Another response to The Indian-Oz Connection:

Eric,

>> I also notice that you haven't said anything about my condemnation of what Baum wrote in those editorials. <<

I thought I quoted your entire paragraph on the subject. Namely:

Did you condemn Baum's editorials anywhere else? If so, I must've missed it.

>> Nevertheless, the entire FAQ was recently updated, including the one you alude to, at Was Baum a Racist? I hope this new version will better meet with your approval. <<

I hope so too. I'll check it out.

>> But I doubt it. <<

Considering I said your FAQ was "excellent" overall, I'm not sure why you'd doubt it.

Your new writeup is fairly good. I'd say it's relatively balanced, though you're still putting a positive spin on Baum. Some comments:

>> In Baum's fiction, some passages clearly reproduce racial stereotypes of his day. His "official" Oz books are fortunately free of these, with the notable exceptions of short passages in The Patchwork Girl of Oz and Rinkitink in Oz (see the second paragraph of question 2.19 for details). <<

The Oz books seem to be free of racial stereotypes because they're free of races. Are there any examples of his writing about races (real races, not pseudo-races like the Munchkins or Quadlings) that are free of stereotypes? Again, every example you've given of his writing about a real race is negative.

>> At the same time we acknowledge those patterns, we should note that Baum's Oz books generally champion the value of folks learning to live together. Sometimes this message comes in the same passages that contain offensive stereotypes. The Tottenhots episode in Patchwork Girl of Oz ends with them and Dorothy agreeing, "you let us alone and we'll let you alone." <<

One could construe this as a policy of racial harmony through racial separation. What if a Tottenhot wanted to move next door to Dorothy or marry her best friend? Would Dorothy agree that the Tottenhot was still letting her people alone?

That leads to a point that I made with someone else. Namely, that the people of Oz don't live together in harmony, except in rare circumstances. They live in separate kingdoms and make a point of distinguishing themselves: by geography, heritage, even color. While they don't fight (although it's implied that the Emerald City imposed its will on the other kingdoms), they don't intermingle or intermarry either. The land is basically segregated, not integrated.

You can spin this positively if you want: The Ozians didn't kill or hate or oppress each other, so everything was hunky-dory. And I can spin it negatively: The Ozians were rigidly isolated except for the few people who traveled or mingled in the Emerald City. They weren't much different from early 20th-century Americans, most of whom didn't join the KKK or other hate groups. They lived their separate lives, ignorant of others and feeling superior to anyone who was different.

Regardless of how we spin it, the fact remains: a system of peaceful but segregated kingdoms is not the civilized world's ideal for the 21st century. "Separate but equal" was ruled unconstitutional and un-American in 1954. It's not a wonderful message for today's multicultural children; it's a mixed message at best.

Ghost Dances promised death?
>> Friction between the Sioux, forced to live on a small portion of the land they'd once controlled, and white settlers was inevitable. The "Ghost Dance" movement promised that all whites on the continent would soon be buried under a thick layer of new topsoil. <<

The Ghost Dances were peaceful, in general. They were basically all talk (i.e., constitutionally protected free speech). Even the extreme Lakota version, which was only one variation, prophesied only the removal of non-Indians. It didn't say how this would happen or whether it would be violent.

So the Ghost Dance "threat" basically wasn't one. Unless white settlers were a lot better informed than today's white folks are about Indians, I doubt they took it seriously. I doubt they even knew of it. We're talking about people who were illiterate or who lived on isolated farms and ranches, remember.

For those who had heard of the Ghost Dance, where did they get their "information" from? From rabble-rousing newspapers such as Baum's, presumably. So white people scared other white people by raising irrational fears of an Indian uprising. Then they used their self-generated propaganda to justify genocidal acts against the Indians.

In short, you're equating the barely-perceivable Ghost Dance threat with the real threat the Sioux faced of eradication. The two are not morally equivalent by any stretch of the imagination. The Sioux had far more reason to feel threatened and to react to those threats, as they did at Little Big Horn. Unlike the white settlers' fears, their fears were justified.

>> His 1891 editorials picked fights with the town's ministers, fire department, school administrators, and eventually high school students. By April, Baum sold the newspaper and moved to Chicago. He never again wrote about Native American policy. <<

Because he was never again an editorial writer, presumably. So did he soften his views? Sounds like he never had another opportunity to write about Native American policy, which doesn't mean his views changed. Lack of opportunity doesn't equal lack of racist feelings.

>> Baum's editorials on Sitting Bull and Wounded Knee therefore seem less like deep-seated convictions and more like the remarks of a man under stress expressing anger and fear in a way that his society allowed. <<

Or both.

>> Baum was a product of the nineteenth century, born five years before the Civil War began. During his life, and long after, the United States was a segregated society in which European-Americans held power and set policy. People of all other ethnic backgrounds were denied equal services, opportunities, and respect. Within that society, many of Baum's beliefs were progressive, but since then our values have become much more inclusive. For example, Baum and his relatives spent decades advocating women's suffrage, and today no politician would conceive of saying that only one sex should be allowed to vote. We therefore can't judge Baum solely by twenty-first century standards. <<

We can't judge him solely by today's standards, but we can judge him. So he was a typical American by 19th-century standards—in other words, a racist. And he's definitely a racist by 21st-century standards.

There you go. I've judged him by today's standards and by the standards of his time. So what's the problem? You and I basically agree. I wonder why other people have disagreed with us?

>> Baum expressed racism, but simply labeling him as racist neglects how he differed from his contemporaries. <<

Luckily, I haven't "simply" labeled him a racist. I've looked at the arguments in depth and concluded he was about as racist as his contemporaries. He probably wasn't much worse, but he probably wasn't much better, either. Many of his contemporaries expressed charitable "Christian" views toward minorities while denying them rights or opportunities.

Baum and his contemporaries weren't as bad as Hitler, arguably, since they didn't order the extermination themselves. But they were as bad as the Nazi soldiers and German citizens who knew the Holocaust was happening but didn't act. Baum's editorials may have been an aberration, technically speaking, but he didn't say one word against the ongoing genocide of Indians. That makes him as guilty as most Americans of his time.

Rob Schmidt
Publisher
PEACE PARTY

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