Ethan Wayne, the youngest of John Wayne’s sons, says that scrubbing the legendary actor’s name from the airport in Orange County, California, would be an injustice given that the move is based on just a few comments in an interview nearly a half-century ago.
The 58-year-old chieftain of John Wayne Enterprises, which protects and markets products under Wayne’s name, spoke to Fox News after the Democrat Party in the county passed an “emergency resolution” to remove Wayne’s name and statue.
Ethan Wayne, who appeared in two of his father’s films, said his father would have pulled officer Derek Chauvin off George Floyd had he, Wayne, been at the scene on May 25 when Floyd died while Chauvin restrained him.
He also said his father always gave everyone a fair shake.
Democrat Stalinists
The trouble for Wayne began when the Orange County Democrats joined the crowd of radicals who would airbrush history and wipe out the memory of every significant figure deemed “racist.”
The leftists started with Confederate statues and monuments, moved to Christopher Columbus and the father of California, Father Junipero Serra, and then rushed to cancel Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, and Mrs. Butterworth.
Of course, they also went after Gone With the Wind.
John Wayne, who starred in more than 200 films and won the Oscar for Best Actor for his role in the original film version of True Grit, was the next obvious target. The smear job began last year, though, when his remarks to Playboy magazine in 1971 “resurfaced” on Twitter.
The few words that so upset the Orange County Democrats were these:
• I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility. I don’t believe in giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people.
• I don’t feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from [the Indians], if that’s what you’re asking. Our so-called stealing of this country from them was just a matter of survival. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.
• [Midnight Cowboy was] a story about two fags.
Wayne defeated the two stars of Midnight Cowboy for Best Actor the year he won it, but in any event, of course he had to be smeared, his memory ruined.
And so the Orange County Democrats opened fire on the actor.
The party thus “condemns John Wayne’s racist and bigoted statements,” its resolution says, “calls for John Wayne’s name and likeness to be removed from the Orange County airport.”
Ethan Wayne Shoots Back
Understandably, Ethan Wayne didn’t think much of the leftist attack on his father’s reputation.
“Let me make one thing clear — John Wayne was not a racist,” Ethan Wayne told Fox News.
The younger Wayne said the actor’s words “pained him as well, as he realized his true feelings were wrongly conveyed.”
The Quiet Man star “did not support ‘white supremacy’ in any way,” his son told Fox, and “those who knew him, knew he judged everyone as an individual and believed everyone deserved an equal opportunity.”
Noting that Wayne “called out bigotry when he saw it,” Ethan Wayne said his father “hired and worked with people of all races, creeds, and sexual orientations. John Wayne stood for the very best for all of us — a society that doesn’t discriminate against anyone seeking the American dream.”
Thus, “it would be an injustice to judge him based on a single interview, as opposed to the full picture of who he was.”
One thing we know — if John Wayne were here today, he would be in the forefront demanding fairness and justice for all people. He would have pulled those officers off of George Floyd, because that was the right thing to do. He would stand for everyone’s right to protest and work toward change.
Notably, Wayne’s interview didn’t raise too many eyebrows at the time, likely because anyone who read it, or knew Wayne, understood that he was not using the words “white supremacy” in the way in which the Orange County Democrats have construed them.
Such was Wayne’s popularity that even radical leftist Abbie Hoffman, the bipolar radical who died in 1989 after taking 150 phenobarbital tablets and drinking liquor, paid him the respect he was due: “I like Wayne’s wholeness, his style,” he told Time. “As for his politics, well — I suppose even cavemen felt a little admiration for the dinosaurs that were trying to gobble them up.”
Image of John Wayne: Publicity photo on Wikipedia
