DANA LOESCH! GO SIT IN TIME OUT AND THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU'VE DONE!
Who in their right mind reacts to the addition of a black, female character to a children's television show by photoshopping klan hoods onto animated trains? This woman actually went on television last week to complain that Thomas the Tank Engine is getting too diverse.
They've decided that the next stop is Virtue Town. Thomas the Tank is now bringing gender balance to the show by adding girl trains. Seriously. One of those trains, Nia, will be from Kenya to add ethnic diversity to the show.
Seriously. Check out the tape.
Whoops. We meant this one.
Media Matters got the transcript:
And -- which that by the way, that's where it gets really strange to me because I've looked at Thomas and Friends, at their pictures, and I see gray and blue. Am I to understand this entire time that Thomas and his trains were white? Because they all have gray faces. How do you bring ethnic diversity? I mean they had to paint, what I guess they thought was some sort of African pattern on the side of Nia's engine? How do you bring ethnic diversity to a show that literally has no ethnicities because they're trains. They don't even have skin pigmentation. Where -- was there some concern that the show had racist undertones? Because, Sir Topham Hatt clearly is white, but the trains? I mean, I'm looking at this picture and I'm really, really struggling to understand how in the world there isn't any diversity in any of this. Oh, was it because, I see it. It was the white hoods. And the burning train tracks. OK, fine, fair point. Fair. I get it. Thomas the Tank Engine has been a blight on race relations for far too long. Clearly this is overdue. Right?
MA'AM.
Okay, Dana. Let me tell you about a fun time in 2005 when I, your Five Dollar Feminist, woke up with three kids under the age of 4. My boys looooooved Thomas the Tank Engine. We had the trains, we had the videos, we had the sheets, and the towels and the overalls and the backpacks, and ...
Future linebacker and drummer
That's two clean babies in matching Thomas PJs, one of whom is holding a Thomas Train. You want to talk Thomas the Tank Engine (Rolling Along)? COME AT ME, BRO!
First of all, Annie, Clarabel, Elsie, Henrietta, and Rosie have been on the show for a decade. It's not like Nia is bringing her girl parts into the all-male clubhouse and now they'll have to add a Tampax dispenser to the machine shed. Second of all, WHO FUCKING CARES if they add characters to make the show more diverse? Which kid is harmed by looking at an African train? Not everything is an assault on your sacred privileges, Dana! I didn't shred my kids' Thomas T-shirts because Ringo Starr stopped doing the narration and got replaced by George Carlin. Get a grip!
In point of fact, Nia is just one of a whole stable of trains from other countries being added to the cast.
Weirdly enough, Dana isn't losing her shit over Ivan of Russia or Axel of Belgium. But it was never about "diversity," of course. It was and always will be about selling guns. And if kids grow up thinking an integrated train shed is normal, how are you going to whip them into a panic about scary brown dudes so you can sell them an arsenal of weapons?
OH, NOES! Time for more animated klan hoods!
WHAT THE FUCK?
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