I always feel my heart sink when someone maligns “welfare queens.” There is only one person among my friends who was ever on public assistance; and it was me. During months of chemo and surgeries I couldn’t work, and I was sucking off the government teat.
Generally, I use it to describe something way off the mark. I feel like this article is pretty classist and out of touch. I get being hyper aware of dog whistles these days, but I interpreted the artist differently. I think he was dressing a pro worker sentiment in swallowable form, whereas the article seems to think he was using pro worker language to dress up anti semitism. Frankly, I don’t think people feel the need to hide their bigotry that much anymore. If this song came out in 2004, I probably would be more critical. But today, I think pro worker sentiment needs to be hidden more than fascism.
“rich men” in “northern cities” is a familiar trope to the antisemitic right. Leading Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump has held regular campaign events which target “globalists,” a far-right code word for Jews, who supposedly are seeking to attack America.
“The one thing that has bothered me is seeing people wrap politics up into this,” Anthony said. “It’s aggravating seeing people on conservative news try to identify with me, like I’m one of them. It’s aggravating seeing certain musicians and politicians act like we’re buddies and act like we’re fighting the same struggle here, like that we’re trying to present the same message.”
But the line about:
Well, God, if you’re five-foot-three and you’re three-hundred pounds
Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of Fudge Rounds
seems a bit hateful unless that’s supposed to be a metaphor for “fat cats”. The CNN article thinks it’s a metaphor:
“though it has also courted controversy for its lyrics referring to politicians as “obese,” welfare recipients “milking” the system,”
But the antisemitic connotations seem like a stretch to me. To assuming that criticism of capitalists is automatically antisemitic seems pretty antisemitic to me in it’s own right.
Well, God, if you’re five-foot-three and you’re three-hundred pounds
Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of Fudge Rounds
Given the rest of the singer’s lyrics and their general rhetoric, I think that line is more about a welfare system that does nothing to address the reasons one is in poverty in the first place while rich men degrade those who are in it as if it’s somehow a poor person’s fault for being poor.
Rather than degrading the obese poor buying snack cakes with food stamps, I think the implication is more likely that taxes ought to pay for good nutritious food, help getting healthy, and help finding work, so that people can start relying on themselves instead of the government. That’s the vibe I get from the guy.
But the antisemitic connotations seem like a stretch to me. To [assume] that criticism of capitalists is automatically antisemitic seems pretty antisemitic to me in it’s own right.
I agree completely. People are far too quick these days to pull the antisemitism card, and from this article, it reads as highly disingenuous. I don’t see anything racist in the song either, and indeed the article in the OP does not even contain the words race, racism, or racist, despite its presence in the title. Paired with its oddly forceful and off-topic accusations of Ukraine as a hotbed of fascism, it’s clear that website is little more than a useless tabloid rag.
You mean the article that rolls its eyes at humanitarian efforts, #MeToo, and leftist support of oppressed minorities? The article that literally blames the US for the invasion of Ukraine?
Also, you caught that it’s Trump who was talking about globalists, right? It’s easy to miss because the article is intentionally trying to get you to miss it.
Are globalists and rich people only Jewish though? Not at all.
I think people are really stretching to call it anti-semitic.
I don’t like how the song addresses people with welfare but I definitely wouldn’t call it racist or anti -semitic. However that’s just my own opinion and people can form whatever conclusions they want.
It’s just part of the code. “Globalist” is often especially about Jewish banking families, eg Rothchilds or Soros. Similar to how “urban” in the US is often code for ‘black,’ even though most of the people who live in urban areas are white. Dog whistles: words that communicate specific meaning within a community without being recognized by the larger population.
not many know it. which is why it’s bs to assume he had all of this prior knowledge. they clearly are building the accusations first and then forcing it into the lyrics.
It wouldn’t be so bad if the song wasn’t so damn popular
I looked for them real quick in the comments and I didn’t see them so here’s the lyrics to the actual song:
I’ve been sellin’ my soul, workin’ all day / Overtime hours for bullshit pay / So I can sit out here and waste my life away / Drag back home and drown my troubles away.
Pre-Chorus:
It’s a damn shame what the world’s gotten to / For people like me and people like you / Wish I could just wake up and it not be true / But it is, oh, it is.
Chorus:
Livin’ in the new world / With an old soul / These rich men north of Richmond / Lord knows they all just wanna have total control / Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do / And they don’t think you know, but I know that you do / 'Cause your dollar ain’t shit and it’s taxed to no end / 'Cause of rich men north of Richmond.
I wish politicians would look out for miners / And not just minors on an island somewhere / Lord, we got folks in the street, ain’t got nothin’ to eat / And the obese milkin’ welfare.
Well, God, if you’re 5-foot-3 and you’re 300 pounds / Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds / Young men are puttin’ themselves six feet in the ground / ‘Cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin’ them down.
Repeat Pre-Chorus
Repeat Chorus
I’ve been sellin’ my soul, workin’ all day / Overtime hours for bullshit pay.
This song doesn’t seem nearly as hideous as it’s portrayed in this article. Sure, the fatphobic and anti-welfare lyrics are ignorant and slightly bigoted, but I see no direct evidence of any racism or antisemitism. This article seems to try and misconstrue Anthony’s lyrics heavily here.
What a weasely, deceptively meandering little article.
First it spends its time talking about actual overt displays of racism and anti-semitism, but writes it in a way that makes it easy to confuse what they’re referring to with the song itself, as if Anthony is somehow responsible for the actions of Trump or conservative country singers. This is pretty transparent and pathetic.
When it actually talks about the song, it points out its fatphobic, anti-welfare lyric as its only evidence of racism and anti-semitism. While I certainly agree that this line is ignorant (and indicative of a backward political sensibility), there’s no mention of race. There’s certainly a strong correlation between anti-welfare sentiments and racism, but the one doesn’t really qualify as a strong demonstration of the other. The article, however, seems to think this is plenty, and drives right on forward as if they had their proof.
What really raises an eyebrow about this article, though, is its sudden pivot to what seems to be overt Russian propaganda. They typify the war in Ukraine as ‘US led and provoked’ and Ukraine itself as a ‘fascist-infested regime’. This while mocking US humanitarian efforts and #MeToo, as well, seemingly, as leftist ‘racial and gender politics’. It even takes the time to hate on unions.
This article claims to be from a socialist source, and yet all of its positions outside of its opposition to what it describes as racism and anti-semitism, are anti-leftist. Curious.
Sounds like WSWS is a potential candidate for a Kremlin mouthpiece.
Calling everything racist isn’t helpful. This song is a poor man’s cry for economic justice, and instead of saying “yeah, that’s the 1% we’ve been complaining about, come over to our side,” the left calls it racist because it has Southern imagery in it.
Agreed. Given the rest of the song and what the writer has said about it, my guess is that even the part about welfare is less about the people and more about the system that puts people into welfare and keeps them there while rich men kick down at them.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !politics@beehaw.org
In-depth political discussion from around the world; if it’s a political happening, you can post it here.
Guidelines for submissions:
Where possible, post the original source of information.
If there is a paywall, you can use alternative sources or provide an archive.today, 12ft.io, etc. link in the body.
Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.
Do not post ragebait or shock stories. These will be removed.
Do not post tabloid or blogspam stories. These will be removed.
Social media should be a source of last resort.
These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.
deleted by creator
This article did point out the fucked up depiction of obesity and poverty, but otherwise woof
I always feel my heart sink when someone maligns “welfare queens.” There is only one person among my friends who was ever on public assistance; and it was me. During months of chemo and surgeries I couldn’t work, and I was sucking off the government teat.
deleted by creator
(they dressed a boy as a girl as they thought it’d be too cruel to have this line said about an actual girl)
Generally, I use it to describe something way off the mark. I feel like this article is pretty classist and out of touch. I get being hyper aware of dog whistles these days, but I interpreted the artist differently. I think he was dressing a pro worker sentiment in swallowable form, whereas the article seems to think he was using pro worker language to dress up anti semitism. Frankly, I don’t think people feel the need to hide their bigotry that much anymore. If this song came out in 2004, I probably would be more critical. But today, I think pro worker sentiment needs to be hidden more than fascism.
“oh man” “holy cow” “good lord” “thats a lot to unpack”
And still no explanation why
Why what?
What’s so “woof” about it?
Like, is it just “oof”, but autocorrected? Where does it come from?
Sure it does.
its always the ones you most expect
deleted by creator
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.
In this case duck is bigoted shitbag
Where’s the antisemitism?
Literally in the article you clearly didn’t read:
https://www.ajc.org/translatehate/globalist
The singer does seem to be trying to distance himself from the conservative implications:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/25/entertainment/oliver-anthony-song-response/index.html
But the line about:
seems a bit hateful unless that’s supposed to be a metaphor for “fat cats”. The CNN article thinks it’s a metaphor:
But the antisemitic connotations seem like a stretch to me. To assuming that criticism of capitalists is automatically antisemitic seems pretty antisemitic to me in it’s own right.
Given the rest of the singer’s lyrics and their general rhetoric, I think that line is more about a welfare system that does nothing to address the reasons one is in poverty in the first place while rich men degrade those who are in it as if it’s somehow a poor person’s fault for being poor.
Rather than degrading the obese poor buying snack cakes with food stamps, I think the implication is more likely that taxes ought to pay for good nutritious food, help getting healthy, and help finding work, so that people can start relying on themselves instead of the government. That’s the vibe I get from the guy.
I agree completely. People are far too quick these days to pull the antisemitism card, and from this article, it reads as highly disingenuous. I don’t see anything racist in the song either, and indeed the article in the OP does not even contain the words race, racism, or racist, despite its presence in the title. Paired with its oddly forceful and off-topic accusations of Ukraine as a hotbed of fascism, it’s clear that website is little more than a useless tabloid rag.
You mean the article that rolls its eyes at humanitarian efforts, #MeToo, and leftist support of oppressed minorities? The article that literally blames the US for the invasion of Ukraine?
Also, you caught that it’s Trump who was talking about globalists, right? It’s easy to miss because the article is intentionally trying to get you to miss it.
removed by mod
removed by mod
removed by mod
That’s pretty explicitly antisemitic…
🤦♂️
Are globalists and rich people only Jewish though? Not at all.
I think people are really stretching to call it anti-semitic.
I don’t like how the song addresses people with welfare but I definitely wouldn’t call it racist or anti -semitic. However that’s just my own opinion and people can form whatever conclusions they want.
It’s just part of the code. “Globalist” is often especially about Jewish banking families, eg Rothchilds or Soros. Similar to how “urban” in the US is often code for ‘black,’ even though most of the people who live in urban areas are white. Dog whistles: words that communicate specific meaning within a community without being recognized by the larger population.
Except that it’s Trump who’s being quoted as saying ‘globalists’ in this mess of an article, not Anthony.
Damn, I knew none of this. Which is of course the point.
not many know it. which is why it’s bs to assume he had all of this prior knowledge. they clearly are building the accusations first and then forcing it into the lyrics.
It wouldn’t be so bad if the song wasn’t so damn popular
I looked for them real quick in the comments and I didn’t see them so here’s the lyrics to the actual song:
I’ve been sellin’ my soul, workin’ all day / Overtime hours for bullshit pay / So I can sit out here and waste my life away / Drag back home and drown my troubles away.
Pre-Chorus: It’s a damn shame what the world’s gotten to / For people like me and people like you / Wish I could just wake up and it not be true / But it is, oh, it is.
Chorus: Livin’ in the new world / With an old soul / These rich men north of Richmond / Lord knows they all just wanna have total control / Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do / And they don’t think you know, but I know that you do / 'Cause your dollar ain’t shit and it’s taxed to no end / 'Cause of rich men north of Richmond.
I wish politicians would look out for miners / And not just minors on an island somewhere / Lord, we got folks in the street, ain’t got nothin’ to eat / And the obese milkin’ welfare.
Well, God, if you’re 5-foot-3 and you’re 300 pounds / Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds / Young men are puttin’ themselves six feet in the ground / ‘Cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin’ them down.
Repeat Pre-Chorus
Repeat Chorus
I’ve been sellin’ my soul, workin’ all day / Overtime hours for bullshit pay.
I’m more of a Rob Taxpayer man myself.
https://youtu.be/EvYG-mRNmog
💩💩💩
This song doesn’t seem nearly as hideous as it’s portrayed in this article. Sure, the fatphobic and anti-welfare lyrics are ignorant and slightly bigoted, but I see no direct evidence of any racism or antisemitism. This article seems to try and misconstrue Anthony’s lyrics heavily here.
Happy cake day and welcome to Beehaw!
What a weasely, deceptively meandering little article.
First it spends its time talking about actual overt displays of racism and anti-semitism, but writes it in a way that makes it easy to confuse what they’re referring to with the song itself, as if Anthony is somehow responsible for the actions of Trump or conservative country singers. This is pretty transparent and pathetic.
When it actually talks about the song, it points out its fatphobic, anti-welfare lyric as its only evidence of racism and anti-semitism. While I certainly agree that this line is ignorant (and indicative of a backward political sensibility), there’s no mention of race. There’s certainly a strong correlation between anti-welfare sentiments and racism, but the one doesn’t really qualify as a strong demonstration of the other. The article, however, seems to think this is plenty, and drives right on forward as if they had their proof.
What really raises an eyebrow about this article, though, is its sudden pivot to what seems to be overt Russian propaganda. They typify the war in Ukraine as ‘US led and provoked’ and Ukraine itself as a ‘fascist-infested regime’. This while mocking US humanitarian efforts and #MeToo, as well, seemingly, as leftist ‘racial and gender politics’. It even takes the time to hate on unions.
This article claims to be from a socialist source, and yet all of its positions outside of its opposition to what it describes as racism and anti-semitism, are anti-leftist. Curious.
Sounds like WSWS is a potential candidate for a Kremlin mouthpiece.
Not even “potential”, that’s what it’s been famous for way before the 2022 Ukraine war.
Ohhh. Well, good to know!
Article: The phrase “Rich men north of Richmond” is a cleverly disguised antisemitic trope
The guy that wrote the song: “It was funny seeing my song at that (Republican) presidential debate. Because I wrote that song about those people"
Source for quote:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/25/rich-men-north-of-richmond-oliver-anthony-republicans
Calling everything racist isn’t helpful. This song is a poor man’s cry for economic justice, and instead of saying “yeah, that’s the 1% we’ve been complaining about, come over to our side,” the left calls it racist because it has Southern imagery in it.
removed by mod
Please be nice.
Agreed. Given the rest of the song and what the writer has said about it, my guess is that even the part about welfare is less about the people and more about the system that puts people into welfare and keeps them there while rich men kick down at them.
Btw, here’s a non-amp link for that article: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/25/rich-men-north-of-richmond-oliver-anthony-republicans
deleted by creator