4/20 -- It's All About The Hamiltons, Baby!
Today at about 1:00pm eastern time, the Treasury Department announced that they will be putting Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. Probably some will rail about this, but I am not one of them.
Andrew Jackson was arguably insane, and inarguably violent and unstable. He hated paper money.
Tubman was a courageous, smart woman, who made a life's work of helping people. She will not be the first non-POTUS to grace our currency. Interestingly, they plan to leave Jackson's portrait on the back. This is some interesting balance: Jackson was a slave-owner. Tubman was a slave liberator.
What cracks me up is that this is a distinct departure from the previously-announced plan, to replace Hamilton on the $10 bill with a woman. Hamilton's popularity has recently surged due to a currently-popular historical/biographical/fictional Broadway rap musical about Hamilton. (Reportedly, there will be on the back of the $5 bill a picture of African-American classical singer Marian Anderson singing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and there will be notable female suffrage leaders in a march on the back of the $10 bill.)
The announcement came on 4/20, which is a sacred day for pot-smokers, who traditionally revere 4:20 as a time when they spark up. This makes me think of the Samberg/Parnell SNL video of the Chronic*(What?)les Of Narnia:
Yo, reach in my pocket, pull out some dough
Girl acted like she'd never seen a ten befo'
It's all about the Hamilton's, baby
Throw the snacks in the bag
And I'm a ghost like Swayze
Roll up to the theater, ticket buyin'_________________________
What we're handlin', you can call us Aaron Burr
From the way we're droppin' Hamiltons.
*If you're in the know, kids during the early 2K0s were using the term "chronic" for marijuana. Basically, the entire SNL video is a nod to how people who smoke a lot of weed get snack attacks and focus on silly esoteric issues.
Labels: capitalism, Drugs, in the news, popular culture