Toby Keith - Advocate of lynching?
 

So at the end of last month, HuffPost blogger Max Blumenthal wrote about Toby Keith's song, "Beer for my Horses." He thinks it advocates lynching. Here is the article, here is the video, and here are the lyrics. What do you think?

Well a man come on the 6 o'clock news
said somebody's been shot
somebody's been abused
somebody blew up a building
somebody stole a car
somebody got away
somebody didn't get to far yeah
they didn't get too far

Grandpappy told my pappy back in my day, son
A man had to answer for the wicked that he'd done
Take all the rope in Texas
Find a tall oak tree, round up all of them bad boys
Hang them high in the street
For all the people to see

That Justice is the one thing you should always find
You got to saddle up your boys
You got to draw a hard line
When the gun smoke settles we'll sing a victory tune
And we'll all meet back at the local saloon
And we'll raise up our glasses against evil forces singing
whiskey for my men, beer for my horses

We got too many gangsters doing dirty deeds
too much corruption and crime in the streets
It's time the long arm of the law put a few more in the ground
Send 'em all to their maker and he'll settle 'em down
You can bet he'll set 'em down...

Yep, lynching.


But, hey, all all for street justice if it means lynching all Gang Members on masse at the corner of Wilshire and 6th.

Agreed, the song is clearly talking about vigilantism not racism.

Given how much hatred/racism there is in the world, I hardly see the need to go out of ones way to try and find it where it is not.

That song came out in 2003 so Max is a bit late.

Love that song, and no I don't think it advocates racially motivated lynching. He's singing about history, and in history there was racially motivated lynching. It doesn't mean that vigilantism (which it is promoting) is now racially motivated.

It also features Willie Nelson.

Not a fan of Toby Keith.
A song goes through many people's hands before it's released. Didn't anyone say, 'Hey, maybe this could be taken as you being pro-lynching, Mr. Keith.'?

I think it only came to his attention because Keith recently sang it on Colbert Report to promote his upcoming movie which shares a title.

And honestly, I dunno if I agree with all of you. The only "criminals" shown in the music video are minorities. And the vigilante public hanging from his grandpappy's time was traditionally done to minorities. Sure, it was done to others. But what image do you see in your mind when you hear someone advocate hanging people from trees? I see the image posted in the blog. I think of all of the people who were wrongfully killed that way. And they're mostly minorities.

"Hang them high in the street. For all the people to see."

I think it clearly advocates for lynching, just not racially motivated lynching.

Let's not pull punches, the song is about hanging those whom I can't even type because of the bad-word filter.


Alas, most of the people I want to lynch happen to be people of color as well. But I would put the noose around their necks myself.

Saddle up, gun smoke, local saloon, whisky.... These all conjure up images of the wild west not Mississippi.

OK, OK. You're right, the song itself isn't promoting racially-motivated lynching. I think the video may be. And history is full of racially-motivated lynching disguised as justice (and doled out all too often to innocent people.)