From Newsgroup: alt.sport.horse-racing

On 07 May 2022, bigdog <geowright1963@gmail.com> posted some news:dc966bd1-9978-4ba5-8310-bef35ffaea04n@googlegroups.com:

For once, one of our institutions has refused to give in to cancel
culture demands to scrap one of our great traditions. The Kentucky
Derby will again have a choir singing Stephen Foster's song My Old
Kentucky Home, accompanied by the University of Louisville marching
band. Modern day wokesters falsely claim that the song as written was celebration of slavery.

"The song, written by Stephen Foster, tells the story of a person who
is enslaved being sold down river, where conditions would be harsher.

Its inclusion in Derby and its position as the official state song, as
well as the composerrCOs original intention, have been debated for
decades. While some claim itrCOs an anti-slavery song, Louisville
author and historian Emily Bingham has pushed back against that."

The reality is the song was inspired by the book Uncle Tom's Cabin and
was an anti-slavery song. Rather than accept what the modern day
cancel culture has to say about the song, I prefer to go with what one
of Stephen Foster's contemporaries, Frederick Douglas, had to say
about the song.

In his 1855 autobiography, "My Bondage and My Freedom," Douglass wrote
that the official state song of Kentucky awakens "the sympathies for
the slave, in which anti-slavery principles take root, grow and
flourish.rCY

Partially bowing to the cancel culture and partially due to Covid
concerns, the song had been played by a lone bugler without lyrics
last year. This year the Kentucky Derby will restore the tradition of
having a choir and the band perform the song as the horses are led
onto the track. It is one of the most moving traditions in all of
sports and it is nice to see it restored to its proper place despite
the howls from the wokesters.

All you have to do to defeat wokeism is stand your ground.
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