11 Popular Songs You Didn’t Realize Are Actually Racist

Reader's Digest ^ | 6/21/23 | Jeremy Helligar

[DallasBiff]

You may have been singing along to them for years, but have you ever really thought about their lyrics? If not, it's definitely time.

“Brown Sugar” by The Rolling Stones

Some things don’t deserve to be sung about, like slavery—especially when the song uses whipping imagery as it attempts to demonstrate the sexual prowess of Black women. But yet that’s precisely what Mick Jagger did in The Rolling Stones’ 1971 smash “Brown Sugar.” The title was offensive enough, but in the first verse, Jagger travels back to the plantation to peek in on the slave owners who used to make it hurt so good as he sings, “Hear him whip the women just around midnight.”

[gunsmithkat]

Actually “brown sugar” refers to brown heroin. I thought everybody knew this.

[cowboyusa]

That song is about the fall of the Berlin Wall. No surprise this commie sob hates it.

[yuleeyahoo]

I don’t care and will continue to listen to all them and sing along.

[Stravinsky]

The Left has taken over Reader’s Digest, I see. Amazing how few conservatives with the means to do so take over these publications. The culture is important.

[sunny bonobo]

Nope. Popular myth.
https://dnaconsultants.com/cher-the-half-breed/

[hollywood]

ZZ Top’s ‘Mexican Blackbird’ didn’t make the cut?

[mfish13]

How about “I am just a dirty white boy?”

[crusty old prospector]

The Bird by The Time.

”White folks, you're much too tight. You gotta shake your head like the black folks. You might get some tonight. ”

[eyedigress]

I learned what the song “One is the Loneliest Number” by 3 Dog Night.

Hint- It is the last hit you have on the table

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5ab8BOu4LE

[Kazan]

“Right Here, Right Now” by Jesus Jones

The 1991 hit celebrating the fall of communism dismissed the ongoing Black struggle at the time: “A woman on the radio talked about revolution when it’s already passed her by” and “I saw the decade in, when it seemed the world could change at the blink of an eye/ And if anything then there’s your sign of the times.”

Huh?

[crusty old prospector]

“Her mama was Mez’can
And her daddy was the ace of spades.”

[eyedigress]

Any idea on this one from Grand Funk Railroad?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_t59To7Snk

[eyedigress]

What no Bertha Butt?

[Chode]

the RD is still a thing???

i grew up on it

[eyedigress]

Here is a favorite from the Coasters!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRfRITVdz4k

[Dr. Sivana]

Cher is Armenian.

Part Armenian, part Cherokee, part other things.

[Dr. Sivana]

If your link is correct, someone should update her Wikipedia page.

Georgia Holt (born Jackie Jean Crouch), was a former model and retired actress who claimed Irish, English, German, and Cherokee ancestry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cher

[jy8z]

Part Armenian, part Cherokee, part other things.

At times she had a little Italian in her.

[Songcraft]

I would like to propose a few suggestions for consideration of some older, historical songs being added to possible future versions of this Reader's Digest list.   (No particular reason -- just something to do, involving some songs about some colorful people, which the wacky authors here also might have a problem with, if they listen to them.)

      "Yellow Man" - Randy Newman

      "Running Bear" - Johnny Preston

      "A Whiter Shade of Pale" - Procol Harum

      "Old Folks At Home" (Stephen Foster) - Robert Shaw Chorale

      Christmas Song - Gospel Quartet   (I know it's July, but this quartet is demonstrating such racial harmony and togetherness here, that I thought it might be worthwhile to post it on this thread.)

[dfwgator]

Randy Newman - Rednecks