Running Bear

January–February 1960

If, for some reason, you were not aware that the racial climate in America has changed since before the civil rights movement, then I suppose this song by Johnny Preston will suffice to enlighten you. It enjoyed 3 weeks at #1:



"Running Bear" is, needless to say, extremely racist, and to modern listeners it can only be heard as, well, a sign of the times. The song was written by the Big Bopper (who died about a year ago in our timeline), and indeed, it kind of sounds like something he would have released on a B-side. The story itself is fairly innocuous - a sort of Romeo and Juliet-esque love tragedy. But of course the whole thing is backed by that "hum-da-hum-da" chanting, and I am reminded of the scene in Peter Pan that Disney has all but disowned ("Squaw no dance! Squaw get 'em firewood!").

I think it's important to distinguish between two different kinds of racism; that which is hateful, and that which is merely ignorant. Peter Pan and Johnny Preston are guilty of the latter. Not that I'm excusing it, though – White Americans dressing up in feather headdresses and chanting is such a grotesque parody of American Indian cultures, it's sort of unbelievable that it was so acceptable in the mainstream. I come from a generation where it was never okay to do this kind of thing, and although it doesn't directly offend me, I understand why it's upsetting to people. It's particularly insidious, I think, when it's American Indians that are being lampooned, since the European settlers all but eradicated them from existence and reduced those that remained to lives of poverty. Then to have some kind of pretense of understanding anything about their various cultures, let alone to make fun of them – it seems to me to be very mean-spirited.

Even on a story level, "Running Bear" doesn't make much sense. If they are separated by an uncrossable river, then how did they fall in love in the first place? I don't often find myself feeling deep passion for women I see hundreds of yards away.

And so soon after "El Paso" – what is it with tragic love stories in the hits of 1960? Strangely enough, the streak actually continues with the next one...

F