So Long, Eddie

Eddie Haskell died last week. My brother and I were not exactly Wally and the Beav, but we enjoyed the show and probably saw some of ourselves and the kids we knew in it.  We also liked Father Knows Best, though that family with its two girls  and one teenage boy was less similar to ours than the Cleavers. Many on the left seem to loathe and despise both shows. It seems pretty much de rigueur  to refer to them with patronizing sneers and reminders of the supposed profound observation that not everyone’s life or family is like that of the characters. It is worth wondering why. The way of life depicted in shows such as Leave It to Beaver or Father Knows Best is pretty good – a loving, self-supporting  husband and wife,  living decent and honest lives and caringly  raising their beloved children to be decent and honest human beings . A lot of people would trade for it. It certainly beats what far too many kids  and adults are getting today.  I think we should see the Cleavers and Andersons as representing an ideal – a partial one to be sure.  One would not want to be or live or have values  exactly like any of the characters, but there are aspects of their lives and especially how they functioned as families  that are worth emulating.

The other Eddie I thought about is a not a person but a corporation – Eddie Bauer.   We have been satisfied customers for decades, both online and at their local store. A few days ago, I received an email from the company’s CEO.  He first declared boldly that he  thought the lives of black people matter. It seemed a little odd for him to feel a need to reassure his customers on that point, but whatever.  Then, though, he announced that Eddie Bauer would discriminate in hiring in favor of BIPOC ( meaning black, indigenous, and other persons of color; I looked it up)  people, and that the company would struggle against this country’s pervasive, insidious  racism. He did not restrict his condemnation to actual bigots but rather tarred the non-BIPOC part of the country as a whole.  Of course discriminating in favor of members of a group requires discrimination against those not in the group. I thought of all the non-BIPOCs in my family, my circle of friends, and the country at large whom he has deciding to discriminate against, and could see no reason they should be so treated. I  thought of the same people, millions of them, whom he has decided to libel as racists indiscriminately without fact or evidence, but with only his dogmatic, unjust assertion of their collective guilt and evil, based on  the color of their skin. Then I decided that I do not care to give money to people who spit on me.  So we will not by buying anything from Eddie Bauer as long as that pompous, posturing  jerk and fool is running the organization.  I hope we are not alone.