Losing people

Congratulations, you just lost 99% of the people who might’ve listened to you.

Today I learned that it is racist to cover a song.

It’s a good reminder why I don’t consider myself a member of the self-flagellating liberals, and neither am I anywhere close to being a conservative.

People say they don’t like being pigeonholed, but that is usually a lie. What they really don’t like is when you refuse to pigeonhole yourself for them so they don’t have to do all the work. And of course it’s just easier to pigeonhole yourself because it buys you a social group.

But I like being thoughtful more than I like having a social group.

A commenter from another site got it all too right: “Old: article. Really really old: Jezebel middle-class, college-educated white women arguing viciously over which of them is the least racist.”

Is it racist to like rap? Judging by this article, it would be. Not that I care at all. Because I like rap a lot and listen to it all the time. I don’t intend to stop because someone with all the deep thoughts of a sea anemone tells me that I shouldn’t.

And is it racist to be interested in other cultures? Most new things are cultural appropriations. Rock and roll is a cultural appropriation (I really hate that term, by the way) of hundreds of years of African-American musical traditions. So by that definition, any white person playing a rock song is racist.

And does this idiot Jezebel writer really think any artist would cover a song just to make fun of someone? That’s just moronic.

Or the even more daft interpretation is that no white/Latino person should ever cover a song that was originally performed by a black performer. What about if the song is “Green Onions” by Booker T and the MGs? Four members, half black and half white.

Guess I can only cover that one if I am Barak Obama or someone else with one black parent and one Caucasian progenitor.

When I used to play Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” on the piano?

Also like totally racist, of course.