Guess I am just a naive country music fan, but I have never equated that line with lynching of the blacks. I equated it with the "old west" where they did hang a man (and apparently some women) for their crimes.
I guess I don't automatically look for some racial suggestion in songs...
ITA. I have heard that song numerous times and never once thought it was racist. I always associated the "lynching" part to what happened in the old west to cattle rustlers, trainrobbers, and miscellaneous bad guys. I think making this song about race is reaching IMO.Originally Posted by sweetrebel
Lol
It really doesn't shock me that most of you can't spot a racist person.
I can see HOW the song could be related to racism, and I can see why it could be offensive. I don't see why people feel it isn't racist because they don't think it could be. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Do we really know for sure?
[quote=Sasha;1320096]
Strange Fruit, sung by Billie Holiday
Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
quote]
Looking at this picture, I just want to weep.
By the way, the victims here are Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith. Both men were killed and their bodies mutilated before they were hung. The lynching occurred on August 7, 1930 in Marion, Indiana, which is an hour north of Indianapolis.
"Strange Fruit" began as a poem written by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish high-school teacher from the Bronx, about the lynching. Meeropol set Strange Fruit to music himself. The song gained a certain success as a protest song in and around New York City. Meeropol, his wife, and black vocalist Laura Duncan performed it at Madison Square Garden. The song was introduced it to Billie Holiday. Holiday performed the song at Cafe Society in 1939. She said that singing it made her fearful of retaliation. Holiday later said that because the imagery in "Strange Fruit" reminded her of her father, she persisted in singing it. The song became a regular part of Holiday's live performances.
Meeropol and his wife Anne adopted Julius and Ethel Rosenberg's two sons, Michael and Robert, after their parents' execution in 1953 for passing secrets about the US atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. The Rosenberg were the first civilians executed for espionage in US history.
Don't care at all for TK, but ITA.
Please share your great secrets, oh wise one.It really doesn't shock me that most of you can't spot a racist person.
"I've cautiously embraced jeggings"
Emma Peel aka Pacific Breeze aka Wilde1 aka gogodancer aka maribou
Yip, yip, yip in your tiny indignation. Bark furiously on, lady dog.
I don't believe it is racist to be annoyed at being asked to press one for English. It annoys the crap out of me too. We are an English speaking country. While I don't mind offering an option for Spanish speakers, I think English should be the default, not a choice. I know it is a small thing, but it does annoy me...almost as much as being told at school we aren't allowed to have Christmas and Easter parties, because we might offend someone of another faith, but every other religion's holidays are allowed to be discussed, and in the interest of "acceptance" or "tolerance" we are "allowed" to experience parts of other country's or religion's traditions. Really, is Christmas and Easter a religious holiday in elementary schools anyway? It's all about the fat dude in the red suit and the big bunny with the chocolate.
As a side note, here in Northern VA, there is a huge bru-ha-ha over all the Hispanic immigrants that have come into the area, both legal and illegal. Some counties have become very strict, actively looking for illegals, while other counties only check papers if an illegal is arrested for a crime. But the less strict counties are having problems because all the hispanic families are leaving the strict counties in droves, and the schools and ERs in the more lenient counties are over capacity. I don't see an easy answer..many of the jobs immigrants are filling, nobody else wants. And every morning the local 7-11's have groups of immigrant men lining up at the crack of dawn looking for someone to hire them as day labor construction workers, while many unemployed Americans are home laying on their couches watching Springer, sucking the welfare system dry. Kinda discredits the whole "mexicans are worthless and lazy" argument I hear so often, doesn't it?
Maybe I see both sides because my grandparents were Irish immigrants, back when the "help wanted" signs often included the phrase "Irish need not apply." I guess they were the Mexicans of the late 1800's, early 1900's, LOL...because they took all the back breaking jobs no one else wanted. Irish immigrants dug the canals and built the railroads in this country. And also why in New York, home of Ellis Island, so many of the cops are of Irish descent, and had cop fathers and grandfathers...being a cop was not a desirable job back then.
For a country that prides itself on being a melting pot, we sure do make life hard for every generation of immigrants.
ITA. I'm originally from Arkansas and lived there a great deal of my life, but have also lived in many places in between, from Arizona to Baltimore. Currently, I live in Massachusetts. Point is, I've seen racism and its concurrent ignorance in all of those places. Sometimes it takes a different expression and has different terminology, but ultimately it's all the same, and equally sickening no matter where you find it. The American South certainly has its cross to bear as far as racism goes, but it really bothers me when people seem to make across-the-board assumptions that it's the only region where racism occurs, and that being from the South automatically means that you think that that mindset is okay. Dumbassedness and douchebaggery are universal.
That said, I'm no TK fan (hell, I don't much care for country music, period)...I wasn't in his head when he wrote the song, so of course I can't say exactly what he meant by it. Personally, it makes me uncomfortable, and TK in general seems to be a prick of a pretty high order.
Ummm, what? I'm not sure if I should be insulted or if I just don't get the joke, so please elaborate.It really doesn't shock me that most of you can't spot a racist person.
We all like to think we're so special. But in the end, we all do the same stupid shit. - Dennis Miller
Not exactly sure what type of conclusions you're jumping to here, but please do explain.It really doesn't shock me that most of you can't spot a racist person.
I just watched the video. To me it was more about vigilante justice, which should never be encouraged. I don't think the cops would appreciate "citizens" getting involved in law enforcement matters and most likely such a scenario would never stand up in court.
How is this any different from one gang deciding to take out another gang for something they perceived as wrong? People shouldn't take the law into their own hands.
I guess so many are disgusted by criminals getting away with murder that they praise something like this as the answer.
I do think it's universally understood that lynching = black people, even if some whites were hanged.
I don't know how Obama is perceived, but in my presence many of my black friends have said they didn't like Colin Powell because he was too "white". Same for Tiger Woods and others.
If you say I don't understand racism, maybe it's because I've always lived in areas where there were large number of blacks, I've always worked with blacks and had black friends. I know firsthand that even today many of them get followed around stores, that they see white women clutch their purses when they approach etc. So hell yes there is still lots of racism going on, even in a super diverse area like I live in now.
P.S. No fan of country music, give me old school funk anyday.
my daughter is in 10th grade. our school is near the beach, but also near the Tijuana border. I've had to call the school a couple of times. The teacher speaks in spanish and English to the kids, and when the English speakers have to ask what she said she'll have the teachers aid translate. I was told by the principal, that the teachers are supposed to speak English to the class. last week, the teachers aide worked with my daughters group and said 'English or Spanish?'. the kids replied English, but DAMNIT, this is freaking AMERICA if you cant speak English thats not my problem. i get so irritated at that.
Basic rule of Gossip Rocks: Don't be a dick.Tati
Lighten Up Francis WCG
Oh my God, like blacks were the only people to ever be hung. Give it a rest.
agreed - maybe I'm the only person who ever watched a western, as a matter of fact they never had a cowboy hang a black person.
I didn't want to get into this thinking maybe Toby was guilty but after seeing him on Craig Fergusen I was prompted to read the entire lyrics. He's a nice guy and unlike some I do own a lot of his music - mostly the early years. He does tours in Iraq and knows more about the war going there than most.
Lyrics-
Well a man come on the 6 o'clock news
said somebody's been shot
somebody's been abused
somebody blew up a building
somebody stole a car
somebody got away
somebody didn't get to far yeah
they didn't get to far
Grand pappy told my pappy back in my day, son
A man had to answer for the wicked that he'd done
Take all the rope in Texas
Find a tall oak tree, round up all of them bad boys
Hang them high in the street
For all the people to see
That
Justice is the one thing you should always find
You got to saddle up your boys
You got to draw a hard line
When the gun smoke settles we'll sing a victory tune
And we'll all meet back at the local saloon
And we'll raise up our glasses against evil forces singing
whiskey for my man, beer for my horses
We got too many gangsters doing dirty deeds
too much corruption and crime in the streets
It's time the long arm of the law put a few more in the ground
Send 'em all to their maker and he'll settle 'em down
You can bet he'll set 'em down
Cause
Justice is the one thing you should always find
You got to saddle up your boys
You got to draw a hard line
When the gun smoke settles we'll sing a victory tune
And we'll all meet back at the local saloon
And we'll raise up our glasses against evil forces singing
whiskey for my man, beer for my horses
whiskey for my men, beer for my horses
He knew
Justice is the one thing you should always find
You got to saddle up your boys,
You got to draw a hard line
When the gun smoke settles we'll sing a victory tune
And we'll all meet back at the local saloon
And we'll raise up our glasses against evil forces
Singin' whiskey for my man, beer for my horses
Singing whiskey for my man, beer for my horses
^^^See, I'm not a big fan of vigilante justice, but for anyone who's ever heard the song, I think its pretty clear what its about.
TK may be a douche; I have no idea. The idea, however, that this song is racist is just silly.
----------------------------
There will be times you might leap before you look
There'll be times you'll like the cover and that's precisely why you'll love the book
Do it anyway
That's why we wait around here until an expert at mind reading and interpretation gets here to tell us what we see & what the whole world fucking thinks.It really doesn't shock me that most of you can't spot a racist person.
Kill him.
Kill her.
Kill It.
Kill everything... that IS the solution!
┌П┐(•_•)┌П┐twitchy molests my signature!
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