Should Walt Whitman be #cancelled?

"I have the kiss of Walt Whitman still on my lips." -Oscar Wilde [who should probably also be #cancelled]

Good luck finding anyone from the past or present who isn't "problematic".

Yes, he’s been on ABC long enough!

Any gay who doesn't love Uncle Walt needs her card revoked.

The person who should be #cancelled is Trump, yet we're not doing that.

Walt Whitman was a racist, and not just towards African Americans; he was also bigoted against Native Americans, Hispanic people and Asians as well.

Yes, cancel him.

What percentage of white Americans do you think WEREN'T racist towards those groups in the mid-late 1800s, r6?

Apparently we are going to "cancel" much of our history. A lot of people from the founding of the country through the middle of the 20th century will turn out to be "problematic."

OP, this article uses the Q-word. They’re the ones who should be cancelled. And not in a few generations but NOW!

He had such compassion for the wounded soldiers. I love his poetry.

Walt Whitman is the rock much of 20th century poetry is built on. To erase him is to erase them too and completely forget where we came from. Stupidly short-sighted.

From the article:

"The charge of racism was particularly fraught because it was levied against Walt Whitman, the poet who in Leaves of Grass sang of American democracy as a project of radical inclusion, the poet who wrote about tending to the runaway slave, the poet who looked upon the enslaved person on the auction block and saw in them their generations of descendants, the poet who declared that the enslaved were the equal of those who enslaved them."

I give.

The author of OP’s article is a q-word user. Cancel this hypocrite.

It's a fact that Abraham Lincoln did not believe that blacks were equal to whites. He hated slavery but he believed in the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon race.

Whatevs, we're talking about Walt.

OP has started the”Kate Smith is cancelled “ and “Let’s Be Woke Twitter” threads, can’t wait for their “Hey You Kids, Get Off My Lawn” thread next.

You're going to have a long wait r16

No, but you should be.

We are going to measure people from the past against today’s ultra-woke standards and delete all of the impurities from history! Delete all Roman poets please — none of them ever had anything positive to say about Trans.

Where does this end? Are they eventually going to alter the credits of that very special [italic]Silver Spoons[/italic] with Bruce Jenner as a guest star even though he was still Bruce then?

Considering all the stuff that's taken place at his rest area ... well, you decide.

When we start looking under every rock, nook, and cranny of every *great* artist of most genres, doubtless we will encounter much to object to. And not just from the past. Was it not just recently the King of Pop MJ was dethroned for his Pedophilia? ((although that was already known) Chaplin was equally abominable. Don't gaze close at your Heros for heaven's sake, you won't like what you see.

We REQUIRE that our literary heroes be morally perfect, like we are!

That’s “Woke FOLX”, you bigot

wont dignify this crazy dumb millennial with a reply. BTW i want to read that book about Whitman and the NY gay community in 19th-early 20th century. sounds interesting. cant remember the title now.

Walt Disney should be cancelled if Disney+ doesn’t include [italic]Song Of the South[/italic].

Senile dementia is a bitch, eh r25?

Walt Whitman is LITERAL VIOLENCE!!!!!

More and more, I’m realizing that 98% of the population doesn’t deserve a voice.

Blow up Twitter now. And immediately decapitate all the employees and writers for Huntington Post, Jezebel, and JSTOR Daily.

So what white person in the 19th century was not racist?

When will the SJWs come for Mohammed for marrying a 9-year-old girl when he was pushing 60?

Here's what you'll look like if you hold your breath long enough waiting for THAT to happen...

I love his samplers.

I'm old so I don't use words like "cancelled" but I think the debate on separating a person's work from who they are as a person to be an interesting topic. Does talent or even brilliance negate actions or opinions that are wrong? I can't answer that question. I believe Michael Jackson raped young boys and I still get a buzz when I hear "Billie Jean". I believe that Lincoln thought blacks were inferior to whites but as a descendant of emancipated slaves I'm thankful for his actions. I'm not laying this at the feet of SJWs either. Humans have always wanted their heroes and idols to be unsullied. We simply live in an era where more people have the ability to expose those feet of clay.

FFS

r33 if we knew every private detail of every person's life, we would despise EVERYONE, including those we think we know best.

It's amazing that we're going back and vilifying all of these long-dead icons for their past behavior when we have elected a president who is and has done far worse than any of them.

[quote] So what white person in the 19th century was not racist?

Therein lies the problem. Whitman's attitude, or Lincoln's for that matter, is one of the factors that caused us to fail miserably at Reconstruction. Those Northern whites who were adamant about ending slavery were unable -- for a variety of reasons -- to go the next steps as far as what equality required once the war was over. It is why in the 1880s and 1890s we drifted quickly to a system of Jim Crow segregation that lasted for the next 60 years. Northern abolitionists wanted to outlaw slavery, but their fellow citizens didn't think of blacks as equals.

That is not to excuse Whitman, but to explain that he was not out of step with many of his contemporaries.

Twenty percent of adults have a Twitter account. Just cancel Twitter, and every lazy asshole journalist who uses it as a shortcut to actual legwork.

I don't believe in cancelling people. However, mainstream history always seems to ignore the racist views of its important figures. Society should just paint a full and honest picture of its historical figures rather than trying to sweep their bigotry under a rug.

I hope not. I love his chocolates!

While we're at it, let's cancel Richard Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Lewis Carroll, and Mother Theresa. You say 'hero', I say 'zero', 'hero!' 'zero!' HERO!! ZERO!! Let's call the whole thing off.

NO!!

I hate you Walt freakin’ Whitman! Leaves of grass, my ass!

Do you mean "canceled" by any chance, OP?

^ Both spellings are correct.

What is still skated over with Whitman, as with so many other historical figures labelled as homosexual, such as Wilde, is that many were also pederastic. As well as Peter Doyle, Whitman also had Bill Duckett and many teenage soldier lovers. However their sexually is shoehorned to fit into politically correct boxes. It would be better for historical writing if 'gay' is taken to mean 'sex with males' rather than 'sex with men'.

R32 me too! Especially the milk-chocolate clusterfucks.

And the creamy soft-centers!

If they are old enough to fight in war, they are old enough to fuck.

In 1861 it would not be seen as improper for an impoverished family to negotiate the marriage of an adolescent daughter to a man of property or to a widower with children to care for. An absent or deceased father might compel a boy of thirteen to become "head of the household."

I wonder how many of these fools who want to scourge culture of all *triggering* people own a Mercedes, BMW, Volkswagen -- hell, a Ford !

Any “head of household” would need to get off to relieve the stress of his duties.

Whitman was a great poet, period.

I just heard that Walt Whitman and Abraham Lincoln had an unspoken, unfulfilled, non-relationship.

They saw and admired each other but didn't actually speak.

How will we get to Philly from South Jersey?

CANCEL EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE. Then everything and everyone can have a redemption and comeback tour!

It is a stunning illustration of how unsophisticated people are that OP would pose the question "Should Walt Whitman be #cancelled" while attaching an entire article that looks at the question in a lot more nuanced a manner.

If you don't want to read Whitman, don't. Everyone else can decide for themselves. It was a different time, he probably had little exposure to the people he didn't like and his racism was more than likely borne out of ignorance. Cancel culture is idiotic and shuts down thoughtful discussion.

But what about "From Pent Up, Aching Rivers"???????????????

I doubt anyone can stand up to the values of today's woke people. I'm sure they will find a reason to "cancel" Phillis Wheatley and Emily Dickinson.