Made for You and Me?
So, I understand that Obama-palooza culminated with two white guys singing “this land was made for you and me.”
Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen
That reminded me of a night, several years ago, in Ann Arbor. The organizers of the annual womens’s Take Back the Night march against rape had worked out a deal with the so-called progressive men who — evidently not understanding that not taking “no” for an answer is a key component of rape — couldn’t understand why they weren’t allowed to march along. The deal was that the men could attend the rally and then would hold their own “allies against rape” rally while the women marched. What was supposed to happen during that rally was men taking responsibility for ending rape since, for the most part, it’s men who rape. All I know is that, when the women’s march got back to the men, they were singing “this land is your land, this land is my land” — to each other.
I personally found that ironic.
Now, I love me some Woody Guthrie (one of the dogs here is named after his son Arlo) and I understand that “This Land Is Your Land” was originally written as a rejoinder to the loathsome “God Bless America.” And, of course, the anarchist in me appreciates the transgressive nature of this rarely sung verse:
There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;
Sign was painted, it said private property;
But on the back side it didn’t say nothing;
That side was made for you and me.
But the ecofeminist in me, while recognizing the love of land implicit in many of the lyrics, is troubled by the repeated assertion that the land was (a) made (b) for people. Even as a child, I felt squeamish about the refrain, “this land was made for you and me.”
For the record, then: Nobody made the land. It’s not “for” anybody. All of us inhabiting the biosphere — human and nonhuman alike — participate in and share in it. It’s “ours” in that sense but only in that sense. I know it’s hard — It feels so good to sing along with Bruce and Pete — but we’ve got to get rid of the notion that collective ownership is anything other than a step-wise improvement over private ownership. We’ve got to get over ourselves and let go of the notion of ownership altogether.
January 19th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Yah, I felt exactly the same way whenever it was sung at whatever action, demo, march. Kept promising myself to bring it forward to the organizers and kept forgetting to do that. But then the left has many contradictions: meat eating, for one.
January 19th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
One time I was hiking in the woods, listening to all the animals, and I found myself singing “This land is their land…”
January 20th, 2009 at 11:16 am
I love that stanza — had indeed never heard it — thanks for including it.
Not that your points are not valid — they are — but I’d still love to hear folks singing THAT one.
January 20th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Pete Seeger actually did sing that verse at the Inaugural Concert. Gotta give it up for him. And Bono slipped in a reference to Palestinian dreams. You could tell by the micro-pause before he said it that he was nervous about it, probably because they had all pledged not to make such remarks.
January 20th, 2009 at 11:57 am
thanks for posting this. i personally feel this is at the core of many issues in our society, this idea that the land, the animals, and many of the people who inhabit it, belong to a particular group of people (namely white men).
January 21st, 2009 at 6:34 pm
This has been my favorite topical song for a long time… but yeah - you’re right.
January 26th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Excellent post - fell down laughing that even the well meaning men were singing about their “taking” rights to each other when left on own for 10 minutes to figure out how to end rape - they don’t get it about boundaries either. Although this is the problem –men wanting to dominate everything that is too weak to resist their intrusion - land - animals - women, in some way, when the men are good hearted, it is just LOL funny.