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The Kentucky Derby was protested again by woke leftists, not for the treatment of animals (that’s been a PETA thing for some time) or the lack of diversity in horse racing (though lack of diversity in basketball is apparently fine). As they have for a few years now, radical leftists pushed to have the 100-year tradition of playing “My Old Kentucky Road” ended.
Why? Racism, of course. But here’s the thing. Historians generally agree the song was written as condemnation against slave owners. Why would the woke left want to end that? We’ll get to that in a moment. First, here’s the story from The Blaze before the race ran.
The Kentucky Derby is refusing to cave to the woke mob.
Despite pushback from people who claim the state song of Kentucky is racially insensitive, the song will be played prior to the 147th running of the Kentucky Derby at the historic Churchill Downs horse racing track on Saturday.
What are the details?
The Kentucky state song “My Old Kentucky Home” is traditionally played prior to the running of the Kentucky Derby. The University of Louisville marching band plays the song while the more than 160,000 spectators in attendance sing the lyrics.
According to the Kentucky Derby website, the song has been played for the last 100 years. “Although there is no definitive history on the playing of the Stephen Foster ballad as a Derby Day tradition, it is believed to have originated in 1921 for the 47th running,” the website states.
But social justice activists say the song should not be played because of its connection to America’s antebellum past.
In The Blaze article lies the reasoning for the woke left to want to cancel the song despite its history in opposition to slavery. The old lyrics to the song were “racially insensitive.” Keep in mind, the current lyrics, which have been used since they were first sung at the Derby 100 years ago, do not use the word “darkies” that were part of the original lyrics. The left wants the song canceled over words that aren’t even sung anymore.
According to Newsweek:
“My Old Kentucky Home” is controversial because the meaning behind it and its composer’s intentions are contested, as well as its original title and lyrics, and the contexts in which it has been performed, including at minstrel shows, while some people consider the song to be a powerful condemnation of slavery.
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Smithsonian Magazine described the song as “a condemnation of Kentucky’s enslavers who sold husbands away from their wives and mothers away from their children,” and as “the lament of an enslaved person who has been forcibly separated from his family and his painful longing to return to the cabin with his wife and children.”
The magazine reports that abolitionist luminary Frederick Douglass, who had been enslaved, wrote in My Bondage and My Freedom, that the song “awakens sympathies for the slave, in which antislavery principles take root, grow, and flourish.”
However, others have pointed out the context in which it was performed—as a minstrel song, and consider Kentucky’s state song to be racist.
Ahead of the Kentucky Derby last year, Emily Bingham, a Louisville-born historian who was writing a book on the history of the minstrel song, told WPFL that the song was: “written by a white man about a Black person being sold down river from Kentucky to the deep south to be sung by white men pretending to be black men on stages for white audiences.
Bingham added: “It is true that he was writing in the, in the midst of the bestseller success of my Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the anti-slavery novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe, and it is true that his original version of the song was about Uncle Tom and not my old Kentucky home… but he was producing music for the blackface minstrel stage.”
So, since the song, which was written as a criticism of the slave trade, was sung by White people wearing blackface in the past, the song must be removed, according to the radical left. Their reasoning actually makes sense to them because things that hurt their sensitive heads are much more important than rational thought or logic. Meanwhile, in neighboring Virginia, Ralph “Blackface” Northam is still Governor.
Never accuse the woke left of making sense. They don’t make sense and that doesn’t bother them.
‘The Purge’ by Big Tech targets conservatives, including us
Just when we thought the Covid-19 lockdowns were ending and our ability to stay afloat was improving, censorship reared its ugly head.
For the last few months, NOQ Report, Conservative Playbook, and the American Conservative Movement have appealed to our readers for assistance in staying afloat through Covid-19 lockdowns. The downturn in the economy has limited our ability to generate proper ad revenue just as our traffic was skyrocketing. We had our first sustained stretch of three months with over a million visitors in November, December, and January, but February saw a dip.
It wasn’t just the shortened month. We expected that. We also expected the continuation of dropping traffic from “woke” Big Tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter, but it has actually been much worse than anticipated. Our Twitter account was banned. Both of our YouTube accounts were banned. Facebook “fact-checks” everything we post. Spotify canceled us. Medium canceled us. Apple canceled us. Why? Because we believe in the truth prevailing, and that means we will continue to discuss “taboo” topics.
The 2020 presidential election was stolen. You can’t say that on Big Tech platforms without risking cancellation, but we’d rather get cancelled for telling the truth rather than staying around to repeat mainstream media’s lies. They have been covering it up since before the election and they’ve convinced the vast majority of conservative news outlets that they will be harmed if they continue to discuss voter fraud. We refuse to back down. The truth is the truth.
The lies associated with Covid-19 are only slightly more prevalent than the suppression of valid scientific information that runs counter to the prescribed narrative. We should be allowed to ask questions about the vaccines, for example, as there is ample evidence for concern. One does not have to be an “anti-vaxxer” in order to want answers about vaccines that are still considered experimental and that have a track record in a short period of time of having side-effects, including death. One of our stories about the Johnson & Johnson “vaccine” causing blood clots was “fact-checked” and removed one day before the government hit the brakes on it. These questions and news items are not allowed on Big Tech which is just another reason we are getting canceled.
There are more topics that they refuse to allow. In turn, we refuse to stop discussing them. This is why we desperately need your help. The best way NOQ, CP, and ACM readers can help is to donate. Our Giving Fuel page makes it easy to donate one-time or monthly. Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal as well. We are on track to be short by about $4100 per month in order to maintain operations.
The second way to help is to become a partner. We’ve strongly considered seeking angel investors in the past but because we were paying the bills, it didn’t seem necessary. Now, we’re struggling to pay the bills. We had 5,657,724 sessions on our website from November, 2020, through February, 2021. Our intention is to elevate that to higher levels this year by focusing on a strategy that relies on free speech rather than being beholden to progressive Big Tech companies.
During that four-month stretch, Twitter and Facebook accounted for about 20% of our traffic. We are actively working on operating as if that traffic is zero, replacing it with platforms that operate more freely such as Gab, Parler, and others. While we were never as dependent on Big Tech as most conservative sites, we’d like to be completely free from them. That doesn’t mean we will block them, but we refuse to be beholden to companies that absolutely despise us simply because of our political ideology.
We’re heading in the right direction and we believe we’re ready talk to patriotic investors who want to not only “get in on the action” but more importantly who want to help America hear the truth. Interested investors should contact me directly with the contact button above.
As the world spirals towards radical progressivism, the need for truthful journalism has never been greater. But in these times, we need as many conservative media voices as possible. Please help keep NOQ Report going.
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