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?

@ATomeOfOnesOwn

You're swinging from one extreme to the other to make your point. Just as the lyrics read as though they were dashed off quickly to raise funds for charity. Your photo of Lagos doesn't represent all of Africa either. There are still parts where there is famine, refugee camps, etc.That's the problem with generalising about a continent. I also think people misunderstand if they think the people involved in the song didn't realise that they were painting with a broad brush to elicit a particular response. That doesn't mean it's a good song. It's obviously rubbish but it's purpose was to raise funds not to educate everyone about a continent. Rushing to say 'Africa' can cope with a pandemic is just as naive as saying all of Africa can't cope. There are vast differences in infrastructure across the continent and I think it's a tad ironic that you're criticising the song's over simplification whilst offering up some of your own.

You are entirely missing my point, and I am not swinging back and forth. When did I say that I think Africa's healthcare system can cope with the pandemic? The whole point is that there is no 'Africa's healthcare system'! There are cities and countries and each of those have different issues and potential strengths.

If someone on the news said that 'Europe's healthcare system' was well suited to beat the pandemic it would be equally as ridiculous. Healthcare in Italy is not healthcare in Sweden, or Hungary, or the UK.

Yes, not everywhere looks like Lagos, or even just that photo of Lagos, that is the point. To stop reducing an entire continent to one homogeneous image of 'Africa', where everyone lives the exact same life in the exact same environment.

I hate this song for all these reasons too.

"Seriously? An entire class of secondary school students and not one of them had ever watched the news, or had family from any African country, or read the internet? Where do you teach, the moon?"

I can totally believe this. Most teenagers these days are stuck in their phones, and that feeds them what they want to see. So unless they go looking for actual news, they wont see it. I'm surprised half of them know where Africa is.

I cant keep up with what to be offended by.

cant keep up with what to be offended by.

@TabbyMumz

"Seriously? An entire class of secondary school students and not one of them had ever watched the news, or had family from any African country, or read the internet? Where do you teach, the moon?"

I can totally believe this. Most teenagers these days are stuck in their phones, and that feeds them what they want to see. So unless they go looking for actual news, they wont see it. I'm surprised half of them know where Africa is.

So all the teenagers you know are white?

There was a social media trend a few years ago where people from African countries (mainly sub saharan ones) were posting images of their country to show that it is not just the poverty and conflict shown on western news. I thought it was great.

I think people should be careful not to conflate ignorance/lack of education and stereotyped perceptions of a continent with racism, they are different things.

There are a lot of people in the UK who are ignorant about other places and i have been banging the drum for a long time to help change that (geog teacher). Plenty have stereotypes and misconceptions of all sorts of places, including other parts of the UK as well as elsewhere around the world. I have heard students say Scotland is full of druggies and they all die young. They are misinformed and education will hopefully help to change such views.

Some of our druggies live to a ripe old age, TYVM

The thing is in 20/25/30 people will pick holes in music from now.

Some music lasts well and doesn’t date. Some does- from every generation.

Not just pop music but rhymes and songs sung in schools.

I can remember being taught a song about a Kookaburra at school.

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree,
Merry merry king of the bushes he,
Laugh kookaburra laugh
Kookaburra gay your life must be.

Now some people ( what ever their sexual persuasion) may be offended by a child being taught this now. Some may not. Either way I doubt it would be sung in school these days. Times are different.

What’s the problem with “gay”? Yes, it now means homosexual as well as happy but it’s not a slur and gay people use it to describe themselves.

It’s not like “ten little [n-words-]”! My three year old son sings the Kookaburra song with all the original words.

And in the kookaburra song it clearly has its original “happy” meaning.

Happy memories of the Kookaburra song, I learnt it at Brownies.
Also happy memories of the 80s Bob, Midge, and Band Aid. Those were the days!

Of course some things from the past seem inappropriate now. That’s how it has always been. What’s the point in being offended now though?

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.

Is it a saying in Ireland? I’ve never heard that used in Scotland, not as a “saying” Obviously the Scottish Midge Ure knew about it.

It's a saying in Ireland, yes. Not sure how widespread, but I heard it a lot growing up. In the 80s.

Argumentative you are well named.

So all the teenagers you know are white?

All the teenagers are white in lots of places in the UK, so what? And even if they were black, why does that mean they would automatically know stuff about Africa?!
I actually had a conversation with a teen recently about Ethiopia as it's on my travel bucket list, which led to a discussion about Africa in general and he commented that he thought all Africans were poor. That's because of the image we get over here, all those charity ads etc, a lot of people of all ages here don't realise that there are cities like Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.

I don't think you can ban a daft xmas song, but I do agree with the point that the UK's image of an entire continent is incredibly narrow.

Of course they don't know it's bloody Christmas time in a country where half of the population does not even bloody celebrate Christmas.

I hate this song and every Christmas I say the same thing. That song is almost as old as I am. I know how much money is made from Christmas songs, Noddy Holder has famously said Slade's Christmas song is his pension. Where is all of the money going? Because I don't think it's doing a bloody thing to help famine in Africa.

I know how much money is made from Christmas songs, Noddy Holder has famously said Slade's Christmas song is his pension. Where is all of the money going? Because I don't think it's doing a bloody thing to help famine in Africa

The difference you are missing - and stop me if I'm making this too complicated - is that Slade did not write their songs to raise money for charity, but Band Aid did. Can you see the difference?

You're right that Christmas songs make a lot of money, though. That's why Geldof & Ure chose to write a Christmas song - to raise money to try to stop people dying.

Even 35 years later, Band Aid still spends about 500k a year on reducing hunger in sub-Saharan Africa. Their accounts are published online. But I guess it's easier to smear them than to spend 5 minutes on Google

I'm thinking that it's probably better not to bother with charity. I mean, ffs, this was a massive fund raising effort done with good intentions by a guy who knows from his own cultural history the ways in which famine absolutely destroys a country.

And yet now people - presumably well fed, relatively comfortable people - have the luxury of picking apart someone else's well-intentioned efforts from the privileged position of their comfortable home where they can afford food, shelter, internet, etc. Well, aren't you just too virtuous for words? I bet the Ethiopians dying of starvation wished they'd had you guys to preach to them instead of some scruffy Irish guy trying in his own clumsy way to be of some practical use.

I can't keep up with what to be offended by is the most perfect wayof summing it up.

100% theonlylivingboyinnewcross

Well fed future people bitching about not feeding starving babies according to 21st century talking points, is what I said above.

Imagine an Ethiopian mother giving even the tiniest shit.
She is probably a grandmother now.

Maybe we should ask for all the money back too?

?

@pumpkinbump

Maybe we should ask for all the money back too?

Well, quite. I mean clearly it wasn't needed and the whole fund-raising effort was just a huge embarrassing mistake. If only Bob Geldof had realised that what was actually needed - you know, to try to save the starving children - was a bunch of privileged people to sit around and debate semantics. I mean, I can do that right now and my, don't I feel that I've made a difference to the world? Who needs some idiot to galvanise entire countries into a massive fund-raising effort? I can virtue signal from behind my laptop right now!

We could probably do with a more nuanced understanding of a continent the size of Africa yes. PJ O'Rourke was worth reading on the causes of African famines.
Perhaps we could also follow it up with less sneering at our own people who live in food poverty.

Even maps Pepperwort.
Even to look at a Peters Projection global map trally gives you a new perspective.