You must log in or register to comment.
- And people will say “stop making things about race” as if it’s over.
Remember, Mr Rogers was a good neighbor. He was also a marine scout sniper. He wouldn’t have put up with the shit that’s happening now.
It really hits different to know that this was only about 56 years ago. Societal change happens extremely slowly.
Just wait until you hear that the US fully repealed all laws penalizing sodomy (which included homosexual intercourse) between two consenting adults in 2003, when the Supreme Court declared that such laws were unconstitutional under the equal protection clause (Lawrence V Texas).
The progress in that regard was fortunately very quick. In 2009, first states started legalizing gay marriage, in 2013 SCOTUS decided that even gay pairs from states that banned gay marriage can receive benefits if they have a valid marriage license from a states that allowed it (US v Windsor), striking down the shameful Defense of Marriage Act, and in 2015, it was at last decided that the constitution protects gay marriage, making it legal in all states (Oberfeller et al V Hodges). In 2020, in an opinion paradoxically written by Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, the court decided that the protection guaranteed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 applied to LGBTQ folks as well (Bostock V Clayton County).
Eh, longer than I’ve been alive. It can take a while sometimes, but there was a lot of resistance to overcome. That kind of racism wasn’t something that could be easily overcome with a law, certainly not with screaming/fighting, or murder, or stealing & burning shit down; this racism was inscribed on the hearts of others by their parents, families, communities…things done in anger & blind hatred only perpetuate it. This lingering racial discrimination required public actions like this to erase it. Humility, acceptance, quiet persistence, love. Qualities & traits that don’t exactly abound in today’s so-called “culture”, if you ask me.
This is not a super popular thing to say & it doesn’t map onto this racial discrimination at all, but generally speaking you wouldn’t want a society that’s quick to change. Prone to flights of fancy, turning this way & that in the wind. You want society to be strong, cohesive, truly united, and defined/driven by a set of agreed upon values. I see a lot of people pulling a lot of different directions. We can’t agree on anything, and sometimes, our goals are even in direct opposition. It’s hard to build & maintain a strong society when we can’t agree on a sturdy foundation, the things we stand for.
And we are unfortunately vulnerable to regression. It’s sad to think that if Mr Rogers was around today his show would probably be attached to an executive order to have his funding cut.
I don’t know if a similar show would be influential in today’s media market. Not just because it would be considered “woke” by half the population, but because the content would be like watching paint dry for a lot of kids.
I think a big part of learning empathy is wrapped up in learning how to be patient, and how to appreciate someone’s company enough to allot them your time and attention. I just don’t think people value patience very much anymore and wonder if our media reflects that or it’s vice versa.
I know! I’m in my 40s and queer, I’m always stunned by how different young people’s attitudes are to lgbt now.
We need 100,000 more Mr. Rogers in the world. 1,000,000 more.
ACAB
Just fuck off already.
One of the few times I’ll agree with your sentiment. There’s a time and place for ACAB. A fake cop on a kids show promoting racial equality is not one of them.
…so this is some real pedantic shit I’m about to do here, and I apologize in advance, but that’s the wrong picture. François Clemmons was on the show between 1968 and 1993. The original episode where they share a pool aired in 1969, and both men were much younger. The picture above is from Clemmons final appearance on the show in 1993, titled “Love,” where they again share a foot pool. I know this because my toddler has become Mr. Rogers obsessed and I’ve seen the 1993 episode 3 dozen times in the last month.
*Me, a connoisseur of pedantry*: “Aww yes, that’s the good stuff”
It is gloriously pedantic, and it’s good to be specific! Thank you for the additional info. 🙂
1993 sounds about right, because I feel like I’ve seen it & it didn’t feel like an old or retro episode (neither was I thinking, “Why is that black man sharing a foot pool with a white man?” But I think my parents carefully explained why this was significant, what racism was (/is), and I thought it was ridiculous. Because it is.).
That’s a good obsession to have, raise them right. Mr. Rogers was a good role model with great messages.
Also, is this a meme?
I fucking hate you. Take your upvote.
Fair point, but that’s a question for the mods. If you want some obscure Mr. Rogers facts though, or theories on the Daniel Tiger timeline, I’m your guy.
I’d love some obscure facts about Mr. Rogers.
I grew up with him.
Mr. Rogers really wanted to encourage children’s imaginations, but he didn’t want them to confuse fantasy and reality. That’s why there’s such a strong delineation between his house and the Neighborhood of Make Believe. He also did more than one, “behind the scenes,” episode to show the neighborhood wasn’t real, and even mentioned on occasion that his, “house,” was just his, “television house,” where he would visit with the viewer, not his real house where he lived (which explains why he leaves at the end of every episode). When Big Bird was set to do a crossover episode, Rogers initially wanted the puppeteer to remove the costume and show children how it worked. The puppeteer didn’t want to destroy Big Bird for children, so they compromised by only having Big Bird visit the Neighborhood of Make Believe. However, there are two regular characters (Handyman Negri and Mr. McFeely) who appear in both the Neighborhood of Make Believe and the Mr Rogers house, which potentially blurs the line between real and make believe.
We need a motherfucking army of Mr Rogers and we need to airdrop them into every neighborhood in America.
In case they meet resistance, I strongly feel they should also have lightsabers.
Isn’t it amazing that ‘not lying to children’ somehow seems kinda radical?
True, but to be fair, if I’d been watching Mr. Rogers as a kid and Big Bird showed up, ripped his own head off, and revealed a middle-aged man hiding inside, I probably would have been traumatized.
True, but Mr. Rogers would probably know how to do it properly so that you’d be at ease.
ACAB
All Children Are Beautiful. - Mr Rogers, probably.
“Two dudes chilling in a hot tub, two feet apart cause they’re not racist.”
Do you want them to cuddle?
Would have been nice if one of them didn’t have to be a cop.
Technically that was a calculated movement of it’s time. They wanted a black character in a role that spoke to an easy childhood concept of authority to imply that power dynamically having black people in a dominant respected role in social spaces is a normal thing one doesn’t need to get upset over. Hence the whole friendly cop thing.
They were aware through the gay black actor they had in the role that police was something minority communities had issues with but the hope at the time was that more diversity in the force would be a solve. It’s naive from a modern standpoint but they did try.
It was sad that they purposefully kept the gay part of the actor’s identity under wraps. They knew they were asking him to do something harmful by keeping his private life strictly secret but the actor agreed that he was doing something he deemed worth the sacrifice.
deleted by creator
Almost exactly 56 years ago when Senators were cutting PBS budgets because they don’t understand the importance of childhood education and mental health
Oh trust me, they do understand the importance of education. That’s why they cut funding.
How can children get a well-rounded education without walls of ads?
And republicans have never forgiven him for this.
Is this AI? I don’t remember this scene looking anything like this. Also I believe it was an actor playing an officer, and Mr Roger was much younger.
No, they did it twice. This is from the later one:
The image misses part of the story. He was a character on the show, officer Clemmons, and wasn’t just on this episode. And what’s more, he was gay and Fred Rogers knew and accepted him for it at a time that that was uncommon. This image makes it seem like a single random act of impersonal kindness but it was much more than that.
Lovely interview with (Officer) Francois Clemmons. Clemmons grew up during civil rights unrest and was firehosed and beaten by cops and did not want to play one on TV. I don’t know if making kids less scared of cops was a good thing or not, but I know Mr. Rogers’ heart was in the right place.
The song at the end is the one Clemmons sang while they were hanging out in the pool the second time they did this scene 20 years after the first one: “There are many ways to say I love you.” In this one Mr. Rogers dried Officer Clemmons’ feet as they were getting out of the pool.
There’s a rapper named prof that did a pretty spot on Mr Roger’s imitation in one of his videos. They included a different take on this scene, but I had no idea that they were referencing an actual Mr Roger’s video with that part until just now.
Classic Mr. Rogers story that when you dig deeper, it’s even more wholesome than initially presented.
Also better that he just played a cop, instead of actually being one
It was 3
3 appearances?
You said it was more than a single act of kindness.
My joke is that it’s 3 acts of kindness, accepting him as a black, gay and a cop.
Your reminder that Fox News hated Mister Rogers and everything he believed.
Stolen from one of the top comments on this video, but it’s a great comment I thought worth repeating here:
“Mr. Rogers didn’t say that you deserve success and material gratification merely for being yourself. Rather, when a world obsessed with competition and material success beats down on your soul, his message was to remind you that you still had one.”
Lol “Fox & Friends”. More like “Murdoch’s Monsters.”
That’s when you know you’re winning.
it’s funny. anyone who actually watched Mr Rogers should know what I’m about to say.
he didn’t want everybody to be just like him. he wanted to inspire children to be better versions of themselves.
frankly, I’m not a nice person. never want to be, but I do try to be a good person.
Same, I lost my shit with someone at the DMV because I needed one of those new ‘real’ IDs because I really needed to travel. But I lost my birth certificate in a fire and so i couldn’t even get that. I had to take time off work to try and get and they were pissed about that. So now I am going through this while being angry with myself and I took it out on someone who didn’t deserve it because I was a bitch who needed to be angry at someone else.
I hate myself so much.
don’t be too hard on yourself. the fact that you’re remorseful about it should be all the proof you need to show that you were just having a bad day(or couple months).
even Mr. Rogers had bad days. it’s about dealing with your feelings and owning them.
if you feel that bad you should send the person some chocolates or just straight up apologize for your behavior. who knows, maybe it’ll make their own horrible day alittle better.
Yeah, I’m an asshole, I know I’m an asshole, but I do try to not make it a problem for other people and I think watching his show as a kid definitely helped me to be better about that.
I grew up on Mr. Rogers, Bob Ross, etc. They’re a big part of what shaped me and made me empathetic. I live a good life but the world around me (the US) is determined to make me bitter and angry, and it’s an everyday struggle to keep my mind above water.
I know if he were around today, he would still manage to always keep a cool head and a grounded spirit, despite knowing where this country is headed.
He would speak out against concentration camps and end up arrested himself.
He is much needed and missed right now.
So it is hot, Mr Rogers and neighboring cop are cooling their feet. Can someone tell me why Mr Rogers is still wearing a sweater? Is he taking the name literally?
Because it was cold out, but they both had insanely bad cases of athletes foot.
Can someone tell me why Mr Rogers is still wearing a sweater?
Because he’s Mr. Rogers.
