I guess I should be glad they weren't wearing hoods.

[fancycwabs]

Last night we went to part of our daughter's Christmas program at church. The youth group presents a "coffeehouse" (which featured no coffee, incidentally) where they sing secular-ish Christmas songs: Blue Christmas, The Christmas Song, etc. At the close of the first act, they sang a song with which I was unfamiliar, an alternative Christmas story called Leroy, The Redneck Reindeer (link has sound, and is annoying), where Rudolph gets his cousin Leroy to guide Santa's sleigh one night. The song was cute enough until it got to the part where Leroy starts wrapping presents in a rebel flag, and then it became disturbing, as I wondered which houses Leroy skipped over, or worse, on that fateful night.

Worse is the idea that they're teaching kids--my daughter among them--that the display of racist symbolism is okay; that it's something to be celebrated. I recognize the right of the song to exist, to be sung and enjoyed by the sort of people who might sing and enjoy songs about reindeer with a political agenda, but to hear it sung by my daughter in church is more than a little offensive.

Or am I overreacting?

Comments

[piemancer]

I'm rather sensitive to the epithet redneck, as much as i am sensitive to the epithet trailer trash, so the title alone would have been enough to disturb me.

The context of performance would make it even more offensive to me. Like, doubly so.

[fancycwabs.livejournal.com]

I was a little more chagrined at the thought of celebrating a reindeer who intended to skip over the houses of non-Caucasians (and probably liberals, too) than with the epithet "redneck."

[loree-borealis.livejournal.com]

To a lot of people, Rebel Flag is more a symbol of Southern pride than it is a symbol of racism. Sadly, since the flag has been used by a lot of racist and ignorant people, the flag will always be tied up with those negative aspects of Southern history, especially to black people. However, that doesn't mean all the people who fly it intend it to send a racist message.

That said, the message they are sending with this song is that it is not only okay to make fun of ignorant southerners, it is actually okay to be an ignorant southerner. But I have more to say about that, below.

[loree-borealis.livejournal.com]

Or, basically, what Fanghopper said. Dangit, loree, read the whole thread before you comment! :D

[fancycwabs.livejournal.com]

I have no problem with the kids singing secular Christmas songs, as they also sing a bunch of religious Christmas songs at their other events.

I don't have near as much a problem with the reindeer being depicted using the term "redneck" as I do with the fact that he's depicted as participating in the racially divisive symbolism of the old south. To some of us, waving a rebel flag is in line with hoods and cross-burning, and as we've had lynchings during my lifetime I'm probably a little touchy about the use of those symbols in ways my kids aren't.

[fancycwabs.livejournal.com]

My daughter's plenty old enough to understand it, but will, in all likelihood, remind me that it's just a song, and carries no more significance than an episode of "The Dukes of Hazzard." Which is true. And yet something about it rubbed me the wrong way.

[bigbrownhound.livejournal.com]

Eh, Dukes of Hazzard, Schmukes of Hazzard. The youngest one informed me, today on the way to the doctor that some women kill their babies before they are born. So much for innocent play with the neighbors!

[loree-borealis.livejournal.com]

This, along with the song "Redneck woman," and other popular country songs of recent times, is an example of southerners and midwesterners taking control of the negative stereotypes about themselves by embracing them and perpetuating them. "You think I'm ignorant? Well then, I'll show you that I think that being ignorant is a thing of pride!"

It's kinda like the kid at school who everybody thinks is weird. He knows he can't change anybody's mind, so instead of trying to fit in, he shows people that to him, being weird is a badge of honor.