Leftists Want To Rename John Wayne Airport Now That The Legendary Actor Is Considered 'Problematic'
By Emily Zanotti - The Daily Wire
A debate is now raging in California over whether to rename John Wayne airport in Orange County, after leftist Twitter users discovered a handful of "problematic" quotes from Wayne in a 1971 Playboy Magazine interview.
Wayne, who has been dead for almost 40 years, may have made the decidedly "unwoke" comments about women and minorities decades ago, but social justice warriors seem determined to make "The Duke" pay for his "racist" and "homophobic" views, according to Fox News.
A Twitter user unearthed Wayne's remarks earlier this month, and the interview, which Wayne did when he was 63 and had already mostly completed his film career, quickly went viral, with social media social justice warriors scrambling to "cancel" The Duke, and scrub him from entertainment history.
Last week, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times suggested that those concerned about Wayne's legacy should take the "cancellation" one step further by removing his name from the Orange County airport in order to demonstrate that those who hold problematic opinions — even those expressed in a bygone era where they were considered acceptable — will be stripped of mentions in history.
"It’s long past the time that Wayne’s name should come down," Michael Hiltzik writes.
"[T]he resurrection of a 1971 interview Wayne gave to Playboy magazine has underscored the sheer crudeness of the actor’s feelings about gay people, black people, Native Americans, young people and liberals," he claims. "This doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s impossible or immoral to enjoy westerns and war movies starring John Wayne; that’s a personal choice. But it certainly undermines any justification for his name and image to adorn a civic facility."
The latest calls for changing the name stem from Wayne's remarks, made at age 63, that he believed in “white supremacy,” at least until "irresponsible" black people became more educated, and that Native Americans were “selfishly” trying to keep their land.
When asked which films he considered perverted, Wayne listed 1969’s “Easy Rider” and “Midnight Cowboy,” before using anti-gay slurs in further discussing the films.
Orange County christened the airport after John Wayne shortly after his death, and the name has withstood challenges, including one in 2008 from county board supervisors who were reportedly concerned that the "John Wayne Airport" didn't accurately convey the facility's location.
But Hiltzik isn't so much concerned with how or why Wayne's name has remained on the airport all these decades, just that it no longer "represents" modern Orange County.
“Orange County today is such an economically and ethnically diverse community that it’s hard to justify asking any member of that community to board planes at an airport named after an outspoken racist and homophobe, with his strutting statue occupying a central niche in front of the concourse,” he writes.
Indeed, Orange County does seem to be changing. The longtime Republican stronghold turned blue in the 2018 elections, and all seven districts within the area fell to Democrats. Experts haven't explained precisely why the area flipped so rapidly, but shifting demographics and "Trump fatigue" likely played key roles, according to NPR.
But it's hard to judge Wayne by today's standards. The early 1970s were a very different time, and as Wayne's family put it to Fox News, Wayne isn't alive to express how he might feel about the same issues today.
“It’s unfair to judge someone on something that was written that he said nearly 50 years ago when the person is no longer here to respond," they told the network.
Hiltzik will not be deterred, however, and gives a litany of reasons why the name should be changed, most notable among them that Wayne was a dedicated "right winger" — a clear clue to Hiltzik that Wayne's views probably wouldn't be very different if he were alive today.
For their part, Orange County does not appear to be making any overt efforts to change the name. Yet.
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Originally Posted by Teh One Who Knocks
