Rita Panahi: Furore over Blues’ theme song shows offence has become an art form

It’s stretching the bounds of credibility to suggest Carlton’s club song is racist due to a connection with a jingle that contained racial slurs 120 years ago.

Now they want to cancel the Carlton theme song for, you guessed it … racism!

The man who led the absurd but ultimately successful campaign to have Coon cheese change its name has a new mission; to see Carlton Football Club change the tune of its club song.

Indigenous activist Stephen Hagan claims the music is “one of the most racist songs of all time” and must be purged by the footballing community or the stain of racism will persist with each Carlton victory.

Look, I’m all for unfair, bad faith attacks against arrogant Blues fans (they’re the worst) but it’s stretching the bounds of credulity to suggest their club song is racist due to a connection with a jingle that contained racial slurs about 120 years ago.

Carlton’s club song, We are the Navy Blues, is set to the tune of Lily of Laguna, a song written in 1898 that originally contained racially insensitive lyrics and was often performed in blackface. Lily of Laguna’s lyrics were rewritten in the 1940s and the non-offensive version has since been recorded by a number of artists from Bing Crosby to Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Dr Stephen Hagan, who campaignedto have to have Coon Cheese renamed, want Carlton’s theme song changed. Picture Lenn Campbell

Of course Carlton’s lyrics have nothing to do with Lily or Laguna and are entirely concerned with the Navy Blues keeping their ends up and never letting you down, da da da daaaaa.

Carlton’s version has never had any racial connotations and only someone desperately looking for offence would find fault with the cheerful little ditty.

But, sadly, we live in an age where finding offence has become an art form. The perpetually aggrieved wield enormous power and the assault against language, culture and societal norms is in full effect.

Western civilisation is under attack from within and the self-loathers have reason to feel emboldened with just about every public and private institution from the media to academia to the corporate world captured by leftist virtue signalling and groupthink.

If words such as “mum”, “women” and “breastfeeding” can be deemed non-inclusive, then we have well and truly entered clown-world territory.

There is ethnic genocide occurring in China, millions of women are treated like second-class citizens in Muslim-majority countries and there are slave markets operating in Africa but our activist class would rather focus their energies on pronouns, microaggressions and cheese brands.

Carlton’s lyrics have nothing to do with Lily or Laguna. Picture: Ian Currie

Coon cheese was renamed despite the fact it was named after a cheesemaker, Edward William Coon.

I guess all the Coons in Australia, and according to the White Pages there’s a few, will have to change their name by deed poll to Cheer or some other less offensive moniker.

It took Hagan 21 years of activism to get Coon’s name changed. He may achieve success much quicker with cancelling Carlton’s team song.

“I’m absolutely shocked they would defend the racist theme song music rather than fight against the clearly racist origins of the melody,” Hagan said.

“How do you think Jewish people would feel if Collingwood’s song was based on propaganda music from the Hitler Youth?”

If we are going to cancel music that the Nazis used, then you can kiss many of the greats goodbye including the work of Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Strauss, Wagner and Schubert.

Collingwood’s theme music is set to “Goodbye, Dolly Gray” which is about a soldier leaving his sweetheart behind and dying in war. Surely, a war mongering tune that celebrates toxic masculinity should also be cancelled. I jest.

Blues players sing the team song after a win.

For now Carlton is standing by its club song but don’t be surprised if they submit in the name of “equity” and “anti-racism”. After all, we’ve seen AFL players take a knee for Black Lives Matter before games even though the group is connected with violent riots across America that have left more than 20 dead, many more injured and a damage bill estimated to be about $2bn.

Corporations such as Nike, Apple and the AFL pledged support for BLM despite the group’s radical Marxist agenda including “defunding the police” and “dismantling capitalism”. The group’s founders identify as Marxists with Patrisse Cullors saying: “We actually do have an ideological frame … we are trained Marxists, we are super versed on ideological theories.”

But like most Marxists, Cullors is also a massive hypocrite who recently purchased a $US1.4m ($1.84m) home in an upmarket white neighbourhood where the black population is less than two per cent and has invested in a number of other high-end properties.

As the New York Post noted, for BLM’s founders, “Buying Luxury Matters” and “Black Lives Manors”.

You can be sure painfully woke corporates and sporting organisations will overlook this latest hypocrisy and continue to back BLM and its race-obsessed agenda.

And that may ultimately include finding a new tune for the Blues.

IN SHORT

It’s illuminating that the disgusting, often misogynistic, abuse of First Lady Jenny Morrison on Twitter is by the same loopy-left activists who claim Australia is systematically sexist and must change. Mirror time, miscreants.