The people around him cringe a little.
A black voice calls out, "HE A RACIST! RUN HIM OUT OF TOWN! WHATEVER JOB HE HAS, FIRE HIM!"
The white man says, "Oh, I didn't mean anything. What do you mean? That little child does have curly hair and protruding lips. But so do most COLORED people...."
WHAT? That should be "people of color!"
Still, what do you do with somebody who isn't really a racist, but a bit clueless, perhaps. He's somebody old, who hasn't kept up with how quickly, and venemously, "political correctness" can end careers.
You simply tell a gent like this, "Times have changed, and we use different words. Martin Luther King Jr. may have used "Negro" but now we say "Black." That kind of thing. You mean well, but please choose your words more carefully."
He nods. And he's not fired. He's not run out of town.
BUT...
What if he's HANK WILLIAMS?
What if he's got a STATUE on display in Montgomery, Alabama?
Considering what just happened to Kate Smith, would it be a surprise if something he said YEARS ago leads to his statue's destruction, and his reputation stained with the charge of RACISM?
THIS statue:
"Hey, Hank Williams once described a black child in a bad way. HE BE RACIST. Let's get that statue taken DOWN!"
WILL that happen?
I was thinking about how Kate Smith's statue got pulled down because she sang a sympathetic song aimed at the "pickaninnies" in an orphanage. She sang about how they should look past their misery and dream about a Candyland where there would be a river of lemonade, and lots of watermelon to eat. Check my post on Kate Smith here, and you'll see how a nice fat lady who only wanted to be kind to black kids, has now been portrayed by a monster. Keep in mind that black kids back then (1933) would've jumped with joy at meeting Kate Smith, and would not have considered "pickannines" an offensive word.
Scholars have lost the trail here and there, but the word goes back to a "pequeno," as the Latinos put it, a "pickney" in Jamaica, a "piccaninny" in Australia and "pikinini" in Papua New Guinea and other islands.
Generally a term of affection, there's a Hal Roach comedy short in 1921 featuring black child actor "Sunshine Sammy" Morrison called "The Pickaninny."
Kate Smith, one of America's icons, was painted as a racist and a bigot because a few songs. (The other, "That's Why Darkies Were Born" was also covered by Paul Robeson).
The Philadelphia Flyers knocked down her statue outside the stadium (she was often at Flyers games to sing "God Bless America"). What they SHOULD have done was tell any anonymous, sulky whiner playing the race card, "Kate Smith was not a racist, she sang a song that was fine with the times, and she loved all children. Look at the movie and see how she sings this song with warmth in her heart. Now fuck off."
Is the Hank Williams statue in jeopardy because of a kneejerk reaction from guilty whites?
Damn right it's in jeopardy.
"HE BE RACIST! Listen to what he said! He said COLORED! He said PROTRUDING LIPS! What a horrible man! He did it because HE A BIGOT, not because he had sympathy for a dead child at a funeral! HE BE RACIST LIKE THAT WHITE LADY KATE SMITH!"
The track is "The Funeral."
It's loaded with terms most would find OFFENSIVE if offered on any record album by any contemporary performer.
But just as Kate Smith's statue was taken down because of a song that is NOW OBSCURE, and was only ONE of THOUSANDS she recorded, Hank is in jeopardy over a song, VERY OBSCURE, that was only ONE of HUNDREDS he recorded.
As "Luke the Drifter," Hank talks about a funeral in a Southern town: "Out front a colored couple sat in sorrow nearly wild
On the altar was a casket and in the casket was a child
I could picture him while living, curly hair protruding lips
I'd seen perhaps a thousand in my hurried southern trips
Then rose a sad, old colored preacher from his little wooden desk
With a manner sort of awkward and countenance grotesque
The simplicity and shrewdness in his Ethiopian face
Showed the wisdom and the ignorance of a crushed, undying race
And he said, "Now don't be weepin' for this pretty bit of clay
For the little boy who lived there has done gone and run away
He was doing very finely and he 'ppreciates your love
But his sho 'nough father wanted him in the big house up above
What do we make of HANK WILLIAMS. Do we make a fuss about him and take down the statue, as the Philadelphia Flyers just did with Kate Smith?
Or do we have a dialogue, and understand that Hank meant no offense, but only sympathy?
Is it better to be a sanctimonious hypocrite and pretend that taking down a statue over ONE song is the moral high road? Or is it more in the American Way to NOT censor, and NOT bully, and NOT be so stubborn and intolerant as to judge someone guilty based on poor evidence?
The rush to judgment in the case of Kate Smith could and probably will happen again.
The politicians who successfully have taken down statue, the owners of the Flyers who did it a few days ago, are not likely to encounter violent protests, or anything more than a letter to the Times or a few Tweets or blog posts.
It would not be too surprising if Hank Williams and "Luke the Drifter" get banned, and few play the records and few dare mention the name, and the statue lies shattered to pieces. That's how things are drifting in this peculiarly chaotic PC world.
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