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dmay
"Unfortunately Jagger used theN word in one of the lyrics guaranteeing the song will not be viewed favorably today"
There is much in art, music, literature, that is of another time and place and considered offensive today. One would hope that people would look at such things from a historical perspective and use things that were/are controversial as learning points to understand then and now. IMHO, it's sad that people aren't willing to put in the time, research and outreach to learn of the world and who and what's on it. But, this is a discussion for another thread or another blog.
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jbwelda
That discussion could start with a pair of my childhood favorites, Samuel Clemens' "Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and continued in his "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn".
It is sad to know in many areas, those books are banned or near so. Completely taking the whole point wrong, for the sake of one word basically.
jb
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jbwelda
First off, there is no "University of Southern California at Berkley", its the University of California, Berkeley campus. The rest of your post is equally off target, perhaps a reading a bit of unbiased history would be a good idea before posting claptrap like that.
As for the song, I doubt Angela Davis appreciated it as its basically a slave call not unlike Brown Sugar. Angela Davis is and was an avowed freedom fighter and her position at UCB and long time tenure there reflects the campus's history but not really its viewpoints, it is only because of her strength and courage that she persevered there. Not everything is as it is reported on Faux News.
jb
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Bungo
Hard to imagine she's not still in prison for what she did. She got off easy. Only a university like University of California at Berkeley would let her be a tenured professor.
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dmay
I read Eldridge Cleaver's "Soul On Ice" and thought how cool it would be to hang out with the Black Panthers and be part of the liberation. It eventually dawned on me that I was nothing more than a dumbass white boy with no real clue about what black people went through and were going through in the U-S-of A. But, this thought was of those times, just as SBA is of its/that time. Being a revolutionary - even if you really weren't - was such a seductive thing back then.
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Bungo
Hard to imagine she's not still in prison for what she did.
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Doxa
Any idea what Angela Davis might think about the song?
I always thought that she might be more offended due to feminist reasons than racial for "Sweet Black Angel"... For Mick all the females seem to be just "little gals"...
- Doxa
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jbwelda
>Picking on words in the lyrics 48 years later is something only people with sick minds do.
Well if you are referring to me, my opinions come from some fifty years ago, when this was all current. At the time I lived about 20 miles from the civic center in question (designed by Frank Lloyd Wright) and about 30 from San Quentin. So yeah, I kind of kept up on the daily news and in fact remember the sirens when the courtroom exploded with the fury of George Jackson.
And yes, freedom fighter. I know for a personal fact and not just an opinion, again from back in the days when this was relevant.
And that laughable "T" word, what a laugh. But you are right about hard core lefty. She was an avowed Communist (with a capital "C") and I attended many of her and her contemporaries speeches and presentations.
And yeah, to make an omelet you got to break some eggs. So sorry for the families and all that but basically irrelevant.
I wonder how it is she ended up walking free out of all that? Not by singing on her comrades, I will wager. I forget exactly but I believe she was exonerated and reinstated at the University after it all washed out. But that hangsman noose still sits out back in the tree, don't it.
It is obvious the authors of the song, if it were indeed about Ms Davis, probably know and respect all that. But go on, dance and shake your asses, don't mind the uncomfortable inferences.
jb
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Doxa
This is what I asked and speculated here ten years ago:Quote
Doxa
Any idea what Angela Davis might think about the song?
I always thought that she might be more offended due to feminist reasons than racial for "Sweet Black Angel"... For Mick all the females seem to be just "little gals"...
- Doxa
Since then I had a chance to see her in one conference in where she was a key note speaker. I really wanted to ask that personally from her, but, you know, I chickened out... she was such a charismatic academic superstar, and so sharp and serious about the subjects in matter, so even in informal circumstances, as people were discussing with her about the relevance of Marxist theory or Herbert Marcuse to recent issues in social injustice or whatever, I just couldn't come up with a question about what she likes of or thinks about one pop song... I guess no one has ever been able to... With her that sounds just so damn irrelevant... She is so serious...
- Doxa