RFU reviewing use of slave song Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

[GimmeAy]

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/53096584

Anyone recall this lively but good-natured discussion from earlier in the year? www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3817800-Is-the-chosen-English-rugby-anthem-appropriate-do-you-think?pg=1

What do we all think now given the shift in attitudes to slavery and things associated with slavery? I think the attitude back in February was that it was ok, because it was initially sung in the context of rugby by a black player. BBC reporting that that player's nickname was Chariot which is why he sang it.

AIBU to be interested in whether our views have changed at all?

People started calling Martin Offiah “Chariots” because of the phrase “Chariots of Fire” popularised by the running movie and also itself a line from the Blake anthem Jerusalem. Quite a funny pun I think.

I had no idea that’s why the England rugby crowd started singing Swing Low. Thought Offiah only played a bit of sevens for England.

I’m mid fifties but when I was a kid in Wales, rugby football was football and football was soccer. My grandad and his brothers always called it soccer.

@BeforeIPutOnMyMakeup

I always love on these threads how the OPs always ignore the black and brown people posting unless they don't realise they are black or brown.

Or start being a bit of a knob when they realise they are brown, or worse, a brown man 😂

Why am I here? To help correct the inaccuracies. One of which was in your OP.

You understand nothing.

Sarcasm, sardony and general piss taking included.

Yes, we all really do know you are winding, we have all enjoyed it, it passed a lot of time quite enjoyably.

Part serious discussion about spirituals, part sports recognition and history and part just stringing you along.

Cos none of us believe you are that lacking in self awareness, just as we recognised the blatant attempt at getting the thread disappeared.

Enjoy. I've got a bloody good curry about to arrive. You'll forgive me for not sharing!

Pass me a poppadom there's a dear.

Or start being a bit of a knob when they realise they are brown, or worse, a brown man 😂

Why are you here Simon?

Why am I here? To help correct the inaccuracies. One of which was in your OP.

Please spell out the inaccuracy? There's a dear.

@GimmeAy

Or start being a bit of a knob when they realise they are brown, or worse, a brown man 😂

Why are you here Simon?

You can’t keep away from me, you follow me on other threads, you keep quoting me here, just making sure you have enough material to maintain your obsession. Wouldn’t want to disappoint.

@CuriousaboutSamphire You have quite an opinion of yourself. I hope you've ordered extra chips to go with that chip on your shoulder. If you find picking on and goading 1 poster enjoyable, then I really pity your sad life while you overeat on takeaway.

Again? No.

You don't see the irony of your last two posts? Not even a little?

It really is getting ridiculous. Going to these extreme length, as has been said, for the purpose of virtue signalling.

You've had your 5 mind, now you're beginning to look silly.

They think it's all over...

At least SimonJT keeps his username. He doesn't change it every time he wants to start another thread....unlike you, who started the thread mentioned in your OP, and have since gone on to make yourself look completely ridiculous in this one. Never mind, I'm sure you'll change it again for your next one....yawn!

@billycat321 WTAF? Jerusalem has nothing to do with Israel.

Considering the words were written in 1804...

GimmeeAy

I'm still laughing (& slightly cringing) at the Johnny Cash clip😁

Marvin Gaye..Now I can go with that one

Had someone told the person who wrote the song, or those who first were singing it, that in a few hundred years it would be iconic and part of iconic genre of music, so mush so that it could be sung by a stadium full of people in another country, in a time when slavery was outlawed, I am sure they'd have been very surprised, and I don't really think they'd have been all that put out about it either.

On the other hand if people become too frightened of being deemed bigots to be able to sing things from the African spiritual song tradition, that would be a terrible shame and remove one of the most powerful unifying arts we have.

Well every Irish person is laughing (and cringing, but mostly laughing) at the English fans singing it. @DeeCeeCherry

It's almost the definition of poetic justice. An actual example. Involving poetry in motion. And justice. Lol. You couldn't write it as nobody would believe that an entire nation could be so deaf.......

TBH I don't give a shit who started singing it. It's origin is among black slaves.
No it wasn't, it was a Native American freedman who first sang it.

I just need to add 2 things.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8443231/Prince-Harry-backs-ban-Swing-Low-Sweet-Chariot.html

Prince Harry has waded in.

And Boris Johnson - well, he is a bit ignorant, isn't he..

Boris Johnson waded into the Swing Low Sweet Chariot race row yesterday, declaring it should not be banned 'because no-one knows the words'.

Instead he he wanted people to stop focusing on ‘symbols of discrimination’ and look at the wider picture of racial equality.

He said: ‘Nobody as far as I understand it seems to know the words. Before we start complaining about Swing Low Sweet Chariot I’d like to know what the rest of the words are… ‘’Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, coming for to carry me home’’, then it all dies out.

‘How does it go on? I certainly don’t think there should be any sort of prohibition on singing that.

I looked over Jordan and what did I see?
Comin' for to carry me home
There was a band of angels, a-comin' after me

Comin' for to carry me home
Swing low, sweet chariot
Comin' for to carry me home
Swing low, sweet chariot
Comin' for to carry me home

I'm sometimes up, and I'm sometimes down
Comin' for to carry me home
But but I know my soul is heavenly bound
Comin' for to carry me home

Swing low, sweet chariot
Comin' for to carry me home
Swing low, sweet chariot
Comin' for to carry me home
If you get there before I do
Comin' for to carry me home
Tell all my friends that I'm a-comin' too

Comin' for to carry me home
Swing low, sweet chariot
Comin' for to carry me home
Swing low, sweet chariot
Comin' for to carry me home
And now they're comin' for to carry me home

He wasn't a native American freeman. He was a black freeman, who'd been owned by a Native American.