Lynching Reference on Cover of New Orleans Music Magazine Brings Anger and Outrage
~John Flaherty
I’m still angry, you’re still wrong – a second letter to the editor
~Jill of All Trades, Master of One
~"offBeat – I am your reader. I am a citizen of New Orleans. I am white. I love music. And I find the cover of your March 2010 issue offensive and reprehensible. Not only have I read your magazine, but I’ve pitched you stories, hoping to write for you. When my lucky musical friends have been featured in your prestigious pages, I have celebrated them and supported the magazine. But I refuse to let you make me implicit in your ignorance, your racism, your utter disregard for your words by using none of mine. I will not allow you to implicate me by remaining silent."
5 comments:
"We didn't realize the phrase "strange fruit" has the same power in 2010 that it did when lynching was a more contemporary threat...We believed that in 2010, the phrase "strange fruit" could be used without automatically evoking the Billie Holiday song and its subject matter."
Gotta say that Citizen K. doesn't see how any intelligent music magazine in the world could miss the connection between the words "strange" and "fruit" to "Billie," "Holiday," and "lynching" in the absence of a monstrous brain fart. How a southern magazine could miss that link is downright inexplicable.
I've been reading Offbeat for a couple of years and I've never detected any bias against black artists. I tend to think that the cover was the result of the temporary insanity that can result from the pressures and insular culture of putting a publication to bed.
That being said, Offbeat has no business being defensive. They should be stand up and take their medicine and not complain about the "venality of our public" and whine bitterly about all the hard the work they've done going unappreciated.
What they should have done is say "We screwed up. Bad. What this shows is that forty years after the Civil Rights movement, even people who pride themselves on their progressivism can go way wrong and that the battle against racism is never over. We hate to think that this invalidates 23 years of color-blind music coverage and criticism, but if it does it's our own fault. Now, we'll bend over and take our licks."
And "venality" is a way over the top description of their "public." Keep that up and they won't have any readers left.
WV: pinglike
BTW, WWOZ has great program on right now about John Coltrane.
Thanks, K.
Jan Ramsey emailed me about my comment at their site:
“Fetid glared of OffBeat’s OFFING Race card”? Are you out of your mind? This was a terrible error as we had no idea the public would react so vehemently. Do you really think that we would hang white guys on a “jungle” gym (that thought never even entered our consciousness) so we could “laugh at the Lynched Niggers”? Where are you getting this from? Has almost 23 years of supporting local musicians of all kinds, races, genders and even sexual orientation gone out the window because of this faux pas?
We know the lyrics to the song. We shouldn’t have done it. It was thoughtless. But accusing us of racism is ludicrous, upsets me personally, and just demonstrates where your head is. Get it out of the racist gutter.
You can’t have been reading OffBeat to understand that racial prejudice isn’t in our vocabulary. It’s about musicians and music.
P.S. Read the rest of the cover caption. Read the story. Read the hundreds, maybe thousands, of stories we’ve published. And by the way the words “Strange Fruit” can apply to other things than the Billie Holiday song. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Fruit.
And
http://www.strangefruit.net.au/
Jan Ramsey, Publisher
JanRamsey@OffBeat.com
Does that sound like the Voice of Contrition? I a child who doesn't like their present.
And here was my Ho'So Humble email reply to this Crack Wigger:
PART-1
{His quotes are indented}
Hi Jan,
I'd thank you for the correspondence, but this isn't fun at all. Get your own head out of your own Bourgeois Naivete. You are so fecklessly clueless to your own class bias that you have no idea even now what has happened in reaction to your "faux pas" (what an absolute cop-out description of your offense).
I'm sorry you have such a problem with my imagery, but it came from the cover of your magazine with the Title taken from a song about Lynching Niggers. I grew up around those sort of White People. You go try to shovel this Neo'Libral Faux Racial Compassion onto someone else. It won't stick here because I worked hard to live past my own roots. How dare you pull the Race Card on me when I didn't start this, You Did. How dare you attempt such cowardice. You hide behind your Faux Morals. Yeah, I'm the son of a delta planter. Come on, try to kid me about prejudice. Go ahead Try Again. I will bury in the same grave we finally found for Brian De Le Beckwith. Try pegging someone who thinks you made a Racial Statement by calling them a Racist. I never called anyone what you are attempting to call me. Read it an weep.
Has almost 23 years of supporting local musicians of all kinds, races, genders and even sexual orientation gone out the window because of this faux pas?
Yeah, Jan, you fucked offBeat in the Ass. I may never read it again. Go to Hell. Keep it up and you will have the opposite of a Non Reader, to wit: an adversary. With your attitude about this, I have no doubt you Will go out of business. And, I will help push offBeat into the Gutter that you would so flippantly cast me.
I remember the first offBeat, and still read the hard copy, punk.
Never, NEVER insult such a long time reader. Just because you are an Idiot and get your Racial Awareness from the Orcle, it doesn't at all give you the testicular fortitude to assume I don't know about offBeat. Go Home. Call your Mominem.
But don't tell me Racial Prejudice isn't in your vocabulary. It's on the Fucking Cover of Your Magazine! How in the HELL could you let this one slide? Are you smoking Crack? Who made this CALL, Jan? Say it publicly and Apologize. Suck it Up and Admit that You Made A Bad Mistake and Learn From Your Mistake.
P.S. Read the rest of the cover caption. Read the story. Read the hundreds, maybe thousands, of stories we’ve published. And by the way the words “Strange Fruit” can apply to other things than the Billie Holiday song.
I read it All 4 Times, and sat on it a while longer, before making my comment in Gambit and posting that comment on my blog. My Blog has gotten 260 hits since posting that comment, and 4 emails of support. GOOD. People Care even if you don't understand and just think this is a dinky little "faux pas". I got your Wiki swinging. Don't even try to Back Out of it with Wiki and the Fallacy of Equivalence. Has no one ever taught you how to think? Strange Fruit is a Billy Holliday song about hanging Blacks in the South. Getouttaheah! Hahahahahaha what a Fool! This hurts. You are not funny at all.
I'm done here. Please feel free to reply, but I am done talking to you. And if you try to call me a Racist again I will go public with it. Are you so unaware to think that I am the only person who feels that you stuck a noose in your own mouth? Come on, get real.
(cont...)
(Part 2 My response to the offBeat Wigger)
I have corresponded with about 30 people today about this offense --before getting to your email here! HA! Really, get a clue.
Picking on me isn't going to make your Bias go away any more than it did for James Lee Malvo to apologize today to one of his sniper victims. Like, yeah, "I'm sorry I shot you from a mile away."
You shot all of us, Jan, right in the Heart. And what is almost as bad, you insulted Billy Holliday with White Folk Kitch. Got to Hell.
Editilla~New Orleans Ladder
PS-I'm going to hold onto this for now. But if you want to Fuck with me then we can do it on my Blog that clocks 350-400 hits/day. While I know that isn't a lot of hits, it is every day, and the bigger nola blogs are pissed off at you too ---so go stick your finger in their eye too.
Come on, Let's Rock offBeat.
And to add one final note (HA!)...
It appears that offBeat has struck a nerve with their Nigger Lynching Cover, that Gambit heroically covered.
Kevin Allman, speaking of Editors, you Rock Dog.
Hell, Emmet Till may very well have been chained to one of My Grandfather's Gin Fans! No Lie. They got it (allegedly) from the back lot of one of his cotton gins in Boyle, MS. during the night of driving that poor boy almost 250 miles around the MS Delta.
I come from where they invented the word Nigger, and have heard the words "Strange Fruit" used in a threat.
I have witnessed Strange Fruit being dragged over an open field.
I fucking hate people who would call me a Racist, even more than Racists.
I was willing to give Jan the benefit of the doubt, but they are going to have to learn the difference between Black and White.
But they are only just trying to wipe their own Ass with it.
Bye Bye offBeat.
Bye Bye
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