years.

But it seems that the WOKE left and their allies are going to rewrite history to their tune unless someone stops this nonsense .... Churchill, dead Presidents, and now white deaf/blind people are all fair game for revisionist history rewrites (very much along the lines that Regency Britain has now been portrayed in Netflix's Bridgerton as a multiracial country - when it quite clearly wasn't. Slavery had only been abolished in 1807 - but a decade later Black Lords and Ladies apparently abound!).