Disney's "Proud Family" Shame
Mike Walker, Col USMC (ret)
There is a show on Disney+ that is a disgrace. It is called "Proud Family: Louder and Prouder."
I have no qualms about TV shows not being fair, of pushing a biased agenda. That is free speech.
But telling children outright lies about our history is another matter. Pick and choose your facts as you wish but do not fake it. Do not lie to children about what really happened.
And do not normalize telling historical falsehoods. If lying for personal gain becomes accepted then chaos and anarchy are the only possible outcomes. Being "loud and proud" about lying, deceiving, and misleading is unacceptable in a civil and just society.
Here is what I mean:
Proud Family claims Lincoln did NOT move to end slavery. Here are facts to thoroughly refute that falsehood:
On 16 April 1862, Abraham Lincoln began his great acts to end enslavement by issuing the District of Columbia Emancipation Act that freed the slaves in the Federal district of Washington and that was followed by the Emancipation Proclamation which ended slavery in the rebelling South on 1 January 1863.
The next year witnessed Lincoln and the Congress repealing the Fugitive Slave Act leading a Northern newspaper to boast, “The blood-red stain that has blotted the statutes-book of the Republic is wiped out forever.”
Tremendous changes were at hand but the war had yet to be won.
The Confederate States has rejected the Union in 1860 and until defeated their
laws ruled their lands. The Emancipation Proclamation and repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act held no sway there.
Slavery would not end until the US Army forced it on the Confederacy – enforcement to be paid for in Northern blood -- not by some inanely "louder and prouder" song and dance displayed in “Proud Family.”
After hundreds of thousands of casualties, emancipation became reality in 1865 with General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox on 9 April.
And slavery again took the stage as the anti-slavery North fought the war in 1865 with some 179,000 free “Colored” men under arms giving it a significant boost in strength (as much as 10% of the US Army in a North that was 99% White).
But even in victory, getting Union troops to every corner of the fallen Confederacy in 1865 was difficult by today’s standards – many had to march hundreds of miles to restore order. It took months for the Union to get soldiers in place to enforce the proclamation.
The most significant event occurred in Texas on 19 June 1865 when Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston and issued General Order no. 3 that declared all slaves freed.
That date, which traditionally is called Juneteenth, is now a national holiday and with the passing of the 13th Amendment in December, slavery was abolished fully in the United States.
And telling that history highlights Disney's failure: When “Proud Family” advocates confront facts that refute its narrative, the facts are either removed or twisted.
The result is a dishonest and unacceptable discourse. “Proud Family” may be propaganda, it may be an attempt at proselytizing, it may be one-sided political activism but what it does not present is history.
What a tragic and ruinous process.
Shame on Disney.
