Radio DJ fired for playing song from 1932

[edisonphonoworks]

I have a bi-racial who is 5 and she loves Alexanders's Ragtime Band. The recordings reflect the era they were recorded in, and not the views of the player. A lot of the Golden and Hughes Marlow numbers even though are very politically incorrect, The writing and jokes and stories in them are very well written and I enjoy them. I play them at fairs, and demonstrations, I do not screen what I play, I play comic records, patriotic, and religious in public.

[edisonplayer]

I love listening to the Two Black Crows records on Columbia Viva-Tonal.They are FUNNY,even though they aren't politically correct.edisonplayer

[Henry]

The BBC have now admitted that they could have handled the situation better, and have offered the DJ his job back. Will he take it? I wouldn't.

Just another example of what in the UK is sometimes referred to as "political correctness gone mad".

This has been going on for a long time, and not just in the UK. Gilbert & Sullivan's "The MIkado" (1885) originally contained the lyric "There's the ni**er serenader and the others of his race, and the piano-organist, I've got them on the list" (Ko-ko's song, "I've got a little list," verse 2). This has long since been altered to "There's the banjo serenader," etc. This version is now in the printed score, and is universally sung in preference to the original. And in Act II, the Mikado's song ("A More Humane Mikado") contains these lines:

"The lady who dyes a chemical yellow,
Or stains her grey hair puce
Or pinches her figure [pronounced "figger"]
Is blacked like a ni**er
With permanent walnut juice."

Today's score reads "Is painted with vigour
With permanent walnut juice."

Now if the gentleman had been sacked for playing Al Jolson records, however clean, I could see the justification.

[edisonplayer]

As I said,'NUF SED!! edisonplayer

[CptBob]

the fact is that it doesn't mean now what it did then, now it's offensive, then it was simply a general term.

You have to remember that slavery, segregation and apartheid weren't offensive "then".

The DJ probably didn't know, but I've known for many years, long before I started collecting 78s, that that song has that word in it. I would have thought it was the job of a DJ to know his material, that's just a matter of professionalism. I'm a bus driver, I know how to drive a bus. If I make a mistake, I have no excuse, I am a professional.