Racism in Beatles | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Ron Nasty said
What annoys me about the new political correctness, the woke culture – on subjects from racism to gender politics to sexuality – is how people seem to judge those who came before by today’s standards.

Yes, you wouldn’t send your kid out to a fancy dress event in blackface now, and if you did, it’d the parent who’d be judged, not the child. Somehow though, Ringo as a young child appearing in blackface in the ’40s is offered as a suggestion of racism on his part, despite the fact that blackface was a common form of entertainment. It has rightly become viewed as racist and unacceptable, but at the time it was a normal part of life, with the majority of those involved in it not associating it with racism in any way.

Again, with Paul using the word “spade”, it’s use was common at the time, among people of all colours, and without the majority of those who used the term believing they were being racist. No different to the use of “Paddy” to describe the Irish or “Jock” the Scottish. They were not viewed as the lazy, offensive stereotypes they are now then.

I grew up in ’70s, and am well aware that there was language I used then that I wouldn’t use now, as well as things I did then that I wouldn’t do now (bad impersonations of the Indian/Pakistani bus conductor, etc.), but it was a different world, a different country, then, and judging these things by today’s standards does those who lived in different times a disservice – as well as those who’ll jump up and down condemning things decades later.

I’m not applauding the way things were, far from, but do recognise they were different times, and so don’t judge individuals by their use of language or blacking up in the same way as I would were they still doing it. That was then, we learnt, we got better, the societal norms changed.

What’s important is not their use of the language of the times, or their doing things like doing blackface at a time it was common and wasn’t viewed as being racist in the way it is now, but their interactions with those of different ethnic groups, and their standing against things that WERE viewed as racist at the times.

Their first proper tour of the US, they refused to play to segregated audiences. That took balls, especially in the Southern states, where most major artists – including black performers – were not challenging having to play to segregated audiences. The people they were always most excited to meet were the black American artists who’d so inspired them. From early on they appreciated those of different ethnicities to them, from Lord Woodbine to Roy Young to Billy Preston.

Hell, at the same time Paul is using a word like “spade” (again, common language at the time), from the early versions of Get Back  to stuff like Commonwealth and Enoch Powell, they’re protesting those things that were viewed as racist at the times.

The context is always important. You can choose to damn them for displaying some of the societal norms of the times which are frowned upon now, or applaud them for facing down and confronting the more overt racism of the time, and being a part of the change in attitudes which helped create a world where we can raise an eyebrow at some of what was quite normal then.

I choose to applaud them for the big part they played in changing those outdated views.

  

Couldn’t agree more @ Ron Nasty.

When I was about the age that Ringo was in that photo I would sit and watch the black and white minstrel show on the BBC and throughly enjoy it. This was, after all, harmless (or so I thought)”entertainment” at the time.

Of course I now look back  and realise how thoroughly inappropriate the show was but it was, be it right or wrong, of its time and society moves on. No nine or ten year old can possibly be aware of this so cannot be judged. In fact, I am proud to say I never heard one racist comment from my  parent’s mouths despite the fact they also enjoyed this show and, (unfortunately)”goodness gracious me” by Peter Sellars and Sophia Loren which just sounds embarrassingly ridiculous now.

Oh yes, the 60’s and 70’s……As lennon sung in 1980….”strange days indeed”….