* Joseph Hudak at Rolling Stone Magazine lobbed some softballs at Danny Shirley of Confederate Railroad…
This has been a strange summer for you and your band…
It is strange. Especially with us being together for so many years and having that name and it never being an issue. But the thing that makes this different, in Illinois, it was the government that shut us down. It wasn’t that there was a groundswell of people that were offended by Confederate Railroad. You had one political blogger bring it up: “Is it right to have a band named Confederate Railroad at the state fair in the land of Lincoln?” We’ve already played there twice over the years and everything went fine. Nowadays, it feels like they’re looking for something to go off about.
It was the government that hired the band in the first place, so, yeah, it was the government that shut it down. Duh.
None of this should’ve been a surprise. The governor won the Democratic primary with overwhelming black support, had an African-American running mate, helped build a Holocaust museum, regularly refers to the POTUS as a racist, etc. His opposition to giving a state contract to a band that uses Confederate battle flags in its official logo shouldn’t be a shock. And somebody else would’ve eventually “brought it up” if I hadn’t noticed. Hannah Meisel actually posted about it on Twitter an hour or so before I asked the governor’s office for comment.
The truth is the band was doomed to lose their Du Quoin State Fair slot from the moment the Department of Agriculture approved it. If Pritzker had done nothing (and there was no chance of that happening) he would’ve certainly caught heat from elements of his base.
* Also, this is probably one of the dumbest analogies ever…
Did you ever have any issues over your band’s name prior to this?
Every once in a while you’d get something. After that nut killed those people down in Charleston, when they started taking down monuments and all that, we lost some gigs there. That’s where it started.
There were photos of the shooter with the Confederate flag.
Of course there was probably 10,000 photos of him without the flag. If he were sitting there wearing Nike shoes, would we have to get rid of Nike? A lot of this is blown out of proportion.
Yeah, it was the shoes. Right…
“I have to do it,” the gunman was quoted as saying before he fired [at black people worshiping in their church]. “You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go.”
* Meanwhile, here’s some real Illinois heritage…
More here.
* Related…
* In Facebook Photo, Charleston Suspect Wears Flags Of Racist African States
- Oswego Willy - Monday, Aug 26, 19 @ 1:25 pm:
===Of course there was probably 10,000 photos of him without the flag. If he were sitting there wearing Nike shoes, would we have to get rid of Nike? A lot of this is blown out of proportion.===
For the love of Pete, is Nike branding any shoes “Air Confederates”?
- 47th Ward - Monday, Aug 26, 19 @ 1:29 pm:
But the thrill we’ve never known
Is the thrill that’ll gitcha when you get your picture
On the cover of the Rolling Stone
- Ducky LaMoore - Monday, Aug 26, 19 @ 1:34 pm:
I thought it was silly to cancel them… until this interview.
- Thomas Paine - Monday, Aug 26, 19 @ 1:37 pm:
Again, Dylan Roof murdered black Americans in a church, wrapping himself in the Confederate flag. Six Flags took down the Confederate Flag. The General Lee got rid of its Confederate Flag. South Carolina, Georgia ditched the flag.
You kept it. Why?
You enlarged the flags. Why?
- Colin O'Scopy - Monday, Aug 26, 19 @ 1:40 pm:
By the way some tell it, you’d think the Confederacy won the Civil War.
- DuPage Saint - Monday, Aug 26, 19 @ 1:41 pm:
Lincoln accepted a duel against James Shields Shields only person to be elected senator from 3 different states
- Downstate Libertarian - Monday, Aug 26, 19 @ 1:44 pm:
Censorship of ideas is still censorship. This whole issue is political in nature.
- Ducky LaMoore - Monday, Aug 26, 19 @ 1:45 pm:
===By the way some tell it, you’d think the Confederacy won the Civil War.===
So many white people have gone cuckoo since Obama won the presidency. I was vacationing on the Gulf in Mississippi a few years ago and a 40ish year old guy spent maybe 10 minutes telling me how much different and better things would be if the south had won. And at the end of it, I just said, “Well you didn’t.” And that was the end of that.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Aug 26, 19 @ 1:46 pm:
===Censorship of ideas is still censorship===
You want state money, you gotta play by state rules. Same thing went for the Catholic Church when it refused to allow gay people to adopt thru their charitable organization and they lost their state contract.
- Ron Burgundy - Monday, Aug 26, 19 @ 1:46 pm:
Can’t compare Nike to confederate (I refuse to capitalize it) flag wavers. Nike says Just Do It. The rebs say Just Undo It.
- Ducky LaMoore - Monday, Aug 26, 19 @ 1:48 pm:
@Downstate Libertarian
Not really a constitutional issue. They were getting paid to perform. Then they got paid to not perform. They can still say anything they want.
- Jocko - Monday, Aug 26, 19 @ 1:50 pm:
==After that nut killed those people down in Charleston==
Those people? You mean the nine unarmed African Americans who welcomed Dylann to their prayer group?
- Amalia - Monday, Aug 26, 19 @ 1:52 pm:
The Rolling Stone employs Matt Taibbi, so I’m not surprised at this kind of ridiculous.
- Barnaby Wilde - Monday, Aug 26, 19 @ 1:55 pm:
The saddest thing about that awful piece is that it’s in Rolling Stone. Any writer for the Rolling Stone I grew up on would have eaten Johnny Reb alive.
- Not a Billionaire - Monday, Aug 26, 19 @ 1:58 pm:
The way they e over us to tolerate all their southern fried crap I sometimes wonder who won the civil war.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Aug 26, 19 @ 1:59 pm:
===Any writer for the Rolling Stone I grew up on would have eaten Johnny Reb alive===
Agreed. Just an awful piece.
- Bigtwich - Monday, Aug 26, 19 @ 2:01 pm:
Earlier this year the State of Maine adopted a new state song, “The Ballad of the 20th Maine” over the objections of two Republicans that the song’s unabashedly pro-Union message may be unfair to the South. In part the song goes,
“Then appeared our lion roaring bayonets
Charging down the mountain with what soldiers we had left
We were steadfast as katahdin, hard as winters rain
Take that rebel yell with you to hell
We are the 20th Maine
If we should die today, dream a dream of heaven
Take your northern heart with you to the grave
Be proud and true you are a union soldier
Stand fast, ye are the boys of Maine.”
https://youtu.be/ambWnPSqnkI
- Roman - Monday, Aug 26, 19 @ 2:03 pm:
His shoes?
As Leslie Nielsen would say: Shirley, you can’t be serious.
- Da Big Bad Wolf - Monday, Aug 26, 19 @ 2:06 pm:
==We were never taught that that flag means to hate people. To us, we were taught that flag means you like the part of the country you come from.==
Well I was taught if you made a funny face it got stuck that way. Ya know sometimes you have to grow up, Shirley.
- Roads Scholar - Monday, Aug 26, 19 @ 2:10 pm:
Jeez, some people these days will get worked up over the SLIGHTEST bit of reverence to a political union founded to propagate hereditary race-based slavery
- cover - Monday, Aug 26, 19 @ 2:24 pm:
= Take that rebel yell with you to hell
We are the 20th Maine =
Great line! That unit may have saved the Union. If the rebels had taken Little Round Top and put artillery on it, the Union line on Cemetery Ridge would have been difficult to defend.
- RuralJewel - Monday, Aug 26, 19 @ 2:54 pm:
Ugh, that could have gone better there Shirley. The nike bit was tone deaf. This was a bad situation period.
- OneMan - Monday, Aug 26, 19 @ 2:55 pm:
Trying to imagine what the interview would have been like if it had been Hunter Thompson doing it.
- @misterjayem - Monday, Aug 26, 19 @ 3:01 pm:
“If he were sitting there wearing Nike shoes, would we have to get rid of Nike?”
Nike is a shoe.
The flag of the confederate traitors is something you’d scrape off the bottom of your shoe.
– MrJM
- A-nonny-nonny - Monday, Aug 26, 19 @ 4:02 pm:
The confederate flag stood for treason in defense of slavery, period. There’s nothing to glorify there at all. The revisionist history about heritage is difficult to take seriously, although for some reason, some do.
- Nick Name - Monday, Aug 26, 19 @ 4:46 pm:
Tiny violin for Danny Shirley and CR’s fans. The poor dears.
- justacitizen - Monday, Aug 26, 19 @ 9:08 pm:
===It was the government that hired the band in the first place, so, yeah, it was the government that shut it down. Duh.===
But why did Agriculture (under the governor) contract with Confederate Railroad in the first place? Duh
Before contracts are executed, someone should read the contract and the terms (i.e. Confederate Railroad). Any controversy could have been avoided by simply not contracting with the band.
- -concerned citizen- - Tuesday, Aug 27, 19 @ 7:27 am:
Its pure censorship but Snoop Dog was allowed to play, offensive and demeaning to women-
“Me and my partner, in my Impala
Poppin’ our collars, tossin’ up dollars
A truck on the side of with hoes that wanna follow
Bet a hundred dollars that they all wanna swallow”
- Demoralized - Tuesday, Aug 27, 19 @ 8:26 am:
==Its pure censorship==
Sometimes I wonder if some of you even try to grasp the concept of state contracts. Nobody has a right to a state contract. You can’t censor something that someone doesn’t have a right to in the first place.