You Ain't Been Doin' Nothin', If They Haven't Called You 'Gay'!
You Ain't Been Doin' Nothin', If They Haven't Called You 'Gay'!
The fear behind Name-calling and Bullying
Cultural change and unrest is in the air these days. We face wars, racism, poverty, immigration, climate change, democracy, gender fluidity and on and on. Here’s a song written by my old friend Tedd Judd, a medical doctor and a songwriter. He wrote this with Sandy Pliskin. I added a reggae feel, … some lyrics and verses. When singers and storytellers pass on our own versions, with new and different twists, the stories and songs change along with our changing culture. That’s called the ‘folk process’!
I think it’s one of the best songs I’ve heard about ‘name-calling’. And we’ve seen a lot of that lately! It addresses the cultural privileges that ‘cis-gendered, straight’ folks have had for thousands of years. It humorously points out how anyone who doesn’t fit into the dominant culture’s gender requirements gets stamped with a pejorative label and disparaged. Feel free to sing along!
“You Ain’t Been Doin’ Nothin’, If They Haven’t Called You Gay!”
One day in school a friend of mine sat all alone and cried
(F-Bb)
When I asked him what was wrong, he said his grandmother had died.
(F-C7)
He apologized for crying and I said that it’s okay
(F -Bb)
But when I put my arm around him, all the fellows called me ‘Gay’!
(F-C7-F,C7)
Cho: Oh you ain’t been doin’ nothin’, if they haven’t called you ‘Gay’!
If you show a sign of caring, then you know it’s what they’ll say
So you might as well ignore it, or decide that it’s okay
‘Cause you ain’t been doin’ nothin,’ if they haven’t called you ‘Gay’!
One day I saw my uncles lookin’ at a magazine
There were naked women, whips and chains, and things I’ve never seen
They said “Wha’chu think of this one boy?”, I said “I think it’s sick!”
They said “Boy, y’must be ‘Gay’, if you don’t wanna poke a chick!”
Cho: Well you ain’t been doin’ nothin,’If they haven’t called you ‘Gay’!
If you show a sense of decency, you know it’s what they’ll say
So you may as well ignore it, or decide that it’s okay
‘Cause you ain’t been doin’ nothin’, if they haven’t called you ‘Gay’!
And then I went to college, and I studied modern dance
I went down to the gym, with my tights beneath my pants
As I was working out, some jock would whisper loud and clear,
“Bet the dancer loves this locker room for men, because he’s ‘Queer!’ ”
Cho: Well you ain’t been doin’ nothin’, if you ain’t been call a ‘Queer’!
If you try out something new, well, y’know it’s what you’ll hear
So you may as well ignore it, or greet it with a cheer,
‘Cause you ain’t been doin’ nothin’, if you ain’t been call a ‘Queer’!
I like to work with kids, and help them grow-up strong and free
But when I became a day-care teacher, people said to me
“Can’t you make the boys be tough? And make the girls be cute?
Can’t you get a real man’s job? Wha’sa matter? You a ‘Fruit’?”
Cho: Well you ain’t been doin’ nothin’, if you ain’t been called a ‘Fruit’!
If you work for sex role freedom, well, you know they’ll start to hoot!
Just remember there’s a hurting kid, inside each jeering brute
And you ain’t been doin’ nothin’, if you ain’t been called a ‘Fruit’!
I help out at a shelter, that is full of battered wives
It’s a place that they can run to when they’re frightened for their lives
There’s some folks in our community who say it’s run by hags
They say we’re breaking up the families, and so we must be ‘Fags’!
Cho: Oh you ain’t been doin’ nothin’ if you ain’t been called a ‘Fag’!
If you sympathize with victims, then they’ll say you dress in drag!
So you may as well ignore it, or treat it like a gag,
‘Cause you ain’t been doin’ nothin’ if you ain’t been called a ‘Fag’!
Well singing isn’t macho, as everybody knows
Unless it’s Country-Western, or you’re wearing chain-link clothes
But if it’s folk or op’ra or a style they dunno,
You can bet you’re “yodel-e-hee” you’ll be called a ‘Homo’
Cho:Oh you ain’t been doin’ nothin’ if you ain’t been called a ‘Homo’!
It’s been said about a lot of folks, from Brahms to Perry Como!
So you may as well ignore it, or use it for your promo!
‘Cause you ain’t been doin’ nothin’, if you ain’t been called a ‘Homo’!
The White House starts its wars with people Yellow, Brown, and Black
If they’re not Red-White-and-Blue, they must be Red, so we attack!
All those Blue-bloods get Red-necks, when I tell ‘em what I think
They yell and say I’m Yellow, … ‘n I say “I’m not! I’m ‘Pink’!
Cho: Well you ain’t been doin’ nothin’ if they haven’t called you ‘Pink’
If you say your party’s Green, y’know exactly what they’ll think
So just dress yourself in Lavender, and give ‘em all a wink
‘Cause you ain’t been doin’ nothin’ if they haven’t called you ‘Pink’!
I wonder why the things I do bring ridicule to me
From rigid, frightened people in a land that’s brave and free
As for me, to be a ‘real man’ means give up fear and hate
And to sing along, with arms around our brothers gay and straight!
Cho: That you ain’t been doin’ nothin’ if they haven’t called you ‘Gay’
If you work for gender justice, then you know it’s what they’ll say
So you may as well ignore it, or decide that it’s okay
Cause you ain’t been doin’ nothin’ if they haven’t called you, …
Diff’rent, Pansy, Friendly, Faggot, Fairy, Weird and Wimp!
Sissy, Strange and Sick, and when they say your wrist is limp,
Just give’em a big smile, and let ‘em hear you say
That you ain’t been doin’ nothin’, if they haven’t called you ‘Gay’!
Written by Tedd Judd & Sandy Pliskin, extra lyrics & music by Peter Alsop
©1985, Tedd Judd ~ on “Ebenezer’s Make Over” www.peteralsop.com
This song is based on an earlier song written by Eliot Kenin back in 1982, “You Ain’t Been Doing Nothing, If You Ain’t Been Called A Red”. Eliot points out how folks who want to make worker’s lives better, get labeled as ‘Reds’, ‘Communists’ or ‘Socialists’, mostly by Employers, who own businesses, and land and run corporations. They worry about workers getting together to organize, form unions and ask for better pay.
The Employers do well under a capitalistic system. They don’t want to change anything, except federal regulations. They make more money than working-class folks, so why make changes? The less they pay the workers, the more they keep themselves. They call labor organizers ‘bad names’. They disparage and make ‘fun’ of them to put them down. Sound familiar? It’s what bullies do to little kids in the schoolyard.
As we heard in the song, if a fellow gives a man a supportive hug, it’s ‘Gay’. I feel sad for someone, who feels so threatened by a loving behavior that they have to be mean to that fellow, and treat them like they’ve done something ‘wrong’. It was a rare occasion when I was growing up, to see a man show up for a male friend with a hug. Back then men would stifle expressing any emotions or caring behaviors for another man because there was so much fear about of the ‘disapproval’ from ‘the crowd’.
Personal attacks and ‘name-calling’ don’t just happen in the economic sector. They also happen to artists, musicans and other cultural workers as well. Many of these feminist men and women have helped raise my consciousness about these issues, especially the wonderful Holly Near. (click photo)
Along with two of my favorite musical heroes, Ron Romanovsky and Paul Phillips. Holly describes them as “men committed to feminism, to peace and to gay culture. They are not afraid of laughing at themselves and crying on behalf of us all. All this, they do in song, and in fantastic costume!” (click photo)
And journalists right now are being called ‘the enemy of the people’! Dominant groups use labels to describe those who ‘do not blend’ in. The labels drip with distain and that distain taints the very words used by people to define themselves. Words like ‘trans’, ‘gay’, ‘lesbian’, ‘bi’, ‘gender non-conforming’ and ‘queer’, are turned into pejorative attacking labels of disapproval.
And who gets to define how a ‘real man’ needs to behave? Do we need to always want to get laid, act tough, grow our beard, avoid showing how much we love dancing or singing or the arts, or refuse a job as a daycare teacher? Even wearing pink or bright colored clothing can trigger the ever-present ‘gender police’.
When proponents of the dominant culture ‘name-call’, it’s to distract us from noticing that they haven’t got anything substantive to say. It signals that they feel threatened, and choose to use violent language to abuse other humans, rather than engage in any kind of meaningful dialogue. They are too afraid to risk being ostracized by other members of their dominant group. The tactic of attacking another person to take attention off one’s self, … actually has a Latin name. It’s called ‘making an ad hominum argument’; meaning ‘to the man’, rather than ‘to the subject’.
Negative labeling has a long history. The first time I heard the word ‘fag’ was in a World War One marching song. ‘Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag, And Smile, Smile, Smile!’ The next line went “While you’ve a ‘lucifer’ to light your ‘fag’, smile boys, that’s the style!”
I asked my Mom what that meant, and she said a ‘lucifer’ was a match. I suppose it referred to the ‘fires of Hell’ where Lucifer the Fallen Angel rules. And a ‘fag’ was a cigarette. Upon further inspection, I discovered that a ‘fag’ was also a negative label for a gay man, from the word ‘faggot’, ... which originally meant ‘a bundle of sticks.’
The reason gay men were called ‘faggots’, is because our Christian church fathers burned gay men as kindling to light the fires used to burn witches at the stake in medieval Europe. Pretty horrible, eh?
It’s clear that most men do not want to be limited by ancient definitions of how we ‘should behave’ to be accepted, … especially when those parameters are set up by ‘old-white-able-bodied-probably-English-speaking-male-macho-Christians’. (There’s a label for you!) Major changes need to be made for us to break free from these unhealthy, dominant, dangerous descriptions!
“As for me, to be a ‘real man’ means give up fear and hate,
And to sing along, with arms around our brothers gay and straight!”