Oh my, the vapors over Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill

[jberryhill]

Against my better angels, I took a tour of the Internet fever swamps to see how the denizens thereof are taking the news. True to form, they did not disappoint.

What strikes me in some of their ridiculous reactions is that our currency used to be a lot more interesting than a collection of dead presidents (plus Ben Franklin) in the first place.

We have had Native Americans:







We have even had pagan gods!









Can you imagine the conniptions that would result from proposing to put a pagan god on US currency today?

[global1]

1. Why Don't We Just Get It Over With And Put....

Hillary on the $20.00 bill? (sarcasm)

[hobbit709]

22. They don't make a $200,000 bill.

[840high]

30. Boom!

[colorado_ufo]

31. Tish-boom!

OK - that was seriously funny!

[metroins]

36. That was funny

I'm a Hillary supporter but good joke.

[TowneshipRebellion]

59. This brightened my day...

Thank you so much for that.

[ozone_man]

2. Putting dead presidents on the money instead of ideals.

Some might call that fascism.

[underpants]

3. Side note. Much of the blind community is pushing for Helen Keller on the $10

FYI

[KamaAina]

6. She's already on the Alabama state quarter

complete with miniature Braille!

[underpants]

8. I didn't know that. Thanks. N/t

[RufusTFirefly]

55. Helen Keller: Suffragist, pacifist, socialist, and promoter of birth control

Keller argued that capitalists wanted workers to have large families to supply cheap labor to factories but forced poor children to live in miserable conditions. “Only by taking the responsibility of birth control into their own hands,” Keller said, “can (women) roll back the awful tide of misery that is sweeping over them and their children.”

Why is it that they never taught us that in school?

[KamaAina]

60. 'Cause you didn't go to school in Europe?

There, she is known more as a pioneering socialist feminist than as a person with a disability, perhaps because a certain treacly movie is not shown over there on an annual basis.

[ret5hd]

11. Just tell 'em we already did.

[Codeine]

24. Dammit. I shouldn't have laughed.

Now I feel like a monster.

[underpants]

29. Oh man

I have to be careful who I tell that to.

[jberryhill]

52. You are a naughty, naughty person

When you stub your toe and trip on the steps sometime soon, you'll know why.

[Blue_Tires]

4. Yeah, an announcement like this is pissing off all the right people, lol

[KamaAina]

5. Plus Alexander Hamilton

also not a dead President. In fact, the "natural-born citizen" clause that Trump and the birfers are throweing at Cruz was intended to block the Caribbean-born Hamilton from becoming President.

[jberryhill]

9. Do you have a reference for that?

I followed birther antics closely for a while, and never came across that bit about Hamilton. I thought it had more to do with foreign princes combined with our bar against titles of nobility.

[KamaAina]

10. I read it somewhere years ago.

[jberryhill]

16. Aha...

One of these days I have got to look up the MLA citation format for those.

Person, Some Pseudonymous, in Read It Somewhere, recalled in Reply #10 to post, 2016.

[melm00se]

15. Wouldn't have applied

Text:

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President;

As the Constitution was ratified in 1788, he would have fallen into the same category as most other Founding Fathers as becoming a citizen upon the creation of the USA.

[merrily]

53. Good catch!

[WinkyDink]

21. Cruz is a Canadian.

[reACTIONary]

46. Not only that...

..... he's not a very good Canadian .

[csziggy]

58. Uhm, that is a myth

Misconception: Alexander Hamilton was not legally eligible to become President of the United States.

Alexander Hamilton was born on the island of Nevis in the Caribbean. It is believed by some that because he was not born in the United States, Alexander Hamilton was not eligible to become a US President according to the US Constitution.

However, the US Constitution states in Article II, Section 1:

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President;

So according to the US Constitution, there are two ways someone can be qualified for the Presidency:

If they are a natural-born Citizen (born in the territory of the United States) -or-
If they are a citizen of the US at the time of the Adoption of the Constitution (which occured on September 17, 1787).

Alexander Hamilton, who had immigrated from the Caribbean in 1772, was a US citizen (as a citizen of New York) in 1787 and thus falls into the second group of e{li}gibility.
http://allthingshamilton.com/index.php/alexander-hamilton/false-myths-and-half-truths/71-myths-and-misconceptions/164-myths-presidency

[kentuck]

7. It's only appropriate to put a black woman on the $20 bill...

...instead of the founder of the Democratic Party. After all, he was a racist - probably the only one of his era?

[LanternWaste]

12. Yes. Yes it is...

"It's only appropriate to put a black woman on the $20 bill..."

Yes. Yes it is... regardless of how we may attempt to minimize it relative to party origins.

[Scootaloo]

18. He also perpetrated genocide.

[Chiquitita]

34. This ^^

and incited others to perpetrate genocide and steal land that didn't belong to them.

[Iggo]

23. A woman born into slavery replacing a racist slave owner?

Works for me.

[hfojvt]

13. is lady liberty really a pagan god?

At least a few of those are supposed to be lady liberty. The first one is called "Liberty walking" and the third "liberty standing".

I said that picking Tubman would be controversial. There would have been much less consternation if they had put Christa McAuliffe on the twenty.

I still say twenties are evil. I have refused to take them for decades.

Because I had a business and they were like the bane of my existence. Customer is spending $2.60 and has nothing but twenties in their wallet. Twenties will clean out your change drawer like nobody's business. Now they are coming from the machines, of course, but I wish bankers could be taught. If somebody is getting $80 in cash, please, please, please, do not give them ALL twenties. Break one of those evil fothermuckers up. To try to teach that point, I will always ask for tens and fives. Will not accept a twenty.

[Staph]

27. It could be worse.

My branch bank's ATMs dispense 50 dollar bills, unless you choose an amount that is divisible by 20 and not by 50. Try breaking a $50!

[progree]

44. I wouldn't mind that! Mine spits out $100 bills, GRRR

I usually do 3 withdrawals like $180, then $80, then $80, so as to maximize the amount of $20's I get, and get only one $100 bill. Unless there is someone(s) in line behind me.

I so hate handing some small or medium-sized business a $100 bill, and almost never do unless I'm buying more than $20 of something. So far, I've never had one rejected or anyone ask me if I had a smaller bill. But at McDonalds when I did use one once or twice, the cashier would disappear with it into some back room.

That ATM went straight from $20's to $100's. I could understand going to $50's as an intermediate step.

There is talk of getting rid of the $100 bill and the 500 Euro note because it makes criminal money transactions much more convenient than $20's.

Quite a bit comes up at Google: "Getting rid of $100 bill", for example,

Why the $100 Bill and the 500 Euro Note May Be Phased Out
http://time.com/money/4226174/kill-100-dollar-bill-500-euro-phase-out/

[hfojvt]

57. I happen to be fond of the $50

and I hardly ever saw one in business. It is the 20 that is ubiquitous.

US Grant was one of the earliest of my known famous relatives (before I uncovered many more). Hence, my fondness for the $50.

[melm00se]

61. When I was in Venice and Vienna (different times)

the ATMs there gave you the option of selecting what denominations you wanted.

you could have €300 spit out as a mix of €5's, €10's, €20's or €50's which was kind of nice as smaller shops did not like larger bills.

[Staph]

63. I've never seen that in an American ATM.

That would be lovely!

[jberryhill]

38. "Liberty" as an anthropomorphic representation of an abstract concept....

...is certainly not a mortal human.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_%28goddess%29

A goddess named for and representing the concept Liberty has existed in many cultures, including classical examples dating from the Roman Empire to those representing national symbols such as the American Columbia and its Statue of Liberty, an artwork created under the name Liberty Enlightening the World, and the French Marianne.

Ah, didn't know this bit...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_dime

The Mercury dime is a ten-cent coin struck by the United States Mint from 1916 to 1945. Designed by Adolph Weinman and also referred to as the Winged Liberty Head dime, it gained its common name as the obverse depiction of a young Liberty, identifiable by her winged Phrygian cap, was confused with the Roman god Mercury. Weinman is believed to have used Elsie Stevens, the wife of lawyer and poet Wallace Stevens, as a model.

[hfojvt]

56. she's not a goddess either

she's a representation of the concept of liberty.

Whatever the Romans believed, the early Americans were promoting the idea of liberty and NOT honoring some goddess. I understand it was part of the earliest legislation involving money that some denomination of money would always have a representative of liberty on it.

[Glassunion]

14. Didn't Hamilton hate the idea of paper money?

I think he'd be happy to be removed.

[raging moderate]

17. I love Harriet Tubman!

A truly heroic American!

[ScreamingMeemie]

19. I have been pleasantly surprised by the reactions in my area.

Most welcome it... the rest are comment trolls.

[raccoon]

20. I'd like to see rock musicians on our bills. That won't happen, so I'm glad it's Harriet.nt

[Codeine]

25. "Can I get five Ramones for this Jack White?" nt

[jberryhill]

49. I have petitioned many times to make Walk This Way our national anthem

It would be so bad-ass at the Olympics.

[Atman]

26. "In Gods & Goddesses We Trust."

[Takket]

28. interesting that we refer to money as "dead presidents"

This change means only half our paper money actually has dead presidents

Washington
Lincoln
Grant

the other half don't
Tubman
Hamilton
Franklin

just something I noticed...

I think we should put yoda on a bill. he's already green

[mnhtnbb]

32. Our paper money is so boring--compared to the colors of many other countries.

Does anyone else appreciate the irony of putting a "person of color" on our colorless paper money?


See some of the variation here:

http://www.colourlovers.com/print/blog/2008/03/27/the-color-of-money-from-around-the-world

[stage left]

33. i think Harriet Tubman is a great choice. nt

[RobinA]

35. Am I The Only

female who just cringes at this kind of tokenism?

[progree]

45. I'm not female but my first reaction was this was a bit too much political correctness

Last edited Wed Apr 20, 2016, 08:01 PM - Edit history (1)

I vaguely associated her with the Civil War era and abolition and being female and maybe black, and that's about all I "knew" about her. (I remember her being mentioned in school history courses, but that was 40 years ago for me). So I went to Wikipedia:

Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Ross; c. 1822[1] – March 10, 1913) was an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and a Union spy during the American Civil War. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped and subsequently made some thirteen missions to rescue approximately seventy enslaved families and friends,[2] using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. She later helped abolitionist John Brown recruit men for his raid on Harpers Ferry, and in the post-war era was an active participant in the struggle for women's suffrage.

Born a slave in Dorchester County, Maryland, Tubman was beaten and whipped by her various masters as a child. Early in life, she suffered a traumatic head wound when an irate slave owner threw a heavy metal weight intending to hit another slave and hit her instead. The injury caused dizziness, pain, and spells of hypersomnia, which occurred throughout her life. She was a devout Christian and experienced strange visions and vivid dreams, which she ascribed to premonitions from God.

In 1849, Tubman escaped to Philadelphia, then immediately returned to Maryland to rescue her family. Slowly, one group at a time, she brought relatives with her out of the state, and eventually guided dozens of other slaves to freedom. Traveling by night and in extreme secrecy, Tubman (or "Moses", as she was called) "never lost a passenger". Her actions made slave owners anxious and angry, and they posted rewards for her capture. After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed, she helped guide fugitives further north into Canada, and helped newly freed slaves find work.

When the Civil War began, Tubman worked for the Union Army, first as a cook and nurse, and then as an armed scout and spy. The first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war, she guided the raid at Combahee Ferry, which liberated more than seven hundred slaves. After the war, she retired to the family home on property she had purchased in 1859 in Auburn, New York, where she cared for her aging parents. She was active in the women's suffrage movement until illness overtook her and she had to be admitted to a home for elderly African-Americans that she had helped to establish years earlier. After she died in 1913, she became an icon of American courage and freedom.

More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Tubman

I thought, wow, that lady sure had a pair of gonads. She's earned her place on major U.S. currency in my mind.

[font color = red]On Edit:[/font] If you mean tokenism in terms of doing so little to make up for centuries of discrimination against minorities and women, I certainly agree.

[reACTIONary]

48. Our currency is, by definition.?

...tokenism - whoever is on it.

[jberryhill]

51. Meh... one person's tokenism is another person's inclusion

I doubt 99% of the population would care if Mickey Mouse was on some denomination of currency. People do tend to get wrapped up in symbols over substance.

[romanic]

37. I was expecting Rosa Parks over Harriet Tubman tbh.

But Harriet is truly a hero in history and I don't see the fuss on having her be on the bill.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

39. Certainly not a priority for me right now

At least it's not Hillary.

[NYC Liberal]

40. We also have a socialist on one of our quarters:

How many know that?

[Richard D]

41. Seriously though . . .

. . . with a hundred dollars being about as valuable as $10 was a while ago, we really need some large denomination bills.

[jberryhill]

43. I've been watching old broadcasts of Let's Make A Deal

And Monte Hall is running around with the most remarkable denominations of currency.

[erpowers]

42. Not Surprised

I am not surprised by this in the least bit. I expected people to be very angry that Harriet Tubman would be on the $20.

[former9thward]

47. This is purely ceremonial.

It will be years before a Tubman $20 bill is produced. Some have said as late as 2030. Whatever the date does not matter because cash will be dead by then. It will be something for museums and collectors but that is all.

[malaise]

50. The truth is that slavery built the wealth

Bravo - I'm delighted for Harriet Tubman

[merrily]

54. All "free: or cheap labor, but, yes, slaves were exploited and mistreated more heinously

than anyone.

[liberalnarb]

62. Its just testosterone fueled sexism and traditional American racism.

White people in America have a built in tendency to feel threatened whenever another group of people make social progress. They'll get over it.