dagblog - Comments for "Thank God for cultural appropriation"

There is a great book that

rmrd0000 — Tue, 06 Jun 2017 13:22:39 +0000

In reply to Thank God for cultural appropriation

There is a great book that tells the story in detail, "Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday and the Power of a Protest Song". It is a fascinating piece of America history.

https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Fruit-Holiday-Protest-Millbrook-ebook/dp/...

I didn't know this is who

artappraiser — Tue, 06 Jun 2017 09:56:00 +0000

In reply to Thank God for cultural appropriation

I didn't know this is who wrote it, though I didn't think Billie did. I recognized the name right away, though! He and his wife adopted the Rosenberg boys after their parents were executed and gave the boys their name. Yes, he was a proud communist, know that from following stories about the family over the years after being impressed by Doctorow's novel Book of Daniel in college, which is a fictional, imaginary account influenced by their lives. Thanks for pointing the article out.

Has been common for visual artists over the decades to use the title when addressing the lynching theme symbolically, always as if the viewer will recognize what it means.

The great jazz singer Billie

ocean-kat — Tue, 06 Jun 2017 09:33:40 +0000

In reply to Thank God for cultural appropriation

The great jazz singer Billie Holiday recorded “Strange Fruit” on April 20, 1939. It is a song about lynchings, inspired by the 1930 murder of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, who were photographed, like in the words of the song, “hanging from the poplar trees.” Holiday sang the song so often and it meant so much to her that she apparently came to believe she co-wrote it. She didn’t. Abel Meeropol wrote it. He was a Bronx high school teacher — white, Jewish and, not uncommon at the time, a communist. Now, maybe, he would be called a “cultural appropriator.”