2004 Soap Box Archives

Just To Set The Record Straight 08/13/04

A few days before our show in Dearborn, Michigan, I did an interview with a reporter from the Detroit Free Press. He questioned me about a song we had recorded shortly after the 9-11 tragedy.

The song is titled, ”This Ain’t No Rag, It’s A Flag” and it addresses the terrorists who killed 3,000 innocent American citizens in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. If you listen to the song it’s easy as pie to tell whom it’s talking about, not Middle Easterners,
not Sikhs, not Muslims nor any other nationality, only the terrorists who destroyed our citizens and our property.

The reporter asked me if I knew that there were three hundred thousand Arabs living in the Dearborn area. I did not and
I explained the meaning of the song to the reporter, we talked about a few other subjects and concluded the interview.

A few minutes after we hung up the reporter called me back and
asked me if I was going to do the song in Dearborn. I told him that we would not, that the song was not in our show this year, that we were doing a song called “In America” instead.

Well he wrote his article and low and behold some people in the
Arab community of Dearborn said the song was racist and was defamatory toward them. I was accused of being a bigot and a racist.

The only way the song would have anything to do with the Arab community of Dearborn or any place else for that matter is if
they want to lump themselves in with Osama Bin Ladin and his bunch of despicable cutthroats.

I’m going to say this one more time, The CDB song, ”This Ain’t No Rag, It’s A Flag” speaks only to terrorists. It is not about innocent
people of any race, it’s not about people who wear do rags or turbans on their heads, it’s not about racism or bigotry, it’s just an unabashed, flag waving, I’m mad as hell, pro American song. I wrote it, I know what it means and if somebody wants to get another meaning out of it there’s nothing I can do about it.

I would say to the Middle Easterners in this country, neither myself nor my song are your enemy, so why don’t you attack your real enemy? Where are your attacks on Osama Bin Ladin? Where is your denunciation of what happened on 9-11? Let me see that in print. If you call me a racist what would you call the terrorists who killed three thousand people who did nothing more than show up for work on a Tuesday morning? I want to see that in print.

And one other thing, I have had some people who accused me of
caving in to pressure not to play the song in Dearborn. You who know me and have followed my career for a while know that is a crock. You know that I’ve pulled off of television shows for not allowing me to play what I wanted to. Nobody tells me what to play. It just so happens that the song is not in our show this year, but after all the hoop-la I just may add it.

Just to set the record straight.

Pray for our troops

What do you think?

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels