I just seem to be thickheaded these days.

[ritaxis]

Reading an old thread at Digital Tradition, I stumbled across the claim that the following lyrics are racist:

COTTON-EYED JOE

Way back yonder a long time ago
Daddy had a man called cotton-eyed joe
Blew into town on a travelin' show
Nobody danced like the Cotton eyed Joe.

CHORUS:
Cotton-eyed Joe, Cotton-eyed Joe
where did you come from?
Where did you go?
Where did you come from?
Where did you go?
Where did you come from Cotton-eyed Joe?

Mama's at the window
Mama's at the door
She can't see nothin' but the Cotton-eyed Joe

Daddy held the fiddle,
held the bow
He beat the hell out of Cotton-eyed Joe

Made himself a fiddle,
Made himself a bow
Made a little tune called the Cotton-Eyed Joe

Hadn't oughta been
For Cotton-eyed Joe
I'da been married some forty years ago.

Whenever there's a dance
All the women want to go
And they all want to dance with Cotton-Eyed Joe

Daddy won't say
But I think he know
Whatever happened to Cotton-eyed Joe !

I don't see it.  Nobody in the thread challenged this claim, and nowit is two years old so I'm certainly not going to.  The lyrics "hadn't oughta been" are certainly wrong, by the way: they ought to be "[If it]had not been for Cotton-eyed Joe" which is how they're sung and written elsewhere.  This version is a bit different from whichever version lives so deep in my memory that I don't remember where it came from, and also a bit different from the three or so other versions I've noticed in my life: I'm not complaining about that.  It is interesting that some versions seem to be the voice of a woman wronged by Cotton-Eyed Joe and some seem to be the voice of a man whose sweetie dumped him for Cotton-Eyed Joe.  That point of view switch happens sometimes in these songs.

Anyway, if you can tell me what's racist about this version f this song, I'd be grateful.  Of maybe just more uncomfortable.  I don't know.




 

Comments

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

I looked a while back and one source said "cotton-eyed" meant drunk.

I think if it was a racist song, he would have been a "boy" and not a "man."

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

The thread gave a number of meanings for it, the most often mentioned were:

blue-eyed (especially on a black person)
having prominent sclera

and speculations about filmy eyes and cataracts

I'm leaning towards the blue eyes, myself.

[zeborah]

I find it pretty natural to read it as if Joe is black and everyone else white, and read this way it's little more than a variation on the "Those black men are so hypersexual they'll be stealing all our wimminz from us if we don't beat them up and get rid of them in some unspecified manner" theme.

Even if there's evidence somewhere that Joe's meant to be as white as everyone else, that whole "men committing violence to keep women pure" theme is rather distasteful in itself.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

The violent dad isn't in all the versions.

Most of the versions are possible to take with any combination of colors. The oldest versions I saw reference to were two black versions where everyone in the song was explicitly black (and had the pov of the jilted man), and a white-sung one which had no explicit markers for color.

Okay, now: tell me exactly what cues make it easy to call Joe black and everyone else white. This is not a challenge, it is a plea. I have an ongoing interest in how color is signified in American folksongs, and more of an interest in songs that are claimed as community-traditional by black and white performers.

[zeborah]

FWIW as a non-American, but I think it's a combination of:

a) you introduced it as possibly racist
b) I don't know "cotton-eyed" but the history of cotton is... fraught, so there's associations there
c) "had a man" doesn't *have* to be white employer / black employee but in combination with the other factors it's evocative
d) possibly the dancing (oppressed people are always so musical)
e) the trope of white men protecting their wimminz from black men is out there in the cultural atmosphere and these lyrics just slot in perfectly to that, so in the absence of cues to the contrary...

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I learned it that way, as apparently did Wikipedia (="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton-Eyed_Joe").

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that a lot of the "Cotton-Eyed Joe is a black man" reading comes from the fact that this song was a popular minstrel show tune. (Which would also go a ways to explaining the POV shifts.)

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

That would be my guess, but the documentation doesn't turn it up as a minstrel show number, but as a dance number.

There's no doubt that a lot of the times Cotton-Eyed Joe is a black man. And sometimes he is a white man. And sometimes you just guess based on the singer.

The question that remains for me is: how are those lyrics racist? Zeborah tried, but didn't get me to understand it.

The reson this is so puzzling to me is that I have a sneaky feeling that these exact words, and other versions that don't seem to have racist language -- either explicit or dog-whistle -- do in fact have the potential for a racist feel. But when I try to isolate elements that would support that, I end up horrified that, for example, if that is it, the mere fact that a black character can dance is enough to evoke the ambient racism. If that is what it is. What does that mean about racism in our culture? That it is so pervasive that it doesn't have to actually be there to be there?

Oh, I like the sound of that.

But I still don't think "Cotton-Eyed Joe" is a racist song.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

As I poke around a bit, I'm coming to my own conclusion that it *wasn't* a racist song, then it was, so now it is. And there are still traces and versions from when it wasn't, and that's confusing, but nonetheless.

I also have a suspicion that black people's cultural experience(s) of this song may be quite different and that might be a big missing piece of the puzzle. But I'm (obvs.) not in a position to know for sure.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

P.S. the version I remember is the "come for to see you, come for to sing, come to show you my diamond ring" one.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I never heard that version: I saw it when I was nosing around last night, though.

Me, I keep getting this little whiff of the racism other people are talking about, and then I go back and look at the actual words, and listen to they way they're actually sung, and read about the history that is known about the song . . . and I come to the conclusion that the racism is not in the song, or even in any of the singers.

The racism is in that place where we are always being told that it's the working class that is racist. I know a flat statement like that needs to be unpacked but I'm tired and I need to sleep now so if I remember I will unpack it tomorrow.

[del-c.livejournal.com]

The "travelling show" and fiddle and bow have a Gypsy vibe for me. Compare "Johnny Faw"/"The Gypsy Laddie".