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Snarky Harriet Tubman On The $20 Note Responses

by Emily Shire

On Wednesday, the U.S. Treasury will announce that a woman will finally be on our paper currency — and there couldn't be a more deserving, heroic American selected. Harriet Tubman will grace the $20 bill, bumping off the seventh U.S. President, Andrew Jackson (or, more likely, Jackson will be on the backside of the bill, as Politico reported). The Treasury said last June that it planned to put a woman on the $10 bill, which was "already slated for a redesign," but the $20 bill is getting the honor of bearing the image of the revered abolitionist and spy for the Union during the Civil War.

Unsurprisingly, Twitter is bursting with happiness, even managing to take a break from cracking jokes about Donald Trump's red Empire State Building and Ted Cruz's inadvertently sexual concession speech. The joy at seeing Tubman on the 20 seemed only heightened by the fact that it seems to mean a demotion for Jackson. Though he was one of the heroes of War of 1812 and a popular president, Jackson hasn't quite sustained that same level of American affection in 2016, due in no small part to his owning hundreds of slaves and treating Native Americans abominably (which, unfortunately, was pretty standard for the United States at the time).

While many have taken to Twitter to express their jubilation, others have added an edge of snarkiness to note the irony of having a man who owned slaves knocked from a place of prestige by a woman who helped free them. Others have used the Tubman news to point out the racial inequalities we have in 2016.

Ronan Farrow had two stand-out responses to the Tubman announcement that had a nice bit to them, the second a nod to the controversy over Scarlett Johansson playing an Asian character in the remake of the Japanese film Ghost in the Shell:

Wall Street Journal reporter made a nice — and slightly geeky — America history joke about Alexander Hamilton saving his spot on the $10 bill (context: Hamilton died of a gunshot wound in a duel with Aaron Burr):

Howard University Prof. Greg Carr noted how Tubman's reputation had transformed from an outlaw to one of the most honored and respected women in the nation:

TV executive producer Gary Janetti may have offered the most deliciously snarky take on Tubman being on the 20:

And then, of course, there was Rob Delaney: