Johnny Cash's Family Has a Message for White Supremacists

From Esquire

In 1964, right after the mainstream success of "Ring of Fire," Johnny Cash risked his career to release Bitter Tears, an album advocating for the rights of Native Americans. This wasn't something that country singers did in the mid-'60s. Backlash from the racist music industry at the time was swift. His record, and its single-"The Ballad of Ira Hayes" about the Pima Indian who helped raise the flag on Iwo Jima-was being boycotted by radio station managers.

But, Cash kept fighting. He took out a full-page ad in Billboard saying: "D.J.s–station managers–owners, etc., where are your guts? 'Ira Hayes' is strong medicine. So is Rochester, Harlem, Birmingham and Vietnam." Cash won that battle. His song wasn't silenced by racists; instead it's become one of the most beloved American social anthems of all time, recorded and re-recorded by artists through the last five decades.

Tragically, 54 years later, we're still fighting that same fight.

Last weekend, that racism reared its ugly head again as a group of Nazis caused chaos in Charlottesville, with a pathetic rally that resulted in the death of one counter-protester. Among the many horrifying images spread on TV and the Internet was video of a white supremacist wearing a Johnny Cash t-shirt. Someone notified the Cash family, who were sickened by the association, as his daughter Rosanne Cash wrote on Facebook.

"He would be horrified at even a casual use of his name or image for an idea or a cause founded in persecution and hatred. The white supremacists and neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottesville are poison in our society, and an insult to every American hero who wore a uniform to fight the Nazis in WWII," Rosanne Cash wrote. "Several men in the extended Cash family were among those who served with honor. Our dad told each of us, over and over throughout our lives, 'Children, you can choose love or hate. I choose love.'"

The men who marched in Charlottesville are outsiders in any community that embraces the ideals that Johnny Cash stood for. Cash would have fought them as he fought the racists who boycotted his music.

"To any who claim supremacy over other human beings, to any who believe in racial or religious hierarchy: we are not you," Rosanne Cash wrote. "Our father, as a person, icon, or symbol, is not you. We ask that the Cash name be kept far away from destructive and hateful ideology."

It's bizarre to see Neo Nazis and White Supremacists embrace cultural idols like Johnny Cash. Earlier this year, Richard Spencer's favorite band, Depeche Mode, completely disavowed everything the white supremacist leader stood for. This shows an extension of their ignorance and twisted views of the world that they don't realize artists like Johnny Cash or Depeche Mode fought for equality. That's what it is: ignorance. These men have no sense that their ideals are not wanted in our art, our culture, or our country. Leave Johnny Cash out of it.

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