Can we now finally get rid of 'Do they know it's Christmas'?

[Tokenminority]

This song drives me absolutely up the wall. It's patronising, reductive, and it completely harms efforts towards equality.

I understand the focus on equal opportunities and stopping police brutality, but other narratives, such as the pictures painted in the 'Do they know it's Christmas' song, can be just as harmful.

'Africa' is not a country. You did not go on holiday to 'Africa', similarly to how you wouldn't have sent that you went on holiday to 'Europe' when you in fact went to France.

Of course there are major problems surrounding poverty on the African continent, just as there are in other places, but African countries are not only filled with begging, malnourished children who have never seen a Christmas present.

The picture attached is a photograph of Lagos. If I went on the street and asked random people on which continent that photo was taken, would anyone even consider the possibility that it may have been Africa?

Fuck sake.

The epitome of privilege warbling on.

There was a famine. Nothing grew. No rains. People dying. There are people walking around in Ethiopia now, living happy liveds or miserable lives or whatever sort of lives, but living. Because of that song and the goodwill it channelled.

White saviour me hole, in this case. If you were caught in a famine would you refuse to allow your starving baby the protein pack? On the grounds that well fed future people would be offended that the hand offering it was white. Would you fuck. I dont know if its white privilege leading you to say these things but it's certainly Well Fed Privilege, Functioning State Privilege, Natural Disaster-less privilege.

Bob Geldof was Irish, we learnt of the horror of famine. We also have a saying We didnt even know it was Christmas, you'd say it after a bereavement or similar at Christmas to signify your grief and pain occluded the happiness that Christmas is supposed to bring.

I swear I'll write a hit song myself and sing it forever in your ear if you can present anyone who lived through that famine and has anything but gratitude towards anyone that helped.

Well fed future people moaning about starving babies getting fed because they failed to take into account 21st C political talking points.

Theres plenty of starvation still today. Feed them, maybe?

@ArgumentativeAardvaark

I’m aware it’s born in the USA is not a patriotic song. Neither is do they know It’s Christmas.
The particular line I was thinking of was ....
“to go and kill the yellow man..”

Apologies if my A* in English lit is a little rusty!

With the Witney song- I hadn’t actually thought about the grammar aspect - it was the fact she needs a man to dance!

So totally totally agree with you, OP - my "African" colleague (she's actually from Zimbabwe) did a wonderful line by line takedown of it once when someone started humming it in the pub. Her satire was hilarious, but made the point beautifully.

Yes I agree SockYarn. It was just so shocking.

Irving Berlin, the composer of White Christmas, was Jewish and did not celebrate Christmas. As with most songs, the sentiment is more important than a forensic examination of the lyrics.

White Christmas was influenced by the death of Berlin's young son on Christmas Day - that is why it sounds so melancholic

[quote Orchidflower1]@ArgumentativeAardvaark

I’m aware it’s born in the USA is not a patriotic song. Neither is do they know It’s Christmas.
The particular line I was thinking of was ....
“to go and kill the yellow man..”

Apologies if my A* in English lit is a little rusty!

With the Witney song- I hadn’t actually thought about the grammar aspect - it was the fact she needs a man to dance![/quote]
“Go and kill the yellow man” is obviously reported speech, quoting the racist rhetoric of the time to reinforce the point.

With the Witney song- I hadn’t actually thought about the grammar aspect - it was the fact she needs a man to dance!

Fuck me, that's a bit of a stretch. She doesn't say that she'd like to dance and can't because she doesn't have a man. She's looking for someone to dance with and "feel the heat" with.

Some people can pick a fight in an empty room.

It's offensive because most of us have spent our lives giving money to the 'starving children in Africa' and are still bombarded on a daily basis (If you watch daytime tv) with emotional tearjerking adverts to part with more money for them. And it's the poor and elderly of the UK that are disproportionately affected and charged by this. It's proven that the poor and elderly spend more on charity by percentage than anyone else. And the main charity is always starving Africans.
I always wondered why they send the little girls to collect the water, in the videos, rather than adults. Or building irrigation. Is it just actors? Pure manipulation.

@PolPotNoodle

I hate this song so much, the lyrics are atrocious. "There won't be snow in Africa this Christmas time" - so what? There's no fucking snow in the UK then either. Half of the continent is in the southern hemisphere and its therefore summer in December.

"Do they know its Christmas time at all?" - ignorant of the diverse religious beliefs and cultures of the many different countries in Africa.

In answer to your question, if I'm honest I'd have thought that was a picture of an South American country. I'm not shocked to find out its Lagos though although some people would be.

Actually there will be snow on Mt Kilimanjaro

Yes, it hasn't dated well but in terms of having approx 24 hours to come up with something catchy enough to sell millions of units, while being moving, meaningful, simple, rhyming and withstanding of scrutiny 35 years in the future, there aren't many more nightmarish briefs.

I agree with ArgumentativeAardvark above - I read it as not literally about whether Ethiopians know it's Christmas, but "Christmas" in that 'Oh go on, have another Baileys, it's Christmas!' mentality of tinselly indulgence: a challenge to British people sitting in their cosy homes thousands of miles away, feeling uncomfortable - or not - that while they're scoffing Quality Street there are children dying in the dust on the same planet.

Also the line about going 'to kill the yellow man' in Born in the USA is ironic. It's meant to be a sarcastic reference to what the young soldier was told by the hiring man: 'they put a rifle in my hand/sent me off to a foreign land/ to go and kill the yellow man'. His brother 'had a woman he loved in Saigon', which is presumably there to make the point that though the reason they were sent off was racist, they weren't, necessarily.

Thanks God you came @ShaniaPayne

While the song might be a bit patronising, it was written in the with good intentions a long time ago. And it did a lot of good. It’s just so happens that lots of people like the tune and it’s become a Christmas classic, but don’t take away from the fact that it was done for good, and it achieved good.

If I were Bob Geldof, I’d be offended that people were offended. At this rate no white person will feel they can do anything positive without fear of people finding offence when there was none meant.

Yes, this is clearly the take away point from the events of the weekend. I didn't see it before but now I get it. Hating a 90s song is exactly how I need to focus my anti racism energies.

Agreed.
needs to be changed for

Maybe we could have another song, and buy them some calendars with the proceeds?

@7Days I agree completely. I still remember seeing on the BBC News at the time Michael Buerk's piece that a previous poster posted. It was harrowing and would have deeply moved anyone else who saw it, as it did Bob Geldof. Almost 36 years later I still remember the words "this is hell on earth". In his autobiography Geldof said that the day after the report everything normal seemed meaningless and that he felt that he had to do something to help the famine victims. That is why the song is there and indeed subsequently why Live Aid happened.
If people don't like the lyrics, tough.

YABVU. It’s a much loved song from 1984 and it ain’t going anywhere People will single it for decades to come.

Can I say ban it because I hate all Christmas music in general?
Working several years in retail through Christmas time while the shop plays the same like 6 songs over and over has forever tainted Christmas music for me.

And I do wonder, no new Christmas songs seem to catch on. Are we stuck with these same songs until the end of time?

Bob Geldof is the first person to admit it's not the most brilliant song: "I am responsible for two of the worst songs in history. The other one is 'We Are the World'". But it was a snap reaction to a shocking news story that needed to be written, recorded and sold right then to raise money. I don't like it very much, it feels awkward now, but I don't think it's entirely fair to equate it with police brutality...

@SockYarn

With the Witney song- I hadn’t actually thought about the grammar aspect - it was the fact she needs a man to dance!

Fuck me, that's a bit of a stretch. She doesn't say that she'd like to dance and can't because she doesn't have a man. She's looking for someone to dance with and "feel the heat" with.

Some people can pick a fight in an empty room.

This is my point @SockYarn where do we draw the line. There will be someone offended about literally every single song you can think of from the national anthem to ba ba black sheep and everything in between.

The ones I listed were just the ones that popped into my head.

It was always a shocker of a song and did not merit being performed more than once.

And some of them may or may not have been on my Spotify playlist in the shower today

Lots of people on this thread seem to be very intent on maintaining the status quo, despite hearing from people that experience it every day that this is an example of the casual, constant racism they face. Yes, it's just a song but it's part of the problem. You are part of the problem.

And without Band Aid we wouldn’t have had Live Aid

Or Run The World, which everyone seems to have forgotten about