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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If I was a younger woman and still going giddy over the best journalists in the biz, I'd... (lemme see how my kid would say this)... soooo be like totally crushing on Max Blumenthal about right now. Nowadays though, I just add men to my news reader. But I made sure Blumenthal's at the top of it, of course.
Here in Norman where Mr. Keith lives? His actions and politics are not wildly admired to say the least. His uncouth actions are likewise not appreciated which is why when he was shunned by the local golf clubs, for his and his friends inability to act in a manner that showed any class at all, he had to go start his own. It is failing of course as there are not enough red necks with the money to join but it is a sad testement to someone whose own home town does not tout his living here.
Grissom1001 you made my YEAR with that posting !
My Proud Appalachian parents always taught me that trash can always earn some cash, BUT only a special bit can EVER earn some class.....
While I understand the frustration you must feel at being singled out for abuse, I think you may need to take a very long look in the mirror before calling others racist.
Your labelling of lynching as a "Southern tradition" is itself a fully racist statement. Hanging as a method of execution has been a fairly common occurrence since the invention of ropes strong enough to carry out the act. It was neither invented here, nor have the majority of deaths by hanging occurred within the confines of the South.
I've had a thorough dislike of Toby Keith since the whole Dixie Chicks saga began to unfold, and I've a very strong religious conviction against the death penalty, but I think you are seeing things that don't exist in this particular song re: racist undertones. It strikes me that it may be possible that your own cultural elitism has creeped up on you. Keith's song may be stupid trash, but if the person performing this song were from New Hampshire I seriously doubt you would have read the same inference into the lyrics.
There are plenty of ways to disparage Toby Keith's music, his personality, and his politics without resulting to patently racist, anti-Southern imagery. Toby Keith, btw, isn't even a Southerner. He's an Oklahoman. His "grandpappy" that you imply in a preceding post on this subject was stalking the Jim Crow South, noose in hand, was actually out on the Great Plains.
Good post.
Southern bigots are such easy and tempting targets.
Excuse my ignorance here - Oklahoma isn't considered a southern state? Looking at my current map of the U.S., it sure appears to be more to the south than any other direction.
And taking an honest look at our own history as a country (going back to the Pilgrims anyway), I for one am willing to admit that along with all the good stuff that happened while we grew as a nation, there is also a whole lot of stuff that does not deserve to be looked at with pride or nostalgia. And it really pi$$es me off when people get all huffy and bothered when presidential candidates (or anyone else for that matter) have the "audacity" to point out that our country has not been and is not today a perfect entity.
That's really great for Toby Keith, to invoke the idea of public executions. Let's bring that one back, ok? Then, we'll be that much closer to being like Iran, who under the banner of Islamic law, has been reviving the practice of public hangings. Crimes punishable by public hanging include promiscuity for women, homosexuality, denouncing Islam, and speaking out against the repressive government. Of course, Keith has nothing to worry about on that one.
Drop it. This could go on forever
You don't just 'drop' an obsession.
I log on tonight simply to express my support for Max.
Keep it up man!
HuffPo...p
Peace.
dude both are hot women, and can i get their numbers sometime?
good vid by the way.
Heavy stuff.
Check it out yo:
----------
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 too far yeah
They didn't get too far
Grandpappy told my pappy, back in my day, son
A man had to answer for the wicked that he 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
(Chorus)
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
We'll all meet back at the local saloon
We'll raise up our glasses against evil forces
Singing whiskey for my men, beer for my horses
We got too many gangsters doing dirty deeds
We've got too much corruption, too much 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
(Chorus x2)
Have you notice TK, scheduled on late night and daytime tv to sing 'Beer for my Horses" has been singing other songs? That Elizabeth on The View fauned over him speaks volumes.
it's funny that all of the hate mail came from the FOX network fans. If this is his base, I could see why the song appealed to them.
I just hope our country is strong enough to marginalize and finally shame these people to silence, if not to repentence. If it is, it will be thanks to people like Max and his cast. Thanks.
Shame these people to silence? You mean like all good fascists would? There might be room for you in the new Russian Georgia.
their is a difference between shaming someone into silence and forcing them into silence. Encouraging people to think before they open their mouths by showing them how stupid what they really said is is not fascism it's called logic (I know u might have trouble telling the difference). Fascism is when u arrest someone for saying someting you don't agree with instead of, through reason, discussing your disagreement.
Where exactly is "the new Russian Georgia?"
Is it near the "old Spanish Japan?"
The idea for a cover of "strange fruit" is a good idea.
I still like the song for what it is.
Good guys versus the Bad guys.
My problem with it is that 'good guys' convinced of their rightness become bad guys.
Anyone who feels they have the right or obligation to hang/lynch ANYone just because they are convinced the other is bad...is worse by far.
Toby Kieth disgusts me - and it's well and richly earned.
Unfortunately, most rightwingnut Americans aren't sophisticated enough to realize that it's never that simple, and rather than fall into the stark contrast of black/white, wrong/right, good guys/ bad guys, in reality it's usually all various shades of gray, mixed race vs mixed race, and their guys vs our guys...and good/bad right/wrong rarely enters the spectrum.
Simplicity in judging good/bad right/wrong is the most inappropriate approach anyone can take in modern times, as it only guts complex issues to the point of misunderstanding, and encourages ignorance in those not savvy enough to understand that proponents for any given cause leave out true and note-worthy components of their narrative because such details weakens their argument.
Nostaligia for something that never really existed in the first place isn't worth the price.
Wow, Max, just..wow. Nothing quite makes the point in any debate like virulent, derogatory profanity.
thank you for this followup ~ anyone who thinks old west hangings and lynching was just a lot of myth and heart warming nostalgia have no idea what they are talking about. Not that Toby Keith will listen or care. He too impressed with himself and the image he loves to love.
Thanks for the Billy Holiday story ~ It is at once touchingly sad and heroic ...... I am always amazed by the fact that so many African Americans lived through that era and didn't loose their sense of humanity.
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