Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: The Sandman Date: 05 Jun 20 - 01:32 PM Dave, far from it . I have just illustrated that your example about singing carols in pubs is irrelevant because the Landlord of the pub decides whether carols are allowed, it is his decision that you have to listen to baby jesus songs NOBODYELSE it is not the fault of christians or carol singers. It is the publicans decision you do not have the power to stop it, all you can do is vote with your feet, so you provided a very poor example to try and make your point |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: Dave the Gnome Date: 05 Jun 20 - 02:00 PM so you provided a very poor example to try and make your point Maybe, but there was still no contradiction. |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: Jim Carroll Date: 05 Jun 20 - 03:05 PM " I am not claiming the right to do anything nor denying anyone else. " You are claiming the right to offend races and ethnic groups by singing songs that give offence becao=ause of ther origins or their colour That is what racist songs, or even songs containing racist language do You object when it is suggested for reasons that can now be seen on television I thought you better than that Jim |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: GUEST,BlackAcornUK Date: 05 Jun 20 - 03:10 PM Thanks Maggie, totally recognise the point about tangents - I do also understand Rigby's desire to highlight the challenges around competing sensitivities - and I think a couple of valid points/some useful consensus arose on part of that. Given the core discussion of songs based around antisemitic tropes + language generally understood to be highly racially offensive, then at least making reference to past questions of attempted entryism and infiltration in the folk world and other sub-cultures hopefully is also relevant. But I fully agree it's not necessary for this conversation to spin off too far in those directions, especially if they're previously very well trodden. Overall, reasonably broad consensus seems to have been reached on a number of the substantive issues, so that's something to welcome. |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: Dave the Gnome Date: 05 Jun 20 - 03:16 PM You are claiming the right to offend races and ethnic groups by singing songs that give offence No I'm not. I don't sing them. I will no longer black up for a play. I have changed words to songs that I am uncomfortable with. I am saying that people should have a choice what they sing and listen too. I do not subscribe to your view that songs that a handful of people sing and listen to influence anyone to any great extent at all. How many straw man do you think you can set up before everyone gets tired of it! |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: Stilly River Sage Date: 05 Jun 20 - 03:37 PM This conversation, as it progressed through yesterday, was not only on topic but it covered a lot of good points. To let the politics slip in and turn it into a slug fest does a disservice to all of the thoughtful posts so far. |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: GUEST,BlackAcornUK Date: 05 Jun 20 - 03:40 PM I'm glad you wouldn't sing them yourself, Dave, and likewise it was welcome to read your comments about mumming and 'a mon like thee' the other day. By talking of 'minority interest', I do think you're playing down the cumulative 'scale of the scene' - definitely, far more people in the UK, probably hundreds of thousands, take part in folk music and dance (on a continuum from grass roots, to paying gigs, to festivals) than in far-right politics; that's partly why the BNP tried so hard to get a foot in the door previously, and I share Jim's eagerness for us to not inadvertently give their successors false encouragement to return. Very sadly, I have been noticing more of this sort of thing again recently, tbh. One of the main Youtube accounts that has shared Peter Bellamy tracks - including all of The Transports and When I Die - also actively uploads videos of Oswald Moseley and Enoch Powell. |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: Jeri Date: 05 Jun 20 - 03:51 PM " I am not claiming the right to do anything nor denying anyone else. " You are claiming the right to offend races and ethnic groups by singing songs that give offence becao=ause of ther origins or their colour Well, of course. Everone has the right to offend. After which people may learn something about them. And sometimes, people already know something significant about the person singing. But I don't know if this is the case in the UK. |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: GUEST,Starship Date: 05 Jun 20 - 09:19 PM Pardon me for being repetitive, but have any of you considered asking your friends of various skin colours and ethnicities how they feel when you sing those songs to them. ?? |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: The Sandman Date: 06 Jun 20 - 01:16 AM very good point Starship.context,for example a husband singing to his wife in private is very different from a song sung in a public place to strangers |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: Jim Carroll Date: 06 Jun 20 - 02:53 AM "Well, of course. Everone has the right to offend." Individuals maybe - that comes with having controversial ideas (which ened to offend nearly everybody) Nobody should have the right to offend entire ethnic groups - nobody The worst of that is now illegal in Britain - it should be everywhere The last ten years have impacted on all our lives because the race vard has been bought into politics again and re-awoken the dormant Xenophobia those of us brought up in post Empire Britain took in with our school milk I'm afraid you can't separate racism from either its politics or its social implications - it has been part of British life since 2016 and it gave the world an insane US President It shouldn't be a long-running detailed issue here, but it's very much a part of why racism should be a thing of the past forever - in all forms If you need evidence of this, I can think of six million witnesses immediately from my lifetime Jim |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: Gibb Sahib Date: 07 Jun 20 - 04:14 AM Are any traditional songs NOT racist? On one side: The architects of the "folk music" concept that held sway through the 20th c. conceived of folk as racial. "Folk" is not "Volk" as "people" as "the majority of ordinary people" but rather as "the people of the ethnic nation, who we deem most purely bred to reflect these (imagined) people." This is why they rejected so-called "popular" music. (And I think we see this rejection, in a form, by the repeated suggestion in this thread that Robeson's song is irrelevant in not being folk song.) On another side: Other/later contributors to traditional "folk" songs, though they would disavow the racial zealousness of the architects (especially if they are White Anglophone and with respect to White Anglophone ["their own"] stuff) would still fetishize the racial otherness of folk musics, which are consistently attached to ethnic groups as a matter or procedure and, presumable, of importance. They might try to trick you by using the word "culture," but make no mistake that "culture" here is all or entirely contiguous with "ethnic group", which is in turn 1 or 0 degrees of separation from "race"—an essentialized category. The racism is in one sense entirely "systematic." To tear it from the system is to tear down the very system. And few want that. They enjoy the system. Others don't enjoy the system. The reason why you don't find so many Black people at your English folk club nights is not because somebody once sang "nigger." (*In fact, I believe I could make the argument that if people sang "n-" more, you'd get more Black people there. "N-" is a word of African American "authentic" musical expression far more than it is a word of White English "meta" musical expression.) My point is, most people who are happy with folk music are happy with its systematic racist nature. You'll get no judgement from me on that, but be honest. I mean, I can say I support the elimination of gender roles -- by which I really mean I am significantly liberal when it comes to gender roles. If gender roles *completely didn't exist* tomorrow though, I'd be lost. There is racism in the system of folk music and you would be lost without it. This is hard to accept. You may disagree with this entirely. The song is just the song, a neutral thing... until such time a racially derogatory word or idea presents in the lyrics. OK. I'm not interested in going in arguing the systematic racism. I don't hope to convince anyone of this. I'm more interested in continuing, if you do agree there is some truth in what I'm saying, to see what to do about the "bad words." I think people who think they have eliminated racism by omitting bad words really don't know folk music. Bless their hearts. I sense a bit of BlackAcornUK's comments in this. Even if we accept the music is systematically racist -- thus it's not possible to eliminate racism without eliminating folk music -- I don't think it is hypocritical to call for the omission of bad words. Racism is not an all or nothing thing. It makes sense to minimize it. I suspect this is the place of most of us. Yet if that is the case, if we are in the world of "minimizing" (more or less, while always there) instead of in the world of all/nothing (that which I believe is idealistic and incorrect), we are in an uncomfortable position indeed. We can't decisively scorn the user of bad words if we know the music is racist (to some degree) even *without* those bad words. And we might legitimately wonder whether we might *sometimes* use those bad words since, after all, there are grey areas and the system is already contaminated and the degree of minimizing achieved by omission is pretty intangible. And we don't like that we're even going down these roads but can't help going down them for the sake of intellectual honesty. I think I sense some Steve Shaw in this. It would be easier if someone could just enforce an ideological code of conduct, right? Ideologues don't have to think so much. In the meantime, we have songs. We don't have to form them into the molded contructs of "folk" and "traditional." We *can* minimize racism. We *can* query, too, what is the smartest way to combat racism—including questioning a simplistic ideological position that more bad words always means more racism and less bad words always means less racism. As a case in point, I am confident in saying that the vast majority of chanty genre songs that have been documented with the word "n-" contained that word precisely because they were songs sung by Black people of the Americas. "N-" in song was "Black language." If a non-Black sang it, he was singing Black language, as any White teen mouthing the words to countless current rap songs. In historically surveying chanties, in fact, the presence of the word "n-" -- considered degrading to the *speaker* through its use in the mouth of a white person -- fairly positively identifies the song in question as a song sung by a Black person. To replace that word with "farmer" is to erase the Black voice. And when a non-Black person sang "n-", this was some indication of that person's acculturation to the [conveniently, not exclusively labeled] Black voice -- as in today's hip hop there is a vision (see for example KRS-ONE's articulations) that hip hop is the culture and the voice, and that that culture is potentially muti-racial. Those outside of the hip hop culture will clutch their pearls and attempt to overlay their outsider ideology of whom may say what, but those in the culture have a different view. This is not to say it's not risky though. You'll be outnumbered by outsiders who can't "think" with the logic of your culture, on one hand, while those who share the culture will get great satisfaction from participation. Has anyone seen the interview between the news agency and (Black American rapper) Lil Wayne? The news interviewers tried to force Lil Wayne into their pedestrian version of Black Lives Matter and he rejected it. They tried to shame him for his bad words. (Echoes of Joe Biden trying to tell his Black interlocutor that he wasn't Black if he didn't vote for Biden!) Lil Wayne is no "Uncle Tom," and I think it's dishonorable to try to dismiss Lil Wayne as ignorant, as a commercial sell out, etc. If we respect Black lives including Lil Wayne's, we have to acknowledge that his position is one engaged with an alternative way of thinking. https://youtu.be/L6mBZSQdGCE The question of using bad words in a folk club seems, I think, a simple matter. Don't do it if you value you status in that community. Yet isn't the folk club a bourgeois institution, engaged in much artifice? I think it's rich to say the word "n-" doesn't belong to the White folk song singer in the club, not because I think it does belong to him/her, but because it implies that the song otherwise (with the word omitted) belongs to him/her. I'd question that. I'm reminded of another interview with film director Tarantino, where the interviewer asked Tarantino, chidingly, why he feels it necessary to put so much violence in his films. Tarantino answered something like, "Because it's so much fun!" https://youtu.be/7EEpTrPb0-c The interviewer cannot be expected to understand, and Tarantino concludes by saying he didn't make his movies for her. Likewise the folk club audience cannot be expected to understand, much less accept, bad words in songs. There are others, however, who will, and those people are not more racist than the folk club audience. Quite possibly, those people are even making music in a more exciting space. Fredrick Douglass hated minstrel music. He thought it was trash. W.E.B. Du Bois, on the other hand, suggested seeing minstrel music as a triumph of African American culture. Douglass' view, I imagine, is easy to understand according to conventional thought, whereas Du Bois' is challenging. Do we dismiss Du Bois as an ignoramus or take up the challenge of understanding his position?—an anti-racism that, paradoxically, embraces something that conventional wisdom sees as plainly racist. The question of racist-word songs in an English (predominantly White) folk club context, I think, is not very challenging. But an intellectually honest query of racist-word songs *not limited to that assume context* is something I think requires hearing multiple valid perspectives. |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: Dave the Gnome Date: 07 Jun 20 - 04:34 AM Well said, Gibb Sahib. An interesting and sound argument. I am not sure if I fully agree with or even follow some bits. I will have to give it a re-read and some thought. In the meanwhile thank you for a new and interesting perspective. I can fully appreciate the idea that restricting folk music to being that of your own culture could be racist and this is why we must diversify. I would not see it as inherently wrong for me, for instance, to sing an African folk song or an American shanty at the folk club. I do the latter BTW but not the former as yet. We are after all a global village now :-) |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: Steve Shaw Date: 07 Jun 20 - 04:44 AM "Pardon me for being repetitive, but have any of you considered asking your friends of various skin colours and ethnicities how they feel when you sing those songs to them. ??" Yep. Simple. 99.999% of people wouldn't do it. Pardon me for being repetitive, but decent folkies, which is nearly all of us, can police ourselves very nicely. |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: Steve Shaw Date: 07 Jun 20 - 06:01 AM And that, to me, is the practicality of it, stated in my last post. I should like to thank Gibb for his thoughtful post which must have taken a good while to put together. Almost my favourite sentence from it, and one which addresses the crux of the thread matter, is the second-last one, where he says "The question of racist-word songs in an English (predominantly White) folk club context, I think, is not very challenging." I went to our folk club just about every Friday for the six or seven years from my discovery of it to its demise, and I can't remember a single moment of overt racial discomfort (we were all white, of course). And, as I've said in other below-the-line contexts, in many years of teaching in multi-ethnic East London I kept my antennae tuned for racist comments in my classrooms, which I would never let pass, so I wouldn't have missed much in the calmer air of the folk club... |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: Jim Carroll Date: 07 Jun 20 - 06:18 AM "we were all white, of course" A telling phrase - surely Like Mudcat, recently, I wouldn't invite my Irish friends to join us Is this really taking place on the same forum as the reports of world-wide demonstrations over racism ? Where's VICTOR MELDREW whwn you need him ? Jim |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: Steve Shaw Date: 07 Jun 20 - 06:25 AM Thing is, Jim, those of us who are trying to confine this to talking about songs in folk clubs, and those of us who are itching to bring wider world issues into it, are talking past each other. There's a thread on the racial killing below the line. |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: GUEST,Rigby Date: 07 Jun 20 - 07:02 AM Thank you Gibb Sahib, that was one of the best posts I've ever read on this forum, and has helped me to articulate why I feel uneasy about the focus on 'bad words' or 'bad songs'. |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: Brian Peters Date: 07 Jun 20 - 08:31 AM Yes indeed, a very interesting and well-argued post from Gibb. 'I am confident in saying that the vast majority of chanty genre songs that have been documented with the word "n-" contained that word precisely because they were songs sung by Black people of the Americas. "N-" in song was "Black language."' This is exactly what I was trying to hint at in my post of 03 June, though - lacking the confidence of Gibb's knowledge of the genre - I confined myself to a hint. However, I'm less sure about Gibb's follow-up: 'If a non-Black sang it, he was singing Black language... this was some indication of that person's acculturation to the [conveniently, not exclusively labeled] Black voice...' The problem with that is that the word in question has long been used by white communities as a disrespectful term, and now carries all that baggage when articulated by a white person. There are not a great number people of colour in attendance at English folk clubs (the idea that they might be attracted by white singers using 'N--' is bizarre!), but neither are there zero - and of course there are many white people who object to the word too, 'bourgeois' or not. So we're back with contextualization, since no audience, in an English folk club or elsewhere, is going to possess Gibb's depth of knowledge: is the shanty singer then to preface 'Hog-eye Man' with an explanation of the black heritage of the song, and does that then make it OK to sing unexpurgated? Or is it being suggested that the white singer should avoid shanties altogether, on grounds of cultural appropriation (except that this musical form was appropriated by English shantymen 150 years ago)? Gibb led off with: 'Are any traditional songs NOT racist? The architects of the "folk music" concept that held sway through the 20th c. conceived of folk as racial.' I detect a swipe at Cecil Sharp here, and there is indeed some truth in the statement - although it should be pointed out that Sharp used 'racial' interchangeably with 'national', which in a modern context is not quite the same thing. Folk club traditional repertoire still owes a lot to Sharp and to the MacColl-Seeger 'sing from your own culture' policy - which could be viewed as 'racist', but alternatively as a counter to cultural appropriation. But if English folk revivals are to be considered racist for prioritizing a particular musical culture, should not the same apply to singers and musicians performing 'Irish', 'Scottish' or 'French-Canadian' music, never mind bluegrass and a hundred other genres born in relatively homogeneous and static populations. Even the racially-mixed Louisiana bayous maintained separate white and black musical traditions for generations. The world is changing all the time, as communications become easier, populations less static and musicians more inclined to experiment. However, as Gibb points out, we are where we are, and need to take decisions based on the performance contexts we inhabit now. |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: Stilly River Sage Date: 25 Jul 20 - 10:21 AM Today on Weekend Edition Saturday (National Public Radio) there was a discussion that contributes to this discussion: Breaking Down The Legacy Of Race In Traditional Music In America The audio of the story isn't up until probably Sunday, but there is a substantial story posted on the link (it may be the transcribed story). The symbols of America's racist past have been under intense scrutiny since the protests against police brutality erupted nationwide. The confederate flag and other monuments from that era have been disappearing from public spaces — both by force and legislation. I don't usually post the entire story, and the NPR stories are usually searchable and durable, but sometimes the links are buried over time. |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: Mrrzy Date: 25 Jul 20 - 12:30 PM Beat me to it, Stilly! |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: GUEST,Gilly Date: 25 Jul 20 - 01:31 PM No they are not. End of. |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: Mrrzy Date: 25 Jul 20 - 02:53 PM Ok, a poster above said: I'm not aware of any racist content in ... Van Diemen's Land... Van Dieman's land being the name given to what is now called Tasmania by white colonials who considered it uninhabited? Really? Nothing racist? This is the problem. The lack of awareness, I mean. |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: GUEST Date: 25 Jul 20 - 03:10 PM Why should the racists have all the best tunes? As opposed to The Devil. "Turkey in the straw" has been mentioned and the melodies of many of the offending songs are also very good tunes. So, what's wrong with playing these in appropriate circumstances? The titles could even be changed, if necessary. |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: Joe Offer Date: 25 Jul 20 - 05:04 PM Are racist traditional songs "OK"? Of course not. But does that mean they must be erased from history, never to be reprinted, spoken of, or sung again? I certainly hope not. Well, we're tearing down all those historic statues of racists. What's the difference. Those statues were erected as part of a concerted campaign by the KKK and others to rewrite history, to depict the Confederacy and slavery as something benign or even heroic. They are boldfaced lies cast in bronze, and they must be removed from places of honor. Racist songs shouldn't be in places of honor, either. They must be seen for what they are, not as something cute or quaint - but people need to know the reality of these songs, in a way that does not applaud them. So, what do we do with them? Is bowdlerizing permitted? Well, much as I hate to admit it, some bowdlerizing is necessary. There were lots of good songs written in the past that just sound racist nowadays, and we just can't teach them to kids or play them on the radio the way they are. On the Facebook page of the San Francisco Folk Music Club, a 30-yr-old friend of mine has been waging a campaign to suppress all songs with racist roots, especially songs that were sung in minstrel shows. That would wipe out almost all American music from the 19th century, because blackface performers were very common in U.S. music halls and vaudeville shows, and they sang everything, even non-racist songs, in blackface. On the top of my friend's list is "I've Been Working on the Railroad," which I think of as one of the most innocuous songs in the world. I suppose at least part of the song had been sung in so-called "negro dialect," but all traces of racism had been removed from that song by the time I learned it in the mid-1950s. And then there are Stephen C. Foster songs, which are admittedly a problem. Foster wrote a lot of good songs, and I love to sing a number of them. Most of them really aren't objectionable, but I do like to sing "Old Black Joe," which I've sung since I was a kid. I sing it less often now, because I know many people might object - but I still do sing it when I'm with people I don't think will be offended. It's mostly a song about a man growing old and missing happier times. But I don't think it's awful to think that old black men had some good memories of their younger days and their loved ones from those days. A book club I belong to, just finished reading Ghosts of Gold Mountain, a book about the Chinese laborers who built the Transcontinental Railroad across the Sierra in California. We were talking about anti-Chinese racism that still exists in California, and I pulled out my copy of Lingenfelter-Dwyer's Songs of the American West and read a few verses from a couple "John Chinaman" songs to illustrate this racism. I explained how people continually come to Mudcat and say how cute these racist songs are. The next day, a member of the group emailed me to say that it was inappropriate for me to read verses from those songs. even though I expressed disapproval of the songs and used them to illustrate racism, he still insisted that he was offended by my reading of those songs and was insulted that I had not considered the feelings of others when I read the songs. After an exchange of several emails that didn't bring any resolution to the disagreement, I ended by saying that although I had no intention to offend anyone, I acknowledged that he was offended. And if he chose to be offended by what I felt I had reason to day, so be it. I wonder if he'll ever speak to me again. People don't handle disagreement very well nowadays. -Joe- |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: The Sandman Date: 25 Jul 20 - 05:48 PM van diemans land , what is the content of the song, let us have a look.
That walk out on a moonlight night with your dog, your gun and snare The harmless hare and pheasant you have at your command Not thinking of your last career out on Van Diemen's Land rest of lyrics here (click) We had no shoes nor stockings on, Nor scarce any clothes to wear; Only lindsey drawers and leather [clogs?] And our head and feet went bare. I would have no problem singing this song, it is not in my opinion racist it is a song about being transported for poaching. van diemens land was the name it was called at that time. a song i would alter would be polly wolly doodle, which has a line[ i jumped on a nigger cos i thpught he was a hoss] Who in an audience am i going to upset by using the term, van diemans land? I am not going to upset, Black Brown or mixed race people. but singing that line in polly wolly doodle is offensive. |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: GUEST,Gerry Date: 25 Jul 20 - 08:59 PM "Van Dieman's land being the name given to what is now called Tasmania by white colonials who considered it uninhabited?" vna Diemen's Land was the name given by Dutch explorer Abel Tasman who, so far as I can tell, did not set up a colony there. Whether he considered it uninhabited, whether he even met any of its inhabitants, is not clear to me from a quick scan of readily available materials. |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: Joe Offer Date: 25 Jul 20 - 09:25 PM Mrrzy's point, Sandman, is about the name Van Diemen's Land, not about the entire 10-verse song. Can't say I agree with Mrrzy's point of view. The song is set at a particular time, and the place was called "Van Diemen's Land" at the time. That's reality, not racism. -Joe- |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: The Sandman Date: 26 Jul 20 - 01:23 AM yes , joe, that is exactly the point i am trying to make. An intersting song in the context of this discussion is Bourgpise Blues, written by a Black man Leadbelly. Lyrics Lord, in a bourgeois town It's a bourgeois town I got the bourgeois blues Gonna spread the news all around Home of the brave, land of the free I don't wanna be mistreated by no bourgeoisie Lord, in a bourgeois town Uhm, the bourgeois town I got the bourgeois blues Gonna spread the news all around Well, me and my wife we were standing upstairs We heard the white man say "I don't want no niggers up there" Lord, in a bourgeois town Uhm, bourgeois town I got the bourgeois blues Gonna spread the news all around Well, them white folks in Washington they know how To call a colored man a nigger just to see him bow Lord, it's a bourgeois town Uhm, the bourgeois town I got the bourgeois blues Gonna spread the news all around I tell all the colored folks to listen to me Don't try to find you no home in Washington, DC 'Cause it's a bourgeois town Uhm, the bourgeois town I got the bourgeois blues Gonna spread the news all around This is a song specifically about racism, and uses the word NIGGER, TO MAKE A POINT AGAINST RACISM |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: Steve Gardham Date: 26 Jul 20 - 06:29 AM Joe, your adversary is effectively trying to 'whitewash' history if you cannot have the discussion in public. You were clearly using the songs as examples of racism. I cannot see a problem with that. Also if you can't even mention what a place was named at some point in history then you are whitewashing history, regardless of who gave it that name. The authorities have it right in my opinion. Don't destroy the statues, put them in a museum and explain why this happened. Not rocket science. Likewise the use of the N word. To ban it completely is ridiculous. If it is used in the way Leadbetter sang it then it is completely acceptable. The usage is completely clear in the song and needs no explanation. |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: Howard Jones Date: 26 Jul 20 - 07:17 AM "Van Dieman's land being the name given to what is now called Tasmania by white colonials who considered it uninhabited? Really? Nothing racist?" That's a dangerous argument coming from someone who lives in a country also named by white colonialists. However there can be very few countries which are still known by the names their original settlers gave them - most have been occupied and re-occupied many times over. It's stretching the idea of racism to apply it to using the generally accepted name for a place. Then there's the added complication that places have different names in different languages. Is it racist to refer to "Egypt" instead of "Misr"? Is it racist to write that in the Latin alphabet rather than in Arabic script? Where does it stop? It also seems to me to be excessively zealous to start excluding tunes simply because they were once performed by minstrels. Where they have racist titles then those should be changed, but many do not, and are not associated in modern minds with minstrelsy. I cannot accept the modern idea that the slightest possibility of giving offence must be avoided, no matter how remote or irrational. Someone can be found to take offence at almost anything. If it is necessary to research the history of a tune in order to decide whether to be offended by it, if someone goes out of their way to find offence, then that should be acknowledged but not necessarily acted on. I feel there is a danger here that we risk dancing on the head of a pin trying to find every possible taint of racism, rather than focus on dealing with real issues that actually affect people's lives. |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: The Sandman Date: 26 Jul 20 - 08:00 AM I feel there is a danger here that we risk dancing on the head of a pin trying to find every possible taint of racism, rather than focus on dealing with real issues that actually affect people's lives. very good... for example institutionalised racism in the police force https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000kgtl |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: Mrrzy Date: 26 Jul 20 - 08:02 AM My point was that much of the problem is folks, especially white folks, not *noticing* racism. |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: Mrrzy Date: 26 Jul 20 - 08:11 AM I meant to say, when saying Well that's what it was called, it should be made clear that it's *not* what it was called by its actual inhabitants, but by its white invaders, whether you want to quibble about whether establishing a penal *colony* counts as colonizing or not. |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: GUEST,Gerry Date: 26 Jul 20 - 09:14 AM Mrrzy, the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who gave the island the name "van Diemen's Land", did not invade it, nor did he establish a penal colony, nor any other kind of colony. Moreover, as I wrote earlier, it's not even clear to me that he met any of its inhabitants, or even knew there were any. |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: GUEST,Observer Date: 26 Jul 20 - 09:21 AM What was it called by it's original inhabitants Mrrzy? Where was it recorded? |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: Steve Gardham Date: 26 Jul 20 - 10:10 AM We're getting into really barking mad territory here. What shall we henceforth call North America? And if the original inhabitants didn't have a collective name for it should we just not give it a name at all? I think M and all those who want to go in that direction should be given the impossible job of naming every name on the planet according to the preferences of the original inhabitants. Now then, what did the cave men call it? |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: GUEST,Howard Jones Date: 26 Jul 20 - 11:43 AM This is what I meant earlier by "dancing on the head of a pin". |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: The Sandman Date: 26 Jul 20 - 01:54 PM Howard, do you remember the guy who sang nicotine girl at blackmore singers club, and jim garrett who had a rocket shaped guitar. i suppose people will son be stopped from singing nicotine girl , because it does not discourage smoking. |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: Mrrzy Date: 26 Jul 20 - 02:03 PM Cook also has a lot to answer for, sailing around and dubbing random places! And disliking smoking is not racist: Content of character, not skin color. |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: The Sandman Date: 26 Jul 20 - 02:50 PM MRRZY,ok true. Cook do you mean thomas cook travel agent? The United States has invaded about 200 nations and territories. Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, and possibly Venezuela. Invasions fit in with regime change. Other invasions from the past such as in 1898 in Puerto Rico have continued to this very day.quote Wiki Dubbing random places and overthrowing Allende who was democratically elected, Still i am sure you would agree with that, because you are American, it doesnt follow that you support american imperialism any more than i support british imperialism |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: GUEST Date: 26 Jul 20 - 02:54 PM Do I detect a touch of the "white saviour" in some of the posts in this thread? |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: David Carter (UK) Date: 27 Jul 20 - 05:42 AM It has been one of my complaints about this forum that it is very parochial in what it covers. Almost all discussion concerns material from North America or the British Isles. Alan Lomax collected material from many parts of the world. Occasionally Kerboxeru will tell us about things from elsewhere, but its very little really. |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: GUEST Date: 27 Jul 20 - 06:51 AM Sandman Mrrzy was referring to James Cook the British explorer. |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: Doug Chadwick Date: 27 Jul 20 - 01:34 PM And disliking smoking is not racist: Content of character, not skin color. ??? Mrrzy, I don't understand this comment. DC |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: Steve Gardham Date: 27 Jul 20 - 02:21 PM David Mudcat covers whatever the people who contribute want it to cover. The current contributors have no control over who or what. There is no discrimination. Some of us are specialists in our particular field, and want to give out info and answer queries on what we know. Those in the know rarely have time to spread into other fields. There is no deliberate exclusion. We do have plenty of experts in specific areas of world music but in the main they have solitary knowledge that no one else here has. Jack, Vic, Phil to name just a few. Their contributions are certainly valued but it doesn't always relate to what the rest of us are interested in. UK, Ireland, US, Canada, Oz, NZ; that's one helluva big parish! |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: Doug Chadwick Date: 27 Jul 20 - 06:16 PM OK, forget what I said Mrrzy. I have just seen what the smoking comment referred to. DC |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: David Carter (UK) Date: 28 Jul 20 - 06:14 AM Well sort of Steve, but in other ways it isn't a big parish, because the music discussed from four of those countries is the music of recent immigrants from the other two. Lomax did collect traditional music in Australia, some while ago someone posted a link to those recordings, which I have now lost. |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: Steve Gardham Date: 28 Jul 20 - 09:10 AM David Perhaps our parochialism stems from the fact that the music we love is such a minority interest, and is swamped by more commercial music. Most of those who do get involved, because of such small numbers, find themselves so immersed in the music with so much to do that there simply is not time to go dashing off into other cultures and genres. For Lomax it was his living and his life's work, but I'll bet family side of things often played second fiddle because of his obsession. I know even at my level of obsession that can create problems. |
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK? From: GUEST,Mike Yates Date: 28 Jul 20 - 09:11 AM I am not aware that Alan Lomax ever visited Australia. Can anybody confirm this, please? |
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