I saw the documentary by Lili Zanuck & it includes pretty much all of his actions but not much in the way of apology - calling himself a semi-racist (there's really no semi- possibility) & blaming most of his bad acts on alcohol isn't really taking responsibility - and certainly not for his positions now. I think one thing that US audiences don't get beyond his worldwide fame is that his earliest ideas were formed in England, specifically a private boys' school where nothing but white privilege exists. Granted, we all grow up and our minds should expand & if he apologized for the 1976 incident, acknowledged the good Rock Against Racism, & apologized for his treatment of women, he might have gotten some redemption from many. As it is, he's still a star w/drawing power & a Hall of Famer. He's not looking for redemption. Now, he's just sending a dangerous public health message.
Good recommendation on the film. The message is no one, including Clapton, is g-d so just enjoy the music & pay no attention to what his private opinions are.
Critical race theory is crap and dangerous. Several parents groups across the country are cornering these school administrators and teachers for teaching such nonsense.
Little elementary children who are white should be embarrassed and ashamed of their skin color?? White people in Fairfax, Virginia at a special gathering apologizing for being white and for their white privilege??
Let's stand for equality for ALL people. Nobody day should apologize for being born no matter their race or color.
That is not Dr. King's message in 1967. King longed for a day when ALL OF GOD'S CHILDREN BLACK OR WHITE, PROTESTANT, CATHOLIC OR JEW COULD JOIN HANDS AND SING THAT OLD SPIRITUAL "FREE AT LAST, FREE AT LAST ..THANK GOD ALMIGHTY I'M FREE AT LAST!!!!!"
I knew Clapton didn't treat women well and his robbery of George Harrison's wife was out in the public!! But I didn't know about his racism.
There is no such thing as being partly racist. That is akin to saying someone is my half uncle. You can have a half brother but not uncle. Either he is your uncle or he isn't.
W/Clapton, for me it's separate the man from the music. He doesn't seem to have evolved much as a human being since 1975. My point was that he admits he did & said despicable things, but doesn't apologize. Agreed - there's no semi-racist.
CRT seems to me to be the opposite of MLK Jr's approach, but it's in the mainstream now. I just note it & move on. I'm tired of confrontation as opposed to conversation. It's exhausting. I just don't engage. As for the topic of this thread, Clapton's anti-vaxx position is dangerous, but he probably doesn't influence that many Americans <40.
@cyclone88 I agree that though Clapton is a huge star and most famous, his kind of fame is not the kind that would influence many people as to whether to get a vaccine.
Back in mid January in the wake of the January 6th Capitol riots, an African American professor was on CNN and teaches and educates on critical race theory and white privilege and it seemed to this man America had made NO progress since Johnson signed the Civil Rights bill in 1964 making segregation illegal. That is NOT true. Obama wouldn't have been President if not for white voters because of the number of blacks and people of color that live in America. Just not enough people to elect a President. I voted for Obama as did most of my white friends.
But this particular African American professor went on to say " If you are white and say you are not a racist you are a LIAR! It's in you down at your roots. You were raised that way. Raised in a country where white people since it's founding are believed to be superior.
I found that ignorant and very offensive. I AM NOT A RACIST OR DO I SUFFER FROM SYSTEMIC RACISM. No one is born a racist so systemic racism is a myth and lie from the radical far left.
When people regardless of their race have their head right, you know in your soul racism is wrong and hateful just as you know stealing or murder or arson or kidnapping is wrong and something you naturally recoil from and find immoral!
Sort of off topic but EC related... I cannot understand why they have not cancelled or postponed his upcoming show in New Orleans... I have tickets but because of the storm there is not a hotel to be had in the area. We had hotel res but it was cancelled due to the need for survivor housing needs... do they need the money that bad?
"I found that ignorant and very offensive. I AM NOT A RACIST OR DO I SUFFER FROM SYSTEMIC RACISM. No one is born a racist so systemic racism is a myth and lie from the radical far left."
Robertdee, your post seems confusing. How are you defining "systemic racism"? It has nothing to do with being "born racist" - quite the opposite.
CRT is not taught K-12, it is a graduate level topic.
Those who say systemic racism is nonexistent are either ignorant of history or racist.
CRT has become a right wing ( Trump and his ilk) talking point propaganda about something not taught below the graduate level.
“What the hard right wing says: I oppose critical race theory.
What the hard right wing means: You make white people feel bad when you remind us about how Black Americans have been persecuted for 4 centuries, so we'd prefer to keep that stuff out of the history books.”
Despite the current propaganda this has nothing to do with Martin King. To suggest it does is ludicrous.
Back to Clapton racist rap, he said it, he glossed it over in his bio, he has never apologized.
I ignored it at the time because I was ignoring him from Layla until Back to the Cradle. Watched him at the Beacon on streaming, went to the shows with Trucks and Winwood.
Only read the actual quote recently after his crap record with overrated VM, it disgusted me.
The fact that he has never come clean about the racist rant combined with his recent Tory bullshit makes it easy for me to withhold any further expenditures on shows and recording.
@aiq What I oppose is an African American University professor saying on cable TV that if you grew up in America and are white and say you are NOT a racist, you are a liar!
I was born and grew up in America and I'm white and I am NOT a racist period.
Joe Biden has even said things about Obama and other races that I would never say. Biden and President Clinton were close to Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia who was once in the KKK.
Perhaps I don't know what they mean by systemic racism.
As to Clapton, he was called God in England for his guitar playing. I think it is a good thing that when Clapton got his clocks cleaned by another guitar player, so badly his hands were shaking so much he struggled to light a cigarette, that it was Jimi Hendrix a black guy.
Eric Clapton in New Orleans last night. He was in Fort Worth, Texas a couple of days before. Wore the same shirt and pants at both shows.
Newspaper in town said he is 76 and the so-called political progressive left is trying to ridiculed and silence him and paint him as a worn out relic of the past who doesn't matter to most people any more. Clapton's response to them was BITE ME!!!
The thing that is trying to paint Clapton as a relic of the past who doesn't matter to people anymore is his record sales.
Concertgoers at a Clapton show hope he will focus on stuff from over 5 decades ago.
@jimsheridan I looked at several clips from New Orleans this evening and It's Got To Get Better In A Little While, Layla, I Shot The Sheriff, Cocaine and Why Does Love Have To Be So Sad.
Looks as if that is what he is doing.
I guess the Allman Brothers got that way. Stuff off the first album through Brothers and Sisters and the rest of their albums were take it or leave it.
ABB had three new albums to go Platinum ( in excess of one million copies sold) and eight to go gold ( over 500,000 copies sold) including the three that went Platinum. The last album to go gold was Where It All Begins (1994).
Here is Crossroads from Austin, Tx. Sept. 15th. Once again wearing the same clothes as New Orleans and Forth Worth. Maybe they are taking the best of several nights to made a DVD? But everyone already has all those songs.
Are these Clapton shows super spreader events? Looks like big crowds indoors with few if any masks. EC got vaccinated but was very sick for a week afterwards according to what I read. But at age 76 Covid likely would have taken him to the Crossroads not to return. He should look at it that way. One of my best friends died of Covid at 74 this past January and my doctor who was 79 also died of Covid. Last time I saw my doctor, he was dressed like he was on the surface of the moon instead of in his clinic with me waiting in my car until they took my temperature and asked me questions about if I had been sick, around someone with Covid, traveled out of the country etc but my doctor caught it somehow and died at the hospital were he would sent his patients seven days after he became ill.
@robertdee Clapton playing an indoor gig to an unmasked audience? Well, this is the alcoholic who did a beer commercial. I'm a life-long fan of his music and playing, but there's a chance that he doesn't show a lot of concern for other people. Just pointing out the obvious this morning.
A heroin addict singing about snorting Cocaine!!
Same shirt and jeans on each show.
You mean he owns over 40 expensive sports cars but no clothes to speak of????
@robertdee Clapton has defended the song (actually written by J.J. Cale) as "anti-cocaine" - but I can't or don't get that through the lyrics.
"It's no good to write a deliberate anti-drug song and hope that it will catch. Because the general thing is that people will be upset by that. It would disturb them to have someone else shoving something down their throat. So the best thing to do is offer something that seems ambiguous—that on study or on reflection actually can be seen to be "anti"—which the song "Cocaine" is actually an anti-cocaine song. If you study it or look at it with a little bit of thought ... from a distance ... or as it goes by ... it just sounds like a song about cocaine. But actually, it is quite cleverly anti-cocaine." - EC
I remember the song being interpreted almost as a commercial advertisement for Cocaine during the day. Seems like whenever I heard a non-musician singing/humming the tune it was punctuated by an occasional "sniff-sniff - swallow".
@rusty When the album came out I bought it as I did everything Clapton was on since Cream. The vinyl disk which was usually black except some holiday records would be red or green...this one was SNOW WHITE when I pulled it out of the sleeve. So I thought it was kinda supporting cocaine use.
