Tirthankar Roy Archives - Richard M. Langworth

Current Contentions: In Defense of Churchill (1): Cancel Culture

26 May 2021 Comments 0 Comments

Text of my Zoom address to the Chartwell Society of Portland, Oregon on 10 May 2021, 81st anniversary of Churchill taking office as Prime Minister. “Current Contentions: In Defense of Churchill” is available as an iTunes audio file. For a copy, please email rlangworth@hillsdale.edu.

Part 1: Defense, defense

Senator Packwood, Justice Gillette, members and guests of the Chartwell Society: I welcome you, if only virtually, so you won’t even be able to throw rolls if I say something silly. Taking his first tv screen test, Sir Winston muttered: “Even though we have to sink to this level, we always have to keep pace with modern improvements.”…

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Get Your History Right: Reply to Reader Hasan in “The Blade” (Toledo)

30 August 2020 Comments 3 Comments

NPR advances the Zeitgeist; The Blade responds

On a radio talk show distributed by National Public Radio, one Aliyah Hasinah said World War II had been started by a Eugenics-besotted Winston Churchill. On August 8th, the Editorial Board of The Blade replied: “NPR gave airtime to an activist who has a clear ax to grind against Churchill, yet it couldn’t find a scholar or biographer to give us a depiction of the whole man? …. Churchill was not a perfect human being. He was often wrong and some of his failures were spectacular, But for the most part, he epitomizes eloquence, courage and love of country.…

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Petition Response to Churchill High School: Please Keep Your Name

22 August 2020 Comments 3 Comments

This is a reply to a July petition to rename Winston Churchill High School, Bethesda, Maryland. Founded in 1964 as Potomac High School, its name was changed the following year to mark Sir Winston’s passing. It is a distinguished school whose alumni include two sons of the late Jack Kemp, both of whom pursued their famous father’s sport. Jeffrey Allan Kemp (’77) was an NFL quarterback; his brother Jimmy Kemp (’89) played in the CFL and is president of the Jack Kemp Foundation. State Senator Cheryl Kagan (’79) serves in the Maryland legislature.…

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Churchill’s Racist Epithets are Remarkably Rare (Hearsay doesn’t Count)

3 August 2020 Comments 0 Comments

Extracted from “Hearsay Doesn’t Count: The Truth about Churchill’s ‘Racist Epithets,'” for the Hillsdale College Churchill Project. For the original article, please click here. Readers please note: a footnoted version of this article will be published this year in a Hillsdale journal of Churchill Studies.

Epithets and expressions

In recent weeks Winston Churchill has become a target of ignorance. “Racist,” read the spray-painted label of the mob on his London statue. He should be knocked from perch, plinth and prominence. Some historians claim he used all the racist epithets we abhor, from the n-word to nationalities: “As the great tribal leader of 1940,” read one account, “his glorious speeches were peppered with references to the British race.”…

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