Feelin' The Hate With Toby Keith Nation
Toby Keith likes to brag, "This big dog will fight when you rattle his cage." But when my reporting on the pro-lynching lyrics in his song, "Beer For My Horses," began to complicate the promo tour for his forthcoming "Southern comedy" movie of the same title, tough-talking Toby whined to the media. "The song was a hit and the words 'lynch' and 'racism' has [sic] never come up until this moron wrote this blog," he fumed to Contact Music.
When Fox News picked up Keith's comments, Big Dog Daddy's loyal fans bombarded my in-box with a deluge of indignant rants. While insisting to me that "Beer For My Horses" contained not even a hint of coded racial animus, Keith's fans simultaneously revealed their simmering resentment of Jews, blacks, and "faggy liberals."
Their hate-laden letters comprised the script for my latest video:
Toby Keith Nation Fights Back, a creative take on my hate mail
Keith claimed that "Beer For My Horses" was simply an anodyne ditty intended to evoke nostalgia for the Old West, where "bad guys" met justice at the end of a rope. "It's about the old West and horses and sheriffs ... and going and getting the bad guys. It's not a racist thing or about lynching," he said.
Why then did Keith sing so despairingly of car thieves, "corruption in the street," and terrorists who blow up buildings? Why did he invoke the swarthy boogeymen of the modern right-wing imagination right before launching into a verse about the good old days when his "grandpappy" would "take all the rope in Texas...find a tall oak tree," and "hang them high in the street, for all the people to see?" Maybe "Beer For My Horses" isn't about the Old West after all.
But since Keith has invoked that golden era of "horses and sheriffs...and going and getting the bad guys," it is fair to ask if he knows anything about the real history of lynching in Texas. Does he know that according to the Handbook of Texas, the Lone Star stood third among the states -- just behind Mississippi and Georgia -- in its total of lynching victims? Does Keith know that of the 468 people lynched in Texas, a whopping 339 were African-American (a partial list of black Texan lynching victims is here)?
Lynching was not, as Keith disingenuously claimed, a practice exclusive to gallant Hollywood cowboys played by Gene Autry (who couldn't even ride a horse) and Ronald Reagan. It was a mode of organized terror employed by groups like the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction to restore white supremacy in Texas and throughout the region.
Keith should immediately apologize for his musical monstrosity. Then I suggest he perform a cover of "Strange Fruit," the Billie Holiday anthem inspired by the anti-lynching poetry of Jewish school teacher Abel Meeropol. Holiday often cried (watch her here) as she performed her haunting dirge. On at least one occasion, she was so overcome with emotion she could not finish. With Toby Keith exploiting the South's most barbaric tradition for big bucks, Holiday's tears burn like salt on an unhealed wound.
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Poor Toby-....N
You can tell toby is a republican
I was wondering what, exactly, makes you believe he is a Republican? Was it like racial profiling? Had you actually taken the time to research this, like googling "toby keith democrat", you'd have easily determined that he is not a Republican. He is, in fact, a Democrat. I personally have heard Toby Keith state that he is a Democrat while watching television.
So what? As the other post said, he voted for Bush....so being a registered Democrat doesn't mean a thing. And clearly his point of view does not fall in line with that of a democrat so presuming he is a republican is very appropriate.
He's a registered Democrat, or he was in 2004, but he voted for Bush. He sounds more like a Dixiecrat or one of these Reagan Democrats.
I just heard the song for the first time on your video.
How come you never mention that Willy Nelson sings on the track. Is it cause Willy is loved and not as easy a target as Keith.
The lyrics are disturbing, but Willy on it changes things.
I don't like country music and I don't like Toby Keith, but I do not believe there was ANY racist intent to this song.
It's one thing to say that a song about stringing people up may be associated with black lynchings in some people's minds (which was a sad and terrible part of our history), but there was clearly no racist intent to the song.
I am willing to concede that point.
I am even willing to admit the visceral nature of my reaction. But race aside, hangings are brutal acts. Legal or otherwise.
One of my professors wrote about the last public hanging in Colorado -- I think it was 1880 or so. 20,000 people showed up. There were picnic lunches, families with children runniong around laughing and playing, cotton candy vendors, musicians, a parade. He said that it was the 1800s equivalent of a Denver Broncos game.
I agree that there was to intended racism in the song..Not a fan of Toby's but society has become way too sensitive over insignificant things like silly song lyrics..Wh
OOPS! Should have been "there was NO intended racism..NO
above should read NO intended, not TO intended
I agree, this only keeps him in the news.
Still trying to make this stick max? No matter how many times you try to twist it, the bottom line is that you are wrong about the song.
The majority of the people that read your two previous posts commented that you were wrong, including dozens of people who state that they are african american and don't see any racism in the song.
Give up. You're wrong.
More unintended racism
Barack Obama gave an interview to CBN, the Christian Broadcasting Network. Asking about the "antichrist" smears and McCain's use of them in his ads the interviewer says to Obama, "Let's face it, let's call a spade a spade."
When you have Nancy Pelosi calling him a gift from God on the good side, you are going to see questions on the other side.
Good point. Have to give you that one. Just politics.
Good for you, Max, for bringing up the theme of lynchings as ;a mode of organized terror employed by groups like the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction to restore white supremacy in Texas and throughout the region. "
That is indeed the undercurrent or theme running through Michael Lind's book, "Made in Texas: George W. Bush and the SOUTHERN TAKEOVER of AMERICAN POLITICS."
"Southern" as in "neo-Confederate" as in white supremacy, which ruled the South during the post-Civil War (what Lind calls) "CONFEDERATE CENTURY", and now rules American politics with the entrenched neo-Confed politicians like Bush, Cheney, Frist, Lott, Helms, Thurmond were or are today. Lind also details the Neo-Confederate ALLIANCE with the often Jewish Neo-Con intellectuals, of which you are aware following Lieberman's support for Hagee's Christian-Zionist apocalyptic right-wing Christians.
There is hope - Lind details how moderate, progressive Texans have CONFRONTED the reactionary right for decades (with successful names like Lyndon Johnson, Sam Rayburn, Ross Perot, and even stretching back to sam Houston himself, although Righties like to appropriate Houston's memory as a figure of white-clan supremacy.
Unfortunately, today's Democratic Party refuses to notice the stranglehold that the AIPAC Neo-Cons have on the Party (Party support for Ned Lamont vs uber-neocon Liberman was tepid, to say the least), so until the Dems reject their Neo-Con dependency, they will never be able to CONFRONT the Neo-Con/ne
This is over the top left-wing self-victimization. And I say that as a left-leaning Democrat. The song certainly strikes me as a call for vigilante justice, and, as such, I really don't like it. But racist? Get real. They hung horse thieves in the old west, who were probably white. The song expresses frustration with law enforcement, and calls for a questionab
Keith is politically too conservative for my taste. I don't like the religious overtones in some of his stuff, or the gaybashing and other comments he's made. And maybe he is a racist, but this song in no way is evidence of that.
Toby Keith has built a career on uber macho preening and mysogny. His audience is made up of men who weren't properly fathered and look to symbols of faux masculinity to fill in for their lack of what really makes up manhood. Repubs are well aware of the power of this meme and set up Reagan and Bush to fill the role of absent father via the cowboy image. John Wayne in his movie roles was not just a movie icon, he was the archtype of the hero that Joseph Campbell writes about his book the Power of Myth. If you noticed in a movie gunfight, the good guy always waits to fight until he has no other options ( note: The Unforgiven). Jesus and Gandhi were the ultimate symbols for the evolved masculinity, it takes great courage to hold your powder and find other means to make change. We are however not very evolved, so God help us.
Interesting theory.But Geo Bush had a father....
You missed the point: Reagan & Bush are the father figures not the one's looking for a father figure.
Toby certainly does like the macho posturing. If he hadn't become a musician he could have had a promising career in professional wrestling.
And isn't it interesting that all this posturing is absolutely pnony.
Ronald Reagan and John Wayne sat out the horrors of WW II with Hollywood starlets.
I'm always surprised and gratified when I see a post tht reflects my thinking this closely
It doesn't sound like you are familiar with the music, particularly the lyrics, of Toby Kieth.
I am very critical of modern country music and Toby Keith in particular as sloganeering low brow fare, but this is just silly. Let's look at some of the lyrics and see what they say. You can find the lyrics here: http://www
The First verse is a list of crimes with nomention of race. It should be academic for anyone to think of at least two races that are known to have committed each of the crimes listed. However, Mr. Blumenthal, in his article, believes Mr. Keith "invoke(s) the swarthy boogeymen" by listing these acts. Perhaps Mr. Blumenthal should review his own racial ideas if the mention of crime makes him think of dark skinned people. Also, Mr. Blumanthal should review his assumptions about class and culture if they cause him to ascribe racist motivations to individuals who are not of the same origin as himself.
The fourth verse includes the following phrase "It's time the long arm of the law put a few more in the ground"
"Lynching is the illegal killing of a person . . . a generic term for any form of execution without due process of law." (from the Handbook of Texas) A declaration, as we have here, that the law should take steps to punish criminals, by this definition, could not be described as a call for lynching.
Remember, though, that vertually all lynchings were deemed "not illegal," in that no one was prosecuted for the acts. Thgis is why people felt comfortable enough to be photographed standing next to the corpses.
So while the textbook definition is accurate, it does not reflect the reality of the actual deed is it was meted out to Backs, Jews, and yes Whites as well. Lynchings were basically mob rule run amok, with no consequences.
Please forgive my typos. Sometines the brain moves faster than the fingers...
Point taken, and don't worry about the typos. I agree with your analysis of lynching, its social acceptance, and mob rule. I am not denying that lynching in this type of scenario was and will continue to be an atrocity. However, my point was that the song neither called for lynching or involved racism.
I do have to admit that as an AA, any song about stringing people up does not set well with me. I recently saw a Website on lynchings of AAs and Jews that noted that those invovled would send photos of the victims out as postcards -- as if the event had been at a picnic.
Should it banned? No, this is America. And we have places like this to talk about our reactions.
But I'd be lying if I said it didn't make me cringe.
LOL!
Max! You are so losing it!
The movie pulled in about $208,000 at the box office.
Here we go again. Talk about blowing things out of proportion. A guy rights a simple song, that most people understand as just a song about taking care of criminals in kind of an ol' west flavor and left it at that. Max has to look deeper with his own sterotyping, as well as that of a few people on here, figures..h
A guy "rights" a simple song? That would be "writes". The fact that you don't know the difference tells me all I need to know about the power of your analysis.
Howdy ma'am. You must be the new schoolmarm
Ok so in my haste I made a mistake. How about responding to the actual point.
"Most People" Since when were you named spokesman for the ignorant?
oh ... never mind ... default action!!!
The problem is the ignorance of the great many people who have no knowledge of our history.
Or what lynching means within that history.
And I would include Toby Keith as one of the prime purveyors of that ignorance.
Presuming that Max can ride Keith where he intends, just where will Max be when he dismounts?
Max, if you'd like to come south (and pick me up just as you cross the Mason-Dixon), we'll travel to the Deep South and I can show you what actual racists look (and sound) like. I can just about guarantee you that the mention of Keith's name would draw mostly blank stares, because the song that plays in their heads constantly drowns out everything else. A few years ago, I could have introduced you to men who thought in terms of bombs over ballads, but I can still introduce you to the men who are the recipients of their legacy. They might even attempt to recruit you, as they did me. I know, you're Jewish, but don't think that would disqualify you. They'd be more than happy to write you a pass in order to take advantage of your talents. They're always on the lookout for a good propagandist--and I'm certain that Keith wouldn't pass muster.
In the war on racism, Toby Keith has all the significance of bin Laden's driver.
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