Music
Bob Dylan is being sued over allegedly racist comments
by Mark Teo
December 2, 2013
Bob Dylan is being sued by the Council of Croats over a comment that, they believe, compares Croatians to Klansmen, slave owners, and Nazis.
Dylan, of course, is heavily associated with the U.S. Civil Rights movement—part of why, to some, the comments in question were deemed offensive. Here’s what he told Rolling Stone‘s French edition in an interview last year.
“Mmm, I don’t know how to put it. It’s like . . . the United States burned and destroyed itself for the sake of slavery. The USA wouldn’t give it up. It had to be grinded out. The whole system had to be ripped out with force. A lot of killing. What, like, 500,000 people? A lot of destruction to end slavery. And that’s what it really was all about.”
“This country is just too fucked up about color. It’s a distraction. People at each other’s throats just because they are of a different color. It’s the height of insanity, and it will hold any nation back – or any neighborhood back. Or any anything back.”
Stop right there. It should be noted that Dylan hasn’t uttered anything potentially offensive here. In fact, it’s encouraging to see him talk about race frankly. Some erroneously believe that acknowledging that race exists is in itself racist; it’s patently untrue. We don’t live in a post-racial world, and avoiding the topic doesn’t change the fact that even in Canada, deep racial inequality exists.
But we digress. Here’s the comment that was perceived as racist.
“Blacks know that some whites didn’t want to give up slavery – that if they had their way, they would still be under the yoke, and they can’t pretend they don’t know that. If you got a slave master or Klan in your blood, blacks can sense that. That stuff lingers to this day. Just like Jews can sense Nazi blood and the Serbs can sense Croatian blood.”
Dylan is referring to the deep political history between both parties, and, specifically, the Bosnian Genocide. But, says the Council of Croats, it’s an unfair way to paint the nation—it’s akin to equating all Germans with Nazis.
And, says the International Business Times, it’s akin to a “racial slur against them.”
“It is an incitement to hatred. You cannot compare Croatian criminals to all Croats. But we have nothing against Rolling Stone magazine or Bob Dylan as a singer ,” Vlatko Marić, secretary general of the Council told the Times.
Which leads us to the question: Is this an honest discussion of race and history, or a racial slur?
