My man Chuckie - or maybe I should say my girlie-man Chuckie - is a'huffin' and a'puffin' about all the criticism he's gittin' the last few days over his "It's a Flag, Not a Rag" song.
I mean, he's even been on Fox News! Darn, I'm sorry I missed that interview. Fox doesn't seem to have a transcript of it up yet. And I haven't seen a news report yet of the actual concert.
Ole Chuckie's left a personal note at his Web page's CDB Message Board site (CDB is the Charlie Daniels Band), in his all-caps style, which he seems to prefer for e-mail:
YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED THAT OUR MESSAGE BOARD IS OPEN AGAIN FOR YOUR COMMENTS, WHICH WE WELCOME. SINCE WE HAVE HAD TROUBLE WITH LEWD PROFANITY AND A HANDFUL OF PEOPLE TRYING TO DOMINATE THE MESSAGE BOARD WE HAVE MADE SOME CHANGES, AS I WILL NOT EXPOSE MY FANS, WHO ARE FAMILY PEOPLE FOR THE MOST PART, TO THIS TRASH.
WE ARE SUPPLYING AN EMAIL ADDRESS WHERE YOU WHO FEEL SO INCLINED TO LEAVE PROFANE MESSAGES OR LENGTHY DIATRIBES ABOUT WHAT I HAVE WRITTEN IN THE SOAPBOX CAN SAY ANYTHING YOU WANT TO. I'LL BE ABLE TO READ AND RESPOND TO THEM. WE ARE GOING TO EDIT THE MESSAGE BOARD SO ANY OFF COLOR REMARKS, PERSONAL INSULTS OR RAMBLING CRITIQUES WILL HAVE TO BE ADDRESSED TO ME PERSONALLY AT SOAPTALKS @AOL.COM.
WE HAVE TRIED VERY HARD TO MAKE THIS A FAMILY TYPE WEBSITE WHERE IMPRESSIONABLE CHILDREN CAN VISIT WITHOUT HAVING TO EXPERIENCE VULGAR LANGUAGE. SO WRITE ANYTHING YOU WANT TO ME BUT DON'T TRY TO POST TRASH ON OUR MESSAGE BOARD.
Actually, I'm pretty sure that the stuff that appears on the CDB Message Board has been screened all along, i.e., the comments don't go up there until somebody managing the Web site puts them there. There's a note at the bottom of that screen that says, "Messages will not appear immediately. All messages must be approved by CDB,Inc. before they are made viewable." And I've seen that notice before, even though it is labeled "New Message," though I must admit I didn't check that screen during the last week. There's a separate message board for responses to his Soapbox rants, which is also screened.
Here's one of the messages up fromsomeone who seems to agree with my supportive message in the last Chuckie Watch:
Dearborne [sic] Michigan(8/8/2004 11:11:00 AM)
.....It looks like you do not want to admit that you have backed down and surrendered to the Islamic Jihadists and are afraid of singing the song that Americans LOVE!
But others of Chuckie's loyal fans are more supportive:
Rights(8/8/2004 12:54:13 PM)
.....My dad always had a good saying. It said one person's "rights" end where another's person's begins. I always try to live by that rule. So Charlie, if you want to stand on the HIGHEST hilltop and SHOUT out the words "RAG" and "HEAD" at the top of your lungs in a song, you go right ahead brother!!! Cause your right to do that stretches about as far as I can see, and it ends right about at the ears of those idiots in this country that choose not to listen. And if they don't want to hear it, then put in some earplugs!!! Period Amen.
I always love it when people start out by saying, "Mah daddy always tole me..." But this guy has a point. We're not even talking about Chuckie making comments in between the songs, you know, recommending people to watch Fox News 24/7 or something. This is part of his art. I mean, promoting bigotry and jingoism and ethnic prejudice is part of Chuckie's act. It's what he believes in, it's what his version of Patriotic Correctness is all about. Why would people invite ole Chuckie to perform and then try to censor his art this way?
The Michigan American-Arab Anti-Discrmination Committee has posted a statement about ole Chuckie's statement that he wouldn't sing "It's a Flag, Not a Rag" in Dearborn this weekend:
ADC appreciates the efforts of the City to promptly look into the matter and ease the concerns of residents who felt that this song would dishonor Dearborn’s rich diversity. ADC maintains that its position was not against Mr. Daniels, or his performance, but strictly limited to that particular song. In an interview with the Detroit Free Press, Daniels explained that, "It's not anti-Arab or anti-anything. The only thing it's 'anti' is the people who bombed us on 9/11. I have people who say you're putting down people who wear turbans. I'm not."
ADC recognizes and truly appreciates Mr. Daniels’ explanation of the song’s intent. However, its concern remained legitimate that, if performed, it could trigger animosity and foster false stereotypes in a City that has worked so hard to overcome these obstacles.
In a Soapbox post apparently written before he caved in to the Evil Liberals, though, Chuckie acted like he was gone stand up to his critics like a real man: An Open Letter to Mr. Imad Hamad 08/06/04. Chuckie got so excited he forgot to explain to his readers that Hamad is the Midwestern director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrmination Committee (ADC) and head of the Michigan ADC.
Let's recall that the song in question has lyrics like:
This ain't no rag it's a flag
And we don't wear it on our heads
It's a symbol of the land where the good guys live ...
Now, to most of us, this is a pretty obvious play on the sneering ethnic label "ragheads" used for Arabs by many in America. But Chuckie says that ain't so:
I have seen the word “rag head” in some of my e-mail concerning this I assure you that I have never written any lyrics using the word “rag head”. That would be a racial slur.
Chuckie also explains where he got the training for this kind of mind-bending double-talk:
You see, Mr. Hamad, I know what true racial prejudice is. I was born in 1936 in the Deep South when the Jim Crow laws were in effect. I saw it first hand and rose above it. So I resent being called a bigot or a racist.
When Chuckie talks about "rising above it," presumably he means rising above to be able to have insights like this:
And you’ve also heard the stories about the welfare mothers who have five different children by five different men and turns them out on the street to run wild and end up in jail by the time they’re teenagers and she gets a welfare allowance for each one of them.
Or, like the one I summarized in Chuckie Watch 13. That piece of Chuckie's was particularly notable for showing that Chuckie seems to think that Protestant evangelist Billy Graham is Jewish. Here was my summary of that particular Chuckie rant:
None of this ecumenical, love-your-neighbor, defend-the-poor nonsense for Chuckie's version of Christianity. To judge by this latest pronouncement, Chuckie don't like: Jews who complain about anti-Semitism; Al Sharpton; Jesse Jackson; blacks who complain about racism; illegal immigrants; American Latinos who defend the rights of illegal immigrants; abortion; paying taxes to support the country he claims to love so much; accountants; criminal defendents having rights; people who want a separation of church and state; the ACLU; spending tax money on schools; and, African-American cocaine dealers.
Yeah, Chuckie's done rose above all that there Jim Crow stuff. Ole Chuckie knows about racism and he knows he ain't one.
But let's not be unfair to ole Chuckie. Maybe when he wrote those lyrics about the flag and a rag and wearing it on the head, he wasn't thinking of "raghead." Why, "That would be a racial slur," Chuckie says. Maybe he thinks people in other countries carry their national flags on their heads, kind of like those natives carrying baskets on their heads he's seen pichers of in National Geographic. Maybe that's what he meant.
But Chuckie was soundin' like he was gone stand up to these folks criticizing him:
[M]y song has absolutely nothing to do with racial prejudice. If you could find it in your heart to listen to something besides the first two lines you could find that out for yourself.
My song refers to terrorists and terrorists only. I know because I wrote the song. Me and me alone can say what the true meaning of the song is and me says it’s not about racial prejudice.
And ah guess "me and me alone" can figure out why I might'a thought his song had something to do with "raghead."
And Chuckie seems to be dubious about Imad Hadad's patriotism:
Now if you love America and love being an American you will deplore what happened on 9-11 as badly as I do. In fact, you should be angry about it. You should be just as angry with the terrorists as I am.
Well you see, Mr. Hamad, I speak through my music and the song I wrote is a pro American song and no matter how hard you try to make it a racial slur you are simply wrong, wrong, wrong and falsely accusing me.
Actually, I didn't find anything from Hadad that said ole Chuckie was a "racist" or a "bigot." (That was me who might have kind of suggested that.) It would help his readers if Chuckie could post links to these statements that he's whining about people making against him. But that ain't really Chuckie's style.
By the way, my very first Chuckie Watch was about Chuckie and the Muslims. Chuckie has an interesting perspective on Islam:
I recently got a letter from a lady berating me for some of the things that I had to say about radical Islam. She said that the God we worship is the same God the Muslims worship.
This is simply not true. The Judeo-Christian God, Jehovah and the Islamic Allah are not, repeat, not one and the same. Allah is, in fact, the moon god who was married to the sun goddess and the stars were his daughters. There are temples to the moon god throughout the Middle East
Allah is a moon god? Well, I'm glad Chuckie's done got beyond all that Jim Crow attitude, at least.
And back in Chuckie Watch 15, we saw Chuckie actually criticize President Bush over this Islam thang. Chuckie says:
We are so politically correct in this nation that if something isn’t done, it’s going to drown us eventually. We should have learned a lesson from the first bombing of the Trade Towers. Who did it? Muslim extremists! The bombing of our foreign embassies? Muslim extremists! The attack on the U.S.S. Cole? Muslim extremists! The bombing of our marine barracks? Muslim extremists! The 911 tragedy? Muslim extremists!
And our President has the gall to stand up and call Islam a peaceful religion. It certainly doesn’t look peaceful to me.
Naw, how could anyone thank ole Chuckie might be promoting mindless prejudice or thoughtless jingoism? How can they be persecutin' Chuckie that way?
Ah sure am sorry that ole Chuckie didn't stand his ground on this though. Hey, Chuckie, red white and blue these colors don't run, you know? You should have insisted on standin' up thar and sangin' about the rags on the heads and how: "The stars and the stripes when it comes to a fight/We can do what we have to do."
What's next, Chuckie? A concert with Linda Ronstadt and Michael Moore?
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