submitted by Arthur_everest to whatever 3.4 years ago
12 comments
"Eric Clapton was visibly intoxicated onstage at a concert in Birmingham on Aug. 5, 1976. But the message he spoke at the mike was clear. As he advocated his support for Enoch Powell, a controversial right-wing British politician well-known for his anti-immigration views, the guitarist took things even further, asking the audience if there were any foreigners present.
“I don’t want you here, in the room or in my country,” Clapton said. “Listen to me, man! I think we should vote for Enoch Powell. Enoch’s our man. I think Enoch’s right, I think we should send them all back."
His words echoed much of the sentiment Powell had espoused in his infamous 1968 Rivers of Blood speech, in which he staunchly criticized mass immigration and implied that the majority of immigrants arriving in the U.K. were doing so "with a view to the exercise of actual domination, first over fellow immigrants and then over the rest of the population."
Clapton, however, was much more blunt. "Stop Britain from becoming a black colony," he said. "Get the foreigners out. Get the wogs out. Get the coons out. Keep Britain white. I used to be into dope, now I’m into racism. It’s much heavier, man. Fucking wogs, man. Fucking Saudis taking over London. Bastard wogs. Britain is becoming overcrowded, and Enoch will stop it and send them all back. The black wogs and coons and Arabs and fucking Jamaicans and fucking … don’t belong here, we don’t want them here. This is England, this is a white country, we don’t want any black wogs and coons living here. We need to make clear to them they are not welcome. England is for white people, man. We are a white country. I don’t want fucking wogs living next to me with their standards. This is Great Britain, a white country. What is happening to us, for fuck’s sake?”
His comments were so inflammatory that they served as the kick-starter for 1976's Rock Against Racism (RAR) movement, a campaign of carnivals and tours created in reaction to a rise in racist attacks on the streets of Britain.
"I thought it was quite funny, actually," he said in October 1976.
