Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Mr. Jackson, if you're nasty.

Pictured: Every goddamn time you
go out to eat with friends.
Hey, remember that time a construction worker from New York started an internet campaign called Women on the 20's to replace Andrew Jackson on the twenty dollar bill with pretty much anyone else as long as they're a woman and not one of history's greatest monsters? You don't? Well, she did. Her name's Barbara Ortiz Howard and her organization held a contest to select an historically significant woman to be the face of the only bill anyone has in their wallet when you need to split the check.

American fex-machine, Ben Franklin.
Now before you freak out at the thought of a world in which someone other than a white president comes spewing out of the ATM, keep in mind that Alexander Hamilton (the $10 bill guy) and Benjamin Franklin (the $100 bill guy) were never president. Hamilton was the first Secretary of the Treasury and is only on the ten, so nobody cares. Meanwhile Franklin was a gout-ridden 18th century statesman, inventor and essayist. Additionally, he had all the sex, which I presume to be a result of people in the 1700's being unfamiliar with how STD's spread. Anyway the winner of Women on 20's' poll? Abolitionist and suffragist Harriet Tubman.

You know what?
Fuck Andrew Jackson.
Cool, right? And don't worry, she and Andrew Jackson actually aren't all that dissimilar. I mean, they were both American. Oh, and they're both um, dead, so there's that. Jackson owned people and made them work for no money, while Harriet Tubman was owned and forced to work for no money. Speaking of slavery, Tubman is probably most famous for leading over three hundred people out of slavery. While Jackson is...uh...also famous for moving people from one place to another. And did I mention that Harriet Tubman once killed a guy with the power of prayer? Because she did.

"Please, screw with Harriet Tubman.
I'm in an Old Testament mood."

-God
Yup. It's a little fun fact that I'd never read until today, but apparently Harriet Tubman used to pray that her owner, a guy called Edward Brodess, would change his ways and not be such a unrelenting dickbag (her words, not mine), but when that didn't happen she asked: "Oh Lord, if you ain't never going to change that man's heart, kill him, Lord and take him out of the way." A week later, the dude was dead. Sure, this was like the 19th century and people dropped dead like all the time for no apparent reason but Tubman was convinced that the Almighty had offed him and carried the guilt for the rest of her life.

"Hey! I...uh...holy shit, when you put it
that way, I
 do sound pretty terrible..."

-Andrew Jackson
Of course, you can't just vote on the internet and start swapping out historical figures. Who's on the money is up to Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew, and he works directly for the President in much the same way that God apparently works for Harriet Tubman. Neat, huh? All Women on the 20's has to do then is convince the President that a woman who spent her life fighting against slavery and for women's suffrage is a better choice than a slave-owner who signed the Indian Removal Act which led to the forcible relocation of Native Americans and the deaths of thousands of them.

Sorry to keep harping on the whole Trail of Tears thing, but seriously, we should be putting Andrew Jackson on urinal cakes or digging up his bones and taking turns using his skull as a prop in some kind of hilarious ventriloquist act. Yeah, ok, that one might going a little dark, but this should not be a difficult choice.
The twenty? We should be putting this lady on all the money.

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