Weird Song of the Week - Politically Correct
Politically Correct
Friday 26 June 2020
The United States is currently gripped with two intense
issues. The first is the COVID-19
pandemic and the second are the protests brought about by the death of several
black Americans at the hands of police.
You might think these issues are not related, but they are in that some
Asian Americans, and some Australians too, are experiencing difficulty. In the US, some people refuse to be treated
by Asian American doctors because they are the “people with the virus.” Asian health workers and reporters are being
spat upon and told to “go back to your own country” even though many were born
and raised in America.
This week also saw President Trump’s efforts to deport a
million Dreamers fail when the US Supreme Court ruled against him. Dreamers are children of illegal immigrants who
grew up in the United States, went to school, and found work. Because they came to the United States as
little children, or were born in America to illegal immigrant parents, the
American way is the only way they know.
There is a rising tide against the Dreamers because some Americans feel
they are taking college spots and jobs from “real Americans.” The problem is many Dreamers got jobs as
front line health workers. There are
thousands of those. Deporting those in
the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic would put a real strain on the already over
stretched American health system.
Fortunately (from my view point), Trump’s moves were defeated by a 6-3
vote of the United States Supreme Court.
Thus, in the US, race issues permeate every aspect of American politics.
I admit that what follows is based on my experience and
life growing up in the United States. I
acknowledge other countries have different issues and those who live their may
have different perspectives when it comes to race and politics.
Because of the rise of Black Lives Matter, some famous
movies were taken down from streaming sites because they contain offensive
material of a racial nature. The most
famous of these is Gone with the Wind which HBO took down a couple of
weeks ago. Famous brand names are being
scrapped because they too are deemed offensive.
I try my best in this column not to be political because ultimately, the
aim here is to have fun and waste as much time at work as possible. So I will avoid giving my views on these
issues although the reader can correctly infer from the above that I agree with
the Supreme Court decision in favor of Dreamers.
All of this got me to wondering about music. You see, I grew up in Hawaii when I was not
living in the deep south, and, as I have said before in this column, Hawaii
humor is very ethnic. Our humor makes
fun of every ethnic group you can think of.
And when we’re not making fun of
ethnic groups, we make fun of ourselves, or the tourists who run our
economy. I am also aware of many songs
which would be considered politically incorrect today but were accepted in
their time. I got to wondering if any of
those were taken down. I am not
interested in songs promoting hate.
Rather, I am interested in songs which are politically incorrect in a
light hearted way.
To my amazement, every single song I thought of is still
up on YouTube so I thought I would share some of these. I apologize in advance if any of these offend
anyone. I would be interested in any
feedback on any of these songs regarding whether they should still be available
or not.
The biggest surprise for me is Monty Python’s classic I
Like Chinese.
This song was released as part of Monty Python’s Contractual
Obligations album in 1980. I was
really shocked this song was still up.
This song has so many stereotypes, I am amazed it has survived this long. Just a few months ago I was really shocked
when the tune was used in a commercial for a Chinese run business. Did the owners know the history of the song
their advertising agency chose for the advertisement?
The 1960’s was a turbulent decade in US history. It featured many songs promoting racial
harmony at a time when race riots and racial tensions were at their
height. The great Satirist Tom Lehrer, who has
featured many times in this column, opposed racism and he did it through
Satire. His song National Brotherhood
Week makes fun of the Federal Government’s attempt to deal with racism by
creating National Brotherhood Week, celebrated in February in the United
States. If it is celebrated now, I
certainly do not know where. The only
reason Americans today have ever heard of this is because of Tom Lehrer.
Lehrer sings that during this week, Lena Horn and Sheriff
Clark are dancing cheek to cheek. Lena
Horn was a famous and very good African American singer who died in 2010. Sheriff Jim Clark was known for his brutal
treatment of unarmed civil rights activists in the 1960’s. He violently opposed Martin Luther King
Jr. I think the rest of the song is
pretty self explanatory.
Here is Lena Horn singing Stormy Weather.
Tom Lehrer’s most blistering song against racism in the
American South is I Wanna Go Back to Dixie. This song was written in 1959. If you merely listen to the words, this song would
be very politically incorrect, but because this is an example of satire, it
passes muster as far as I am concerned.
There were many protest songs from the 1960’s covering
civil rights and the Vietnam War but the song I remember most, as I learned it
as a child in the late 60’s, was a gospel song called All God’s Children Got
Shoes. This song was written in
1937. Here are the Charioteers doing a
really good rendition of the song.
This song contains a very powerful message for Christians
in my view. In heaven, everyone is equal
and gets the same reward. This song was
certainly used in the 60’s and 70’s as a civil rights protest song.
My favorite harmony song was actually released in 1972 by
one of my favorite groups. The group was
Three Dog Night and the song is called Black and White.
Some harmony songs became World Wide smash hits. Ebony and Ivory, released in 1982 by
Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder topped the charts.
In 1991, Michael Jackson released the hit Black or
White.
Not only is this a great song, but the video is fantastic
as well. My favorite characters are the
lions.
But despite all this, there were still songs making fun
of some races. The Ballad of Irving
features a Jewish gun slinger named Irving.
Irving was the 142nd fastest gun in the west. This song makes
liberal fun of Irving’s Jewishness.
I am mildly surprised this song is still up on YouTube
but all of my Jewish friends I have spoken to about this song think it is
hilarious as they can relate to its humor.
It should not surprise anyone that there is actually a
Cowboy Fast Draw Association and they have a world championship. Here are two videos about the 2014 world championships. The first is a home demonstration.
The second is a 30 minute documentary on the competition.
Them there guys and gals are amazing and I think Irving
would have really struggled against these folks.
I spoke about Hawaii earlier so I will end there. Here is Hawaiian comedian Rap Replinger
making fun of a Hawaiian chant.
You might understand some of this but much of it uses
local pigeon and expressions so will be lost to you. I’ll just say that in one of the verses, he
sings about a Chinese food which features in the islands and is called
manapua. In the verse, he is eating this
while smoking marijuana. Trust me, that’s
what he is singing about. He also sings
about hurting his crown jewels thanks to holes in his pants. Trust me, he is singing about that too. Hawaii has it’s share of Hawaiian activism,
but this song has survived that thus far and I admit I crack up every time I
hear it. Replinger does not spare the
Japanese. Here he is in Japanese Roll
Call.
This week’s Weird Song of the Week goes to a song which
is shockingly still available on YouTube. It is easily my favorite politically incorrect
song of all time. It makes fun of
Japanese specifically so I do not feel bad liking it since I am Japanese
myself. But it also makes fun of Orientals
in general and at the very end, has a dig at Arabs. How is this song still up on the internet?
This song is written and performed by Hawaii comedian Frank
Delima who is super popular in the islands.
He also makes fun of people who live in Hawaii in general and makes fun
of the Hawaiian lifestyle. Delima gives
those of us from Hawaii the opportunity to laugh at ourselves and believe me,
there is plenty to laugh about. I don’t
know any other state in the USA that has state based humor as good as ours. Even though Frank Delima is not Japanese, he
is allowed to make fun of us because in a very real way, he is one of us. Delima also makes fun of his Portuguese ethnicity
and he is quite merciless at doing so. I
don’t know whether this stuff should be retained or removed in our politically
correct world, but I also think it is good to laugh at ourselves when we can.
When I was in elementary school (called primary school in
Australia) I used to hang out with my Japanese friends. We addressed one another by our last names as
is the Japanese way, and we used to call ourselves squids in honor of our slanted
eyes. We thought it was great fun and
thinking of those days does bring back fond memories. The first time I heard Slant Eyes I
laughed so hard the tears came out. Does
this make me a bad person? Let me know
what you think of these or any other songs still being available on the internet.
posted by Marc Breault @ 9:39 AM
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