The Stephen Foster Memorial at the University of Pittsburgh is a tribute to one of the most iconic musicians and composers in American history. The popularity of his music pervades the public imagination and far outshines his personal history. What many people don’t know, however, is the racist content of his songs. Given how widespread his music has become over the last 150 years, it is important to understand how people have changed the lyrics of his songs to fit the ever-changing expectation of how racism is dealt with in society.
Foster started writing his music around 1844 and continued until his death in 1864 (for an example, see fig. 1). During this time, slavery was very popular in parts of the country. Society had extremely divided opinions about racism, prejudice, and the treatment of African American slaves to such an extent that it triggered the Civil War around the time of Foster’s death. Many of his songs contain language that is antiquated and unacceptable by modern standards. For example, the song Old Folks at Home contains derogatory names for African Americans:
All de world am sad and dreary,
Eb-rywhere I roam;
Oh, darkeys, how my heart grows weary,
Far from de old folks at home!
(1851)
Moreover, Foster wrote the piece from the point of view of an African American. Back then, there wasn’t as much of a problem with this type of writing, as people had performed in blackface all the time. It wasn’t just a costume, it was a full-on show and the performers took the caricatures well past the line of pastiche. Nowadays, this would be construed as racist because he wrote the song from a perspective he had never personally experienced living. The line, “Still longing for de old plantation,” is also problematic because it romanticizes slavery. In the 19th century, music had a greater importance in society than it does today. It was the primary form of public entertainment and social gathering, bringing together people from different social and cultural backgrounds. For this reason, music had the ability to sway people’s opinions and affect all layers of society. By romanticizing the African American experience of slavery with tales of joy and family, Foster influenced many people, especially those who owned music boxes. Perhaps unintentionally, they believed that this joyful interpretation of slavery was the reality. As Edward Soja notes in his Trialectics of Spatiality, conceived space plays an important role in how we interpret and imagine events in our lives (53-70). The fact that music was the most popular form of entertainment in Foster’s time, combined with how often people listened to his music, led to potentially false conceptions concerning how African American people lived. Moreover, it changed their opinions of socially acceptable rhetoric and how slaves were treated in society. These spaces enabled the public to form these opinions; in contrast, they are also what was used to start censoring it. Over the past 150 years, Foster’s music has pervaded the lives of nearly all Americans, and with that, it has changed how we have looked at it.
It is apparent how much his lyrics have changed over the years. Gradual whitewashing has been done to sanitize his verses to comply with society’s changing acceptance of racism. Words and phrases were changed slightly to remove derogatory slurs and phrases. In some cases, most people don’t even know the words to the songs, and instead only know the melodies, such as with the songs Oh! Susanna and Camptown Races; perhaps this is due to the overwhelming use of the tunes without the accompanying lyrics. These songs have been so whitewashed, their lyrics have been practically erased. This begs the question: why are we trying to preserve Stephen Foster’s music if we have been actively censoring it since he passed away, and can we still enjoy it? One answer is that it’s important to understand the context in which it was written. Even though his words are different today than they were in the 19th century, they are still important to the history of the United States. They are a product of the time and help us understand past culture. As long as we can acknowledge that our values are different from Foster’s values – and by extension, the values of society in his time – we can still enjoy the music, even with different lyrics. However, we should acknowledge the process this music underwent to get to this point and how it’s occurring again in other mediums. Another widespread cultural phenomenon that has also faced censorship and the shift of public opinion is the meme.
Memes are often thought of as the symbol of millennials. After all, many people in that age group grew up with memes and actively contribute to pop culture. Memes act as a medium for expressing ideas, opinions, and jokes. Most often, they are posted on the internet for everyone to see, although some of the most popular ones have made it to more tangible forms such as stickers, t-shirts, and propaganda. One such meme, Pepe the Frog, has gotten attention in recent years after it was appropriated by alt-right groups and used to spread their message.
Pepe was created in 2005 by artist Matt Furie as part of this comic Boys Club. After being posted on prominent websites including 4chan, the anthropomorphic frog spread across the internet and remained popular for several years. One of the most popular memes about Pepe during the first ten years of its existence was what I would call “Feels good man” (fig. 2). During the 2010’s, Pepe started to be used in various memes by high profile individuals and celebrities, further increasing its popularity. Starting in 2016, however, Pepe began to be used by alt-right groups. According to KnowYourMeme, an article published on The Daily Beast included an interview with an “anonymous white nationalist” who vowed to “reclaim Pepe from the normies” by creating racist and anti-Semitic memes featuring the frog. In 2017, Pepe was featured in an image from a tweet by prominent conspiracy theorist Alex Jones (fig. 3). In the meme, many people known for their controversial opinions and, in some cases, illegal behavior, are depicted together, including Jones, Donald Trump, and Roger Stone. How did Pepe go from an innocent comic to a piece of political and controversial propaganda? It’s important to note that Pepe’s popularity had been building for over 10 years by 2016, and many people had become familiar with the image. The celebrities that created their own Pepe memes did so because it’s hard to ignore an iconic image, and to a certain extent they even gained notoriety for it. Since Pepe never had any sort of official message associated with it, it was almost a blank slate with which to push controversial opinions. Therefore, it begs the question: Does a meme represent controversial views simply because controversial groups use the meme for their propaganda?
This is both similar to and different from the racism removal that occurred with Stephen Foster’s music. Pepe was originally created as a comic character, and had never intended to become a meme. People made memes out of Pepe, but for the most part they represented general opinions or jokes; it was only years later with the adoption by alt-right groups that controversy ensued. In contrast, Foster’s music was laced with racism when it was written; it was only over the following decades that the lyrics started to become widely controversial and people decided to change them. In the end, though, the music still became embedded in our upbringing. The lyrics have now been changed to reflect the shift in the acceptance of racist language, but the melodies are unshakeable and very popular. Pepe has grown over his controversy, too. Movements have started to “save Pepe” and ensure that memes can stand apart from the groups that use them for propaganda. There are definitely memes that have been created specifically to be controversial or push prejudiced agendas, but important advances have been made to have the ability for memes to exist on their own.
The old adage, “History is the best teacher,” is quite relevant in this scenario. We can observe the effect that popular music from the 19th century had on past societies; therefore, it is necessary that we use the past to guide us through the controversial usage of memes in the present. In the same as Foster’s music and our associated opinions of it have changed over time, so have our decisions on the meaning of memes and what they stand for. When exploring the Memorial, keep in mind the nature of Stephen Foster’s music and what it means to enjoy it.
Works Cited
“Old Folks at Home.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 1 Dec. 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Folks_at_Home.
“Pepe the Frog.” Know Your Meme, 2 Dec. 2019, https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pepe-the-frog.
@RealAlexJones. “Help support Infowars in the fight for free speech & get this limited edition #MAGA poster for just $17.76 —> bit.ly/2ptPFC3” Twitter, 13 May 2017.
Soja, Edward W. Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places. Cambridge MA: Blackwell Publishing Inc., 1996.