Jottings
News from the UK and around the World
. . . the wild , the wacky , the wonderful , the weird and the downright infuriating
Woke Watch 1 : music
October was a bumper month for woke watchers , headlined by the Rolling Stones decision to drop a 1971 hit song from their live performances . Brown Sugar will no longer be played by the band after complaints that the lyrics are offensive because they reference slavery and are therefore racist .
It appears that most people have understood that Brown Sugar ’ s subject is the historical reality of slavery , aimed at defending and supporting black women , and is not one which denigrates them or makes light of slavery . But the woke generation have now decided ( albeit after 50 years ) that it is racist .
Perhaps they should turn their attention instead to many recordings by rap artistes which include obscene and misogynistic lyrics extremely offensive towards women and which remain completely uncensored . We can ’ t quote them here because they are unsuitable for children and unsettling for adults .
So your Soltalk team has compiled a list of songs which should be avoided at your Christmas party , starting with the Tom Jones favourite Delilah in which the narrator stabs his lover . (“ I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more .”)
Then there ’ s verbal abuse of women in Summer Nights from the musical Grease (“' Tell me more , tell me more - did she put up a fight ?”) and Queen promoting child abuse (“ Before I left my nursery ... she was such a naughty nanny ”) as well as “ fatism ” in Fat Bottomed Girls .
The 1974 hit King Fu Fighting is now accused of the sin of cultural appropriation , while Lola by The Kings is clearly transphobic . There are plenty more , but be certain to avoid “ Baby it ’ s cold outside ” if you want to avoid waking the woke watchers .
Woke Watch 2 : language
The LGBT crew in Scotland have persuaded civil servants north of the border to delete the word “ mother ” in documents referring to maternity leave . In a bid to improve its ranking on the Stonewall charity ’ s Workplace Equality index , the government ’ s minions agreed
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