It just seems so incorrect to just...remove episodes of shows. Racist things shouldn't be lauded, but we also shouldn't pretend like they never happened.

I'm reminded of an edition of The Lair of the White Worm. This is a 19th century novel by Bram Stoker. It uses racial slurs. But the editors had removed all instances of slurs being used by the "good" characters and left alone all instances of slurs being used by the villains.

The justification was that the words were slurs - they were - and that the heroes, out of historical context, would never say such things. BUT THEY DID. The good guys were racist too!

I actually learned about casual racism from the Marx Brothers, of all places. There's a racist joke in Duck Soup. It's a one-off line, but my parents took the time to explain it to me, and why it was wrong, so that I understood it and, being a child, didn't repeat it.

Excising that line would have made me comfortable, as a white person, because then I wouldn't have had to hear my fave comedians saying it. But my parents explaining it and why it was wrong was far more helpful to understanding my own privilege than simply removing it.

It seems like all these removals of episodes or lines or scenes is trying to make liberal white people comfortable in enjoying their favorite show without having to face the racism endemic to mainstream culture.

Maybe I'm wrong. I haven't seen any Black critics or commentators calling for these episodes to be removed. It's mostly been white people (and companies) patting themselves on the back for being good white people.