Thanks for pointing that out, George. As the editor of The Antique Phonograph for nearly 15 years, I have never published an editorial comment. I am very happy to publish contributors' articles, and to publish letters to the editor when they (very, very rarely) come in. I felt that this one was well worth sharing.phonogfp wrote:I should point out that the "editorial" in The Antique Phonograph was no such thing, but rather a Letter to the Editor.
Like everyone else, I have a lot of records that are virulently racist by today's standards. It is undeniably true that racism was institutionalized and widely accepted back in the day. Not just the "coon" songs that were so common, but also caricatures of Irish, Jewish, Italian, and other races and/or nationalities. I completely agree that it is vitally important that we do not pretend none of these existed. It is a part of our history and that should -- MUST -- be acknowledged. That said, I would never play any of these records for guests without presenting some context. I do share such records with non-collectors. Perhaps not often, but when someone expresses serious interest in my hobby I do sometimes expand my little lectures. Whenever I do play them, I make a point of establishing context. In that sense, it's no different than when I play my modest collection of WWI records and point out the difference in attitude about songs like "America, Here's My Boy" and "I Didn't Raise my Boy to be a Soldier." It is all context. As long as we acknowledge that, there's zero reason not to present that ugly history.
What John Levin was pointing out in his letter to the editor was simply that context was not presented during the APS event. It's really that simple. As he says in his followup email, the presentation was all about the technical aspects of the film, not the content. Even a short comment to acknowledge the very different attitudes common in that era would have entirely defused the situation.
It's not in any way an attempt to "whitewash" the past or pretend it didn't happen. It has absolutely nothing to do with 'political correctness.' Far from it. But we have to understand that without context, such songs and films are easily seen as offensive to many people -- and with good reason.