Has History Not Taught Us Anything?

[Gavmacp]

Why when we know how people have been represented by the media in the past do we continue to repeat it?

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/shortcuts/2015/nov/18/rats-the-history-of-an-incendiary-cartoon-trope

[Zacs-Master]

Don't you mean miss-represented?

[naomi24]

I'm not sure the people are misrepresented. The people are people - the rats are rats. Without the blurb I'd have thought of people leaving sinking countries as rats leave sinking ships.

[Hypognosis]

One of the comments tries to make out that the silhouette with the gun is a border guard, with his back to the signpost, casually ignoring the passing migrants, "because he cannot have walked through the sign".

However, his left leg is angled forward, just like everyone else depicted. I thought it strange for a crowd to walk in lock-step and wondered if it was symbolic of something?

I've seen the expression "left footer" used by some Answerbankers, who express anti-immigration views, on a regular basis but I haven't asked what it meant, until now.

@Gavmacp

I'll be able to address your OP when I'm better briefed about these elements.

[Hypognosis]

In the last thread about this cartoon, I asked what stereotype the plus-fours outfit, with the criss-cross pinstripe, on the right, meant but I think the thread got zapped before I got to see the reply. I've a mind like a sieve, lately, so I can't remember the thread title.

[Mosaic]

Hypog, I always thought left-footer meant catholic, a description used in the days and places where differentiating between catholic and protestant was vitally important.

[Hypognosis]

Thanks, Mosaic.

I'm not going to push my luck by asking about the mechanics of how or why Catholicism got linked to left feet. As a left-handed person, I'm all to familiar with the right=good, left=bad concept, so I'd anticipate it's from the same stables.

[jno]

some answers on here a few years back

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/History/Question42982.html