On This Day in History: December 10

Winston Churchill wins a Nobel Prize

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What is it about amazing authors being shitty people? Occam’s Razor dictates that there are plenty of dick cheeses across every discipline, and since the world loves a scandal we hear about the bad ones. J.K. Rowling is transphobic. Orson Scott Card hates the gays. David Eddings and his co-author wife Leigh served a year in prison each for literally torturing their adopted children. And Sir Winston Churchill? His racism made people blanch even at a time when being racist as fuck was totally the norm.

--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: December 10, 1953--

Winston Churchill was a man who in his long life did many great and terrible things. During World War II his leadership played a vital role in maintaining a defiant morale in the face of impending defeat at the hands of the fucking Nazis. In 2002 a nationwide poll of over a million voters proclaimed Churchill the greatest Briton to ever live, because I guess they didn’t mind all the awful things he also did.

Churchill was a big fan of imperialism, seeing it as an act of altruism. He said, “by conquering and dominating other peoples, the British were also elevating and protecting them.” I believe the conquered may have held differing opinions regarding this. He was a big fan of racial hierarchies and eugenics and saw nothing wrong with the genocidal treatment of Indigenous persons in the various nations the British Empire conquered.

His greatest crime was his role in the Bengal famine of 1943. It’s a region of India, which at the time was a British possession, and Churchill let approximately three million Bengalis die of starvation. On his orders, 170,000 tons of wheat from Australia bypassed those starving in India to head to Europe and . . . go into storage. Churchill’s rationalization was that he anticipated the need for the wheat to feed Europeans once the war was over. During the famine he also demanded India export rice to feed the war effort. In 1943 that was his only concern: defeating Germany; it was his sole priority no matter how many Bengalis had to die. He even blamed India for the famine, saying, “They breed like rabbits.” Despite the racism, Winston was one helluva writer. Both talented and prolific, on December 10, 1953, Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature “for his mastery of historical and biographical description.”

Everyone is flawed. Some aren’t just flawed, they’re evil. We should not praise people as heroes, because we will always find reason to be disappointed, crushed, or aghast. However, we can praise heroic acts. Admire the deeds you deem worthy rather than the person behind them. Alternatively, feel free to say fuck them and cancel them from your life. No one is owed your admiration. No one.

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