Money is racist [NOTE: This counts as my version of the apparently mandated Wednesday Lincoln post.]
Mine is, at least. The woman at the toll booth said she couldn’t accept it because it’s been “defaced.” Now, it’s racist, obviously, but it clearly hasn’t been defaced so much as refaced:
Of course, I received this unacceptable bill at the previous toll booth. Money that Jeff Goldstein didn’t de- or reface can be found here. I’m particularly fond of this envisioning of Andrew Jackson:
Seems like a natural fit.
J. Otto Pohl:
November 28th, 2012 at 2:20 pm
Your money may be racist, but my money has actual pictures of real black people not white people in black face on it. Except for the two cedi note which is just Nkrumah, all of the notes here have the Big Six on them.
Jameson Quinn:
November 28th, 2012 at 2:28 pm
Yeah, well my money has Mayan numerals on it. Which means that Y13B will hit in under a month and it will all stop working. But I have enough bottled water.
Craigo:
November 28th, 2012 at 2:36 pm
Why not Zoidberg?
SEK:
November 28th, 2012 at 2:38 pm
Well, 300 was one of the most racist films I’ve ever seen, and Andrew Jackson was one of the …
Craigo:
November 28th, 2012 at 2:43 pm
I can totally see Andy kicking a Creek ambassador down a well.
Jamie:
November 28th, 2012 at 3:05 pm
Is nothing sacred in this country anymore?
DrDick:
November 28th, 2012 at 3:10 pm
Andrew Jackson was gay?
thusbloggedanderson:
November 28th, 2012 at 3:21 pm
Now we know what at least one toll-booth guy does all day.
magistra:
November 28th, 2012 at 3:36 pm
We Brits have Charles Darwin on our banknotes, because we’re evil science-loving libruls.
Njorl:
November 28th, 2012 at 3:42 pm
Spartans were homosexual. They were not gay. They weren’t even mildly amused.
nanute:
November 28th, 2012 at 3:43 pm
I thought that was Geoff the gay robot from the Craig Ferguson Late Nite Show.
DocAmazing:
November 28th, 2012 at 3:46 pm
I held onto a Canadian bill with a bunch of kids playing hockey on it. Kids! Playing hockey! No Indian-killers or DWEMs!
joe from Lowell:
November 28th, 2012 at 4:30 pm
The map of the Middle East dollar is strangely beautiful.
Manju:
November 28th, 2012 at 4:37 pm
Of course money is racist.
Bimetallism was one of only a handful of issues that managed to get spun onto DW-Nominate’s 2nd dimension….the one for issues that do not fit into standard left-right ideological paradigm.
What are the others? Slavery, the Civil War, and Civil Rights for Af-Ams.
Just sayin’.
The Dark Avenger:
November 28th, 2012 at 6:10 pm
It’s hard to end a speech with “You shall not crucify mankind on a cross of greenbacks.”, Manju.
Craigo:
November 28th, 2012 at 6:28 pm
I’d disagree that a clash between labor rights versus property rights, i.e., the slavery question, is not a left-right issue. Free trade is a better choice there.
Manju:
November 28th, 2012 at 7:25 pm
I was once debating DW-Nom with someone who objected on these grounds: the algorithm positioned a “yes” vote on Medicare Pt D as RWing. Opposition was Left. But expanding the welfare state is colloquially defined as a LWing idea. Yet Nominate flipped this. Ergo it makes no sense.
So I pointed out the DW-Nominate was actually revealing an important ideological divide. It’s true, Dems opposed Bush’s Medicare Part D:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/108-2003/h332
But that doesn’t suddenly make them the RWing party, or even RWing on one issue. Dems opposed because the Republicans were going to borrow money to pay for it, or cut taxes under the delusion that tax cut will increase revenue enough to cover the plan. Opposition to those notions are indeed LWing positions, at least within the context of the US House and Senate. DW Nominate was exposing the fact that LWingers had become fiscally reasonable. RWingers had become deluded, or at least acted as if they were, by supply-side/laffer curve ideology.
So I understand how you can frame Slavery and Jim Crow as “a clash between labor rights versus property rights”…with the latter being “right” and the former “left”, by virtue of definition. But that only exists in a philosophical vacuum. DW-Nominate measures actual history. And civil rights issues (for AF-Ams) did not unfold the way your philosophical paradigm says they should’ve.
SEK:
November 28th, 2012 at 7:34 pm
Balls! (By which I mean, I love Geoff Peterson. I can’t believe I’ve never written about the times I’ve been to the show. Needless to say, Ferguson’s as awesome in person as he on the show. More so, actually, because he comes out and interacts with the audience before the show, introducing himself as somebody else, and remembering regulars. I went three or four times in a week, and by Thursday I was being greeted by a thunderous “YOU AGAIN? I HATE YOU!”)
The Dark Avenger:
November 28th, 2012 at 8:28 pm
Dems opposed because the Republicans were going to borrow money to pay for it, or cut taxes under the delusion that tax cut will increase revenue enough to cover the plan.
That may be true, but many Democrats also opposed it as a give-away to Big Pharm, because unlike the VA, Medicare wasn’t allowed to bargin with the Pharmacy companies in order to keep prices down. It was a clear case of crony capitalism, and it’s unsurprising that Manju wouldn’t notice it, because it doesn’t exist in hiw DW-Nominate world.
DW-Nominate measures actual history.
So would a yardstick used to take the height of one of Lincoln’s stovepipe hats, and the results would be just as useful.
nanute:
November 29th, 2012 at 5:32 am
“If you’ve got diabetes, Wilfred Brimley is gonna kick your ass.” http://youtu.be/quDQ38dx21o
Halloween Jack:
November 29th, 2012 at 10:17 am
The ones where the artist just used the bill as a canvas generally show superior technique, but they don’t have anything to do with the fact that they’re on money–the artist just liked the paper, or something. Incorporating the features of the banknotes generally seems to be much more clever.