American

There's a scene in American Playboy Season 1, Episode 3 ("Becoming Mr. Playboy") in which the fledgling magazine is about to launch a variety show on television, and virtually on the eve of its premiere it is told that the stations in the South will refuse to broadcast the show unless the black guests--Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole--are removed.

Well, that looks familiar, doesn't it? A bunch of prune-faced White people holding flags and proclaiming that what they don't like is COMMUNISM. I'm often startled by how little progress we have made as a nation...especially in the past 60 years, all of which I have lived. Turn on the news today and you'll see Southern Republicans working to limit the opportunities for Black people to vote, waving their flags, and proclaiming that Democrats want to embrace Communism.

Well, in the show, Hefner, who is really only trying to run a successful magazine, and who sees the opportunity to do a television variety show as a means to increase his circulation, is told by his staff that they can't afford to lose the South, that that constitutes half of their possible market. Hefner responds by saying, "Fuck the South."

Hefner went on with the show. The Southern tv stations refused to broadcast it because they didn't like the whole Mixed Races thing. But the show still did well enough to get an order for a full season. 

So in this case, at least, Good triumphed over Evil. And Hugh Hefner looks like a hero to me. He put his ideals of racial equality above this financial concerns. 

It seems that nowadays it works the other way, though. In order for Good to win, It has to prove to the Money Folks that they will lose dollars if they don't support what is right. The end result might look the same...but it really isn't, is it. The distance between a company risking its financial well-being to do the right thing and a company doing the right thing because its financial well-being was at risk is several light years in terms of morality.

Let's be more like Hef, huh? Let's be real Americans again.