Lace on Race

Racial Equity Anti Hero: Walt Disney

Intro to Series: laceonrace.com/2021/02/04/racial-equity-anti-hero-series/

Tiffany Washington talks her shit from the backwoods of Alabama. Her work appears on Facebook because she’s already been rejected by The Root.

Today, in Black history, we remind you that Walt Disney was rolling over in his grave when Princess and the Frog was released.
Fan favorite, Walt Disney himself was a sexist….and especially racist.
Never mind the racist ass crows in Dumbo, forget about the Song of the South movie….we’ll even look past him referring to the seven dwarfs as “‘n’ pile.”
What we can’t look past is him not letting black people work at the Disney studio until the 1950’s.
Funny how when he died, movies slowly, but surely, became more diverse.#TodayinBlackHistory

-Tiffany Washington

Collaborating Writers

8 responses to “Racial Equity Anti Hero: Walt Disney”

  1. Emily Holzknecht Avatar
    Emily Holzknecht

    That is a good point that nodding to racism in entertainment does not go far enough to lessen harm and it certainly doesn’t mitigate it when our money keeps going to these big racist entertainment corporations and nowhere else.

  2. Emily Holzknecht Avatar
    Emily Holzknecht

    He might never have claimed to be not-racist, but Disneyland is said to be “the happiest place on Earth” without acknowledging that all the racist symbolism in the park might not make it the happiest place for many people.

  3. Emily Holzknecht Avatar
    Emily Holzknecht

    *crossposted*

    Walt Disney’s racism was known to me, and the Disney corporation still has a lot of racism to confront. My family went to Disneyland a year ago for the first and probably last time right before the pandemic shutdowns. The park itself, the “happiest place on Earth,” was full of racist relics that would be a no-go for their contemporary movies (not saying the movies are not still problematic, but the park is much more blatant than the movies). I am thinking about where I might be labeling something as great like the “happiest place on Earth” without considering whether Black, indigenous and people of color would experience it as so great. When am I meaning “this is great [for white people]”?

  4. Julia Tayler Avatar
    Julia Tayler

    Disney really makes me consider how much I have to learn and how I need to monitor my actions. I need to make informed decisions with how I spend my money and where it goes. The Anti Hero series is disappointing but illuminating. Tiffany Washington really tells it like it is. Thank you for having her write this series.

  5. Marlise Flores Avatar
    Marlise Flores

    Walt Disney as an anti-hero reminds me that I overlook legacies of violence for my own entertainment/ease. Walt Disney is not a surprising anti hero. The legacy he created, is also no surprise, but is overlooked entirely. Oh, as long as I nod to his racism, then the rest can be enjoyed! Nope. The same is true of my generational legacy. I don’t get to just nod to racism in the family. I must confront how that has weaved the quilt that covers me today. My responsibility is to unweave it.

  6. Rebecca McClinton Avatar
    Rebecca McClinton

    I hadn’t previously considered more deeply how present day issues (eg: $100+ individual ticket prices that make Disney only accessible to well-resourced families/kiddos, and their employees not getting paid living wages) link back to its inceptor’s racism, and appreciate this reminder to always look at how racism is shapeshifting from the past into the present.
    (crossposted to facebook)

  7. Rhonda Eldridge Avatar
    Rhonda Eldridge

    For me, he is included because he is still venerated and not whispered about. Disney has come so far with inclusion and diversity but white people are still not embarrassed by him. My grandfather, who was an amazing human being, was also an overt racist. I have come to calling that out in my family: I love Grandpa and he was a racist. I wish I had been old enough when he died to have talked to him about it because maybe he would have changed – I don’t know. Anyway, that’s why I think Disney is included.

  8. Christina Sonas Avatar
    Christina Sonas

    I was surprised at the inclusion of Disney in the series, mostly because he never pretended to be not-racist; this separates him from the others, who would profess unendingly that they are absolutely not-racist. But I catch another nuance to the Anti-Hero label: it is as much about me, the white worshipper, as it is about the anti-hero themselves. I have read the opening entries as people who would and do claim to support Black and brown people. But Disney is different. He is a person white people have enthusiastically elevated to hero status, as if his profound racism were unimportant to whether a person can be a hero. Which of course, to white people, it is.

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