# "Run, Nigger, Run" At first I thought this song was disgustingly racist, then I read more... **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 26, 2011, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/run-nigger-run-at-first-i-thought-this-song-was-disgustingly-racist-then-i-read-more/604191 "2011-11-26T22:52:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/run-nigger-run-at-first-i-thought-this-song-was-disgustingly-racist-then-i-read-more/604191/1 "2011-11-26T22:52:44Z")
I was chasing down Turkey in the Straw on Youtube and came across this tune [Run, Nigger, Run!"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2w4agGhRpQ&feature=related) [Here are the lyrics](http://www.thelyricarchive.com/song/119334-15182/Run,-Nigger,-Run) [Then I found this link](http://undercoverblackman.blogspot.com/2007/09/run-n-gger-run.html) > [@](#): > > Just so you know, the Skillet Lickers were NOT the house band for the Ku Klux Klan. They were a popular and influential group that recorded this song (and more than 100 others) for Columbia Records! > > Also, they didn’t write it. “Run, Nigger, Run” was already a part of Southern folklore. Click here to listen to a verse recited by a white woman in Tennessee, as documented by folklorist John Quincy Wolf. > > Now here’s the real surprise: “Run, Nigger, Run” was originally a black folk song. More precisely, a song sung by slaves. > > And that, of course, gives a whole different meaning to the lyric. “Run, nigger, run” isn’t supposed to be a threat; it’s a cheer… and a word to the wise. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/run-nigger-run-at-first-i-thought-this-song-was-disgustingly-racist-then-i-read-more/604191/2 "2011-11-26T23:04:06Z")
To my surprise, I enjoyed that song quite a bit. It had some similarities with Lonnie Donegan’s version of _Rock Island Line._ Thanks for posting it. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/run-nigger-run-at-first-i-thought-this-song-was-disgustingly-racist-then-i-read-more/604191/3 "2011-11-26T23:12:17Z")
It’s been re-released under the title “Relocate to a safer jurisdiction, African-American, Relocate to a safer jurisdiction.” ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2011, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/run-nigger-run-at-first-i-thought-this-song-was-disgustingly-racist-then-i-read-more/604191/4 "2011-11-27T03:14:11Z")
With “Don’t Tase Me, bro” on the flip side. ---
**Author:** ![Terraplane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@Terraplane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terraplane)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2011, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/run-nigger-run-at-first-i-thought-this-song-was-disgustingly-racist-then-i-read-more/604191/5 "2011-11-27T03:28:21Z")
Yes, a song written by black people about how they’d better fucking run if they’re gonna snag a few armfuls of corn. You know, lest they get hung from a tree. Charming. Thanks so much. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2011, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/run-nigger-run-at-first-i-thought-this-song-was-disgustingly-racist-then-i-read-more/604191/6 "2011-11-27T04:07:32Z")
> [@Terraplane](#): > > Yes, a song written by black people about how they’d better fucking run if they’re gonna snag a few armfuls of corn. You know, lest they get hung from a tree. Charming. Thanks so much. I thought the provenance was interesting. The US was a hugely racist society in many areas for much of its existence. We are still dealing with the ramifications of that to this day. Sorry history doesn’t pretty itself up for you. ---
**Author:** ![Peanuthead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peanuthead/32/360_2.png) [@Peanuthead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peanuthead)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2011, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/run-nigger-run-at-first-i-thought-this-song-was-disgustingly-racist-then-i-read-more/604191/7 "2011-11-27T04:16:07Z")
> [@Terraplane](#): > > Yes, a song written by black people about how they’d better fucking run if they’re gonna snag a few armfuls of corn. You know, lest they get hung from a tree. Charming. Thanks so much. Calm down brother, it’s history. Perhaps this will make you feel better: https://www.youtube.com/embed/hCnFRpt31h4?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque ---
**Author:** ![Terraplane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@Terraplane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terraplane)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2011, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/run-nigger-run-at-first-i-thought-this-song-was-disgustingly-racist-then-i-read-more/604191/8 "2011-11-27T05:32:51Z")
> [@astro](#): > > I thought the provenance was interesting. The US was a hugely racist society in many areas for much of its existence. We are still dealing with the ramifications of that to this day. Sorry history doesn’t pretty itself up for you. I’ve never in my life done anything to indicate that I think history is pretty. It’s certainly an interesting song, and I’ll grant you one with an interesting origin, but I’m having a hard time seeing how an all white 1920’s band singing it can be anything other than disgustingly racist. Who were they selling their records to? ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2011, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/run-nigger-run-at-first-i-thought-this-song-was-disgustingly-racist-then-i-read-more/604191/9 "2011-11-27T05:37:34Z")
You’re ascribing what is an extremely complex and multifaceted social concept - racism - to what was, at the time of its recording, just a light hearted folk ditty. The same group recorded more than 100 other folk songs for Columbia Records; they probably went through a book of American folk tunes and just rattled them off. It was their job. People just didn’t _think_ about the racial implications of things very much back then. Yes, the history behind the song is racist - it involves slavery - but there was no evil _intention_ on the part of the guys who performed and recorded it. ---
**Author:** ![Terraplane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@Terraplane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terraplane)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2011, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/run-nigger-run-at-first-i-thought-this-song-was-disgustingly-racist-then-i-read-more/604191/10 "2011-11-27T06:07:17Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > You’re ascribing what is an extremely complex and multifaceted social concept - racism - to what was, at the time of its recording, just a light hearted folk ditty. The same group recorded more than 100 other folk songs for Columbia Records; they probably went through a book of American folk tunes and just rattled them off. It was their job. > > People just didn’t _think_ about the racial implications of things very much back then. Yes, the history behind the song is racist - it involves slavery - but there was no evil _intention_ on the part of the guys who performed and recorded it. If they didn’t think about racism it was only because they were so secure in being above it, in being a part of the privileged class, that it didn’t even worry them. To take a look at the song later on and say “Well, the singers didn’t mean nothin’ by it” is just ridiculous. Who did this white band sell their records to? What did they help perpetuate? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2011, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/run-nigger-run-at-first-i-thought-this-song-was-disgustingly-racist-then-i-read-more/604191/11 "2011-11-27T07:06:24Z")
It was also the name of a blaxploitation film in the 1970s. I’ll always remember that when I was in third grade a kid brought the newspaper ad for it to Show-and-Tell and our teacher said “Okay… well, that’ll be enough show and tell for today”. (Luckily it was an all white class.) An imdb reveals it was also released by the title [The Black Connection](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0188455/). (_The French Connection_ had been released 3 years before and was still big due to re-release [a lot more common then] and airing on TV.) ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2011, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/run-nigger-run-at-first-i-thought-this-song-was-disgustingly-racist-then-i-read-more/604191/12 "2011-11-27T07:39:21Z")
> [@Terraplane](#): > > To take a look at the song later on and say “Well, the singers didn’t mean nothin’ by it” is just ridiculous. Why? What _should_ we do about this song? Destroy all the copies of it? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2011, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/run-nigger-run-at-first-i-thought-this-song-was-disgustingly-racist-then-i-read-more/604191/13 "2011-11-27T11:48:35Z")
It’s totally impossible that these white guys released a song so that more people would hear it. It must’ve been racism. Okay, then Mark Twain is a racist for using the word nigger in Huckleberry Finn. He’s a white guy, and his audience was mostly white people. He can’t have had any other purpose. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2011, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/run-nigger-run-at-first-i-thought-this-song-was-disgustingly-racist-then-i-read-more/604191/14 "2011-11-27T12:36:44Z")
_Some folks say a nigger won’t steal I caught three in my corn field One has a bushel And one has a peck One had a rope and it was hung around his neck_ Catchy. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2011, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/run-nigger-run-at-first-i-thought-this-song-was-disgustingly-racist-then-i-read-more/604191/15 "2011-11-27T15:35:14Z")
Yeah, I think there was pretty clearly a racist intent in this performance. I doubt the lyric pointed out by **Vinyl Turnip** was in the original version sung by slaves. Remember too that the 1920s were the heyday of the Ku Klux Klan as a national force, so doubtless the Skillet Lickers found a receptive record-buying audience for this sort of thing. They also recorded [Nigger in the Woodpile](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd2wUbDKOjg). I’ve been trying to decipher the lyrics of that one, but can’t make them out, and can’t find the lyrics online. ---
**Author:** ![mr.jp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2011, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/run-nigger-run-at-first-i-thought-this-song-was-disgustingly-racist-then-i-read-more/604191/16 "2011-11-27T18:02:05Z")
It maybe wasn’t performed with the intent of being particularly racist. That doesn’t change the fact that it is extremely racist. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2011, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/run-nigger-run-at-first-i-thought-this-song-was-disgustingly-racist-then-i-read-more/604191/17 "2011-11-27T18:41:04Z")
It’s frustrating because I like old string band music in general, and the Skillet Lickers in particular, but it is peppered with stuff like this. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2011, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/run-nigger-run-at-first-i-thought-this-song-was-disgustingly-racist-then-i-read-more/604191/18 "2011-11-27T22:11:03Z")
And Johnny Cash has songs about murdering people. Does that mean we should _never_ listen to Johnny Cash? One of his classic albums has an upbeat ditty about snorting cocaine and shooting a “bad bitch”. Is drug-fueled murder, cheerfully sung about and audibly cheered by the Folsom Prison audience, really any less objectionable than the word “nigger”? Keep in mind, that album contains actual cheering and banter from actual prison inmates, some of whom doubtlessly were actual cold-blooded murderers. Or rapists. Maybe even child molesters. The presence of the inmates is a continuous theme of the album. But I don’t know anyone who’s really very bothered by it. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2011, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/run-nigger-run-at-first-i-thought-this-song-was-disgustingly-racist-then-i-read-more/604191/19 "2011-11-28T04:22:17Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > It’s been re-released under the title “Relocate to a safer jurisdiction, African-American, Relocate to a safer jurisdiction.” It actually _was_ rereleased as “Run, Boy, Run.” A mild improvement, I guess… ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2011, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/run-nigger-run-at-first-i-thought-this-song-was-disgustingly-racist-then-i-read-more/604191/20 "2011-11-28T15:15:29Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > And Johnny Cash has songs about murdering people. Does that mean we should _never_ listen to Johnny Cash? Poor Johnny Cash, forever doomed to be the counterexample in every debate about the pernicious nature of rap (and apparently, racist folk) music. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/run-nigger-run-at-first-i-thought-this-song-was-disgustingly-racist-then-i-read-more/604191.md?page=2)