Lions and Tigers and HATE, oh my!

I love National Public Radio.

They talked about L. Frank Baum this morning. (L. Frank Baum is the author of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”.)
Now, I have always been a fan of the film. The themes are great, the characters are iconic, actors legendary and the filming was brilliant. I can’t say this for many other films. There’s a reason why “The Wizard of Oz” has endured this long and there’s a reason why so many artists since have referenced it.

I learned something totally shocking today.
It seems L. Frank Baum worked for a newspaper in 1890 where he publicly called out for the extermination of Native Americans. The brilliant man who wrote that beautiful story about love, hope and acceptance was filled with hatred of the worst kind, racism.

Now, I know it was 1890 and I know it is naïve to say that hateful people aren’t capable of greatness….but HOLY CRAP! Did you guys know about this? It is interesting to me that he was a supporter of rights for women. “Sure, let’s give rights to women, but kill those bastards over there!” um, WHAT?

There are a bunch of sites on the internet talking about this. Here’s one of them. If you do not have time to read the whole thing, scroll down to WOUNDED KNEE:
http://www.wicocomico-indian-nation.com/pages/genocide.html

It seems that his descendants will be apologizing to the Native American community in South Dakota today. That’s what I heard on NPR this morning. Here’s the link if you’d like to see for yourself:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5662524

This topic makes me think of how many other times we have praised certain American icons without knowing all the information. Think of the history books. Christopher Columbus did his share of slaughtering as well. So he could take their land. Nice guy….so glad we can honor him every year on our national holiday. Ew.

All this really makes me sad.