This is not about denigrating the noble sacrifice of Latino soldiers. This is about corrupting art through politics.
To understand just how absurd the activists' demands are, realize that Mr. Burns did not set out to make a comprehensive portrait of the American experience in World War II. If he had, protesters would have a point.
Instead, the filmmaker chose to explore the war through the particular experiences of people in four geographically disparate towns: Sacramento, Calif.; Waterbury, Conn.; Luverne, Minn.; and Mobile, Ala. His film crew went to those locations and sought out anyone who had lived through the war – whether on the battlefield or the homefront – and was willing to talk about it.
They found African-Americans in some of those locales. They found Japanese-Americans too. They even found a Jewish former medic. What they didn't find was Latinos who had lived through the World War II era. No surprise there. Though the U.S. census didn't measure the Latino population discretely until 1970, it was almost certainly tiny relative to the rest of the U.S. population during the 1940s. And it was concentrated in the border states.
The point is, Hispanic veterans are absent from this documentary not because their sacrifice isn't valued. They weren't included because they didn't fit the perfectly legitimate storytelling frame chosen by the artist. It makes as much sense to complain that Mr. Burns insulted Texans by leaving Lone Star veterans out. Should the Texas congressional delegation demand redress (or at least rewrite)? Please.
PBS has set a terrible precedent here. What happens when outraged members of any other politically powerful interest group gang up on filmmakers and demand alteration to redress grievance? That pro-atheism documentary PBS is set to air soon -- on what grounds would PBS reject the demand by Catholics and Evangelicals that they be given air time to rebut that film's viewpoint? As I write in the News today:
Make no mistake, if activists and their congressional allies can do this to Ken Burns, they can do it to anybody.
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Just think about Rod's outrage if PBS and the Latino community did an even more the politically incorrect thing such as utilize public funds and to do their own documentary featuring Hispanic vets for any reason, any war. He would then be upset that they were using public funding for some "special interest or entitlement." It was probably safer to piggy back on somebody else's re"whiting" of history. Also, the Hispanics were not alone in this venture. The Native Americans were also upset at their exclusion from the movie.
Two things. PBS airing pro-atheism?
PBS is atheism. Secular Humnaists take no prisoners. They allow no dissent. It's part of their tolerance and diversity practices. You can be whatever you want to be, as long as you are a Darwinian atheist.
Second, if a hyphen is used to describe an American, then the person using it is only half American at best or no American at all.
Donny. An American.
Latinos, per capita, have won more medals of honor than any other ethnic group. It was the heavly Spanish speaking national guardsmen of Texas, New Mexico and California who were sent to train the Spanish speaking Philipinos that suffered the intitial Japaneese assult and eventual Bataan Death March. Whole male populations of military age Latino and Native American men were wiped out from pueblos across the Southwest because of this. Ken Burns is an artist of unquestioned ability and genious but in this particular time in history we want our surviving Brown Americans to be recognized for their heroic deeds. Had this special excluded white veterans what would have been the reaction? We have earned our rightful place to be recognize and don't want to be dismissed for what ever reason.
Donny are you native-american?
So, now, what, left-handed, one-legged, red-headed Jewish Lesbians are entitled to their own PBS special, too?
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