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Am I the only one who finds trading the image of a former slave for goods and services to be in slightly poor taste? There's no question Harriet Tubman was a g

Am I the only one who finds trading the image of a former slave for goods and services to be in slightly poor taste? There's no question Harriet Tubman was a great lady, but I'm not sure this is the best way to honor her.

evanb 11y ago
There's no question that Kackson was a good President, but isn't trading the image of a lifelong slaveholder for goods and services in poor taste?
- logfromblammo 11y ago
  Try asking a Cherokee if Jackson was a good president.
- hooloovoo_zoo 11y ago
  I didn't say we should keep Jackson....
  - runamok 11y ago
    He's flipping your "bad taste" question back on you. Jefferson and Jackson have been on currency for decades and in their time treated people as currency and no one blinked. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_and_slavery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_and_slavery
- ethbro 11y ago
  There's no question? I understand on "the Native American problem" he was faced with an untenable status quo and even worse ideas from the states in question. However, solving it by negotiating with largely unrecognized leaders, then forcibly relocating ethnic populations across the country in exchange for dubious reimbursement for their native and sovereign land doesn't exactly seem a moral solution. It certainly could have gone worse had the states had their ways, but his solution wasn't exactly a paragon of ethical behavior.
- stcredzero 11y ago
  Then how about Marie Therese Metoyer? She started life as a slave, but ended up owning her own plantation. She was eventually able to buy all of her children out of slavery. According to church records, she owned 12 slaves at the time of her death, but local tradition has it that she was freeing them as well. It's also established that she ran her plantation with no slaves and only help from her sons for many years. So she's a former slave, a liberator of slaves, and a plantation owner and owner of slaves all in one. Would having her on a bill be in poor taste? (Granted, there are probably more prominent persons who should be on a bill before her.) (I once dated one of her descendants.)
thieving_magpie 11y ago
No. You shouldn't view her just as a 'former slave'. She risked her life to help destroy slavery. Characterizing her in such a binary way is short-sighted, I think. You should view her as an American hero and this is one way to honor our heroes. What I find in poor taste is that we haven't honored her in some equivalent fashion until now. The Tubman museum in Georgia is pretty great though. There's a statue in Maryland too. Outside of that, on a national level, I'm not sure what we've done.
venomsnake 11y ago
By that logic we should never put image of a woman on a bill because exchanging it for goods and services will be akin to prostitution. Makes no sense. And anyway after the 30 picoseconds of novelty the people will only look at the numerical value and just ignore that there is a human there. And by the time it enters circulation we will be in cashless dystopia.
- LyndsySimon 11y ago
  Why equate only women with sex work?
intopieces 11y ago
Why? Because it feels like you're trading the woman herself for goods and services? A review of Magritte's "The Treachery of Images" should assuage that concern, I imagine :)
- Crespyl 11y ago
  We need a new bill for the post-modern era, bearing an image with the inscription "This is not legal tender".
  - mcphage 11y ago
    [In the future] Shopkeeper: I'm sorry, I can't accept this bill as legal tender. It doesn't say that it's not legal tender—ergo it is legal tender, ergo it's not legal tender.
logfromblammo 11y ago
I find all representations of identifiable historic individuals to be in poor taste. I liked it when Liberty herself was featured on the coinage. I'd vastly prefer it if the currency denominations featured various depictions of Industry, Agriculture, Liberty, Justice, and Science/Truth rather than politicians and/or revised and sanitized historic figures. The other side can feature economically significant animals. Besides that, the money portraits seem a lot like icons of the Americanist pseudoreligion (as satirized to great effect in Bioshock Infinite), and a betrayal of the idea that the US is a nation of laws, not men. For instance, a Saturn V rocket is a suitable subject for a money engraving. A portrait of Neil Armstrong is not. A Model T is an acceptable subject. Henry Ford is not. A Texas oilfield is suitable. John D. Rockefeller is not. A railway locomotive is okay. Cornelius Vanderbilt is not. The light bulb is acceptable; Thomas Edison is not. A harvester in a productive wheat field is acceptable. The politician that penned the farm bill is not. Blindfolded Justice, with scales in one hand, and sword and laurels in the other, would be great. John Jay would not be. Real people all come with baggage. Ideals are clean.
- davegauer 11y ago
  I heartily applaud the idea of a bill bearing the image of a Saturn V rocket.
  - logfromblammo 11y ago
    We did get the moon landing on the reverse of an Eisenhower cupronickel dollar coin, so there is precedent for Apollo on money. I'd also love to see Chicago Pile-1 (first supercritical fission reactor) at Stagg Field on money.

evanb 11y ago

There's no question that Kackson was a good President, but isn't trading the image of a lifelong slaveholder for goods and services in poor taste?

logfromblammo 11y ago
Try asking a Cherokee if Jackson was a good president.
hooloovoo_zoo 11y ago
I didn't say we should keep Jackson....
- runamok 11y ago
  He's flipping your "bad taste" question back on you. Jefferson and Jackson have been on currency for decades and in their time treated people as currency and no one blinked. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_and_slavery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_and_slavery
ethbro 11y ago
There's no question? I understand on "the Native American problem" he was faced with an untenable status quo and even worse ideas from the states in question. However, solving it by negotiating with largely unrecognized leaders, then forcibly relocating ethnic populations across the country in exchange for dubious reimbursement for their native and sovereign land doesn't exactly seem a moral solution. It certainly could have gone worse had the states had their ways, but his solution wasn't exactly a paragon of ethical behavior.
stcredzero 11y ago
Then how about Marie Therese Metoyer? She started life as a slave, but ended up owning her own plantation. She was eventually able to buy all of her children out of slavery. According to church records, she owned 12 slaves at the time of her death, but local tradition has it that she was freeing them as well. It's also established that she ran her plantation with no slaves and only help from her sons for many years. So she's a former slave, a liberator of slaves, and a plantation owner and owner of slaves all in one. Would having her on a bill be in poor taste? (Granted, there are probably more prominent persons who should be on a bill before her.) (I once dated one of her descendants.)

thieving_magpie 11y ago

No. You shouldn't view her just as a 'former slave'. She risked her life to help destroy slavery. Characterizing her in such a binary way is short-sighted, I think. You should view her as an American hero and this is one way to honor our heroes. What I find in poor taste is that we haven't honored her in some equivalent fashion until now. The Tubman museum in Georgia is pretty great though. There's a statue in Maryland too. Outside of that, on a national level, I'm not sure what we've done.

venomsnake 11y ago

By that logic we should never put image of a woman on a bill because exchanging it for goods and services will be akin to prostitution. Makes no sense. And anyway after the 30 picoseconds of novelty the people will only look at the numerical value and just ignore that there is a human there. And by the time it enters circulation we will be in cashless dystopia.

LyndsySimon 11y ago
Why equate only women with sex work?

intopieces 11y ago

Why? Because it feels like you're trading the woman herself for goods and services? A review of Magritte's "The Treachery of Images" should assuage that concern, I imagine :)

Crespyl 11y ago
We need a new bill for the post-modern era, bearing an image with the inscription "This is not legal tender".
- mcphage 11y ago
  [In the future] Shopkeeper: I'm sorry, I can't accept this bill as legal tender. It doesn't say that it's not legal tender—ergo it is legal tender, ergo it's not legal tender.

logfromblammo 11y ago

I find all representations of identifiable historic individuals to be in poor taste. I liked it when Liberty herself was featured on the coinage. I'd vastly prefer it if the currency denominations featured various depictions of Industry, Agriculture, Liberty, Justice, and Science/Truth rather than politicians and/or revised and sanitized historic figures. The other side can feature economically significant animals. Besides that, the money portraits seem a lot like icons of the Americanist pseudoreligion (as satirized to great effect in Bioshock Infinite), and a betrayal of the idea that the US is a nation of laws, not men. For instance, a Saturn V rocket is a suitable subject for a money engraving. A portrait of Neil Armstrong is not. A Model T is an acceptable subject. Henry Ford is not. A Texas oilfield is suitable. John D. Rockefeller is not. A railway locomotive is okay. Cornelius Vanderbilt is not. The light bulb is acceptable; Thomas Edison is not. A harvester in a productive wheat field is acceptable. The politician that penned the farm bill is not. Blindfolded Justice, with scales in one hand, and sword and laurels in the other, would be great. John Jay would not be. Real people all come with baggage. Ideals are clean.

davegauer 11y ago
I heartily applaud the idea of a bill bearing the image of a Saturn V rocket.
- logfromblammo 11y ago
  We did get the moon landing on the reverse of an Eisenhower cupronickel dollar coin, so there is precedent for Apollo on money. I'd also love to see Chicago Pile-1 (first supercritical fission reactor) at Stagg Field on money.