Strange Fruit PR Firm Vanishes After Getting a History Lesso

[hopecounts]

Dec 8, 2014 12:49:04 GMT -5 @eveer said:

As a PR firm, they ought to know this. But anyone else can be forgiven for not knowing it I guess. I have heard the term before, but this is the first time I have heard that it was from a song about lynching. I always just connected it to "unusual thing".

I think this is very much an 'american english' vs 'UK english' deal and I don't know how popular Billie Holiday (or at least this particular song) was in the UK for it to enter the lexicon.
I would imagine the phrase wouldn't have the same context in the UK so it makes sense you didn't make the connection.

[pixy0stix]

At some point, wouldn't one of them have googled their own business name to see where it falls in the search rank? Or even to test if their keywords for their business search are working correctly? How did they get this long without a potential client telling them about this, as surely people were googling their name to find them.

[taratru]

Um, I'm completely embarrassed to admit I'd never even heard of this song. Seriously.

These girls are just sort of...flighty, I think.

[mrshandy]

I can't believe that no one googled their name. I think they must have known but didn't care until someone else did.

I used to listen to a lot of jazz/Billy Holiday/Louis Armstrong and heard this song. I never learned about it in history class or anything.

[ttt]

OK here's the other thing: where did they get the idea of "Strange Fruit" for their firm if they had never heard of this song?

Or maybe they had heard of the song but never bothered to look it up?

ETA: apparently this: 


“We thought the name would be perfect for a hospitality PR firm that specializes in food and drink,” co-founder Mary Mickel told the American-Statesman. “We of course Googled to ensure that it was not taken elsewhere and found the Billie Holiday song online. Thinking it would have nothing to do with our firm, and since it was written in 1939 it wouldn’t be top of mind in the public consciousness. We now know we were naïve to think that, and should have known better.”


So....they did know, they just thought it was NBD because, like, different kind of fruit lol!  :?

[havarti]

Huh. I thought this song was more a part of the collective conscious. I'm surprised by the number of people who haven't heard of it. I would have thought their clients might have pointed out the error of their ways in the last two years, but then again -- the people who know the reference may have steered well clear of a business in Texas by that name?

[Deleted]

Dec 8, 2014 13:01:18 GMT -5 hopecounts said:

Dec 8, 2014 12:49:04 GMT -5 @eveer said:

As a PR firm, they ought to know this. But anyone else can be forgiven for not knowing it I guess. I have heard the term before, but this is the first time I have heard that it was from a song about lynching. I always just connected it to "unusual thing".

I think this is very much an 'american english' vs 'UK english' deal and I don't know how popular Billie Holiday (or at least this particular song) was in the UK for it to enter the lexicon.
I would imagine the phrase wouldn't have the same context in the UK so it makes sense you didn't make the connection.

I wouldn't imagine there would be a ton of discussion about lynching in the UK either but I admittedly know very little about the UK's history of race relations. 

[NitaX]

Dec 8, 2014 13:06:10 GMT -5 ttt said:

OK here's the other thing: where did they get the idea of "Strange Fruit" for their firm if they had never heard of this song?

Or maybe they had heard of the song but never bothered to look it up?

ETA: apparently this: 


“We thought the name would be perfect for a hospitality PR firm that specializes in food and drink,” co-founder Mary Mickel told the American-Statesman. “We of course Googled to ensure that it was not taken elsewhere and found the Billie Holiday song online. Thinking it would have nothing to do with our firm, and since it was written in 1939 it wouldn’t be top of mind in the public consciousness. We now know we were naïve to think that, and should have known better.”


So....they did know, they just thought it was NBD because, like, different kind of fruit lol!  :?

[pixy0stix]

Oh jeebus. Time to burn it all down.

[Deleted]

Dec 8, 2014 13:06:10 GMT -5 ttt said:

OK here's the other thing: where did they get the idea of "Strange Fruit" for their firm if they had never heard of this song?

Or maybe they had heard of the song but never bothered to look it up?

ETA: apparently this: 


“We thought the name would be perfect for a hospitality PR firm that specializes in food and drink,” co-founder Mary Mickel told the American-Statesman. “We of course Googled to ensure that it was not taken elsewhere and found the Billie Holiday song online. Thinking it would have nothing to do with our firm, and since it was written in 1939 it wouldn’t be top of mind in the public consciousness. We now know we were naïve to think that, and should have known better.”


So....they did know, they just thought it was NBD because, like, different kind of fruit lol!  :?

Okay this makes no sense. None whatsoever. IDK if they are bigots but there is a fuckton of white privilege here.

[iammalcolmx]

So to recap. This year I have discovered people don't know :

What a house n-word is
Haven't seen Roots
Don't know and won't bother to figure out what Strange Fruit is.

[Michelle]

Dec 8, 2014 13:06:10 GMT -5 ttt said:

OK here's the other thing: where did they get the idea of "Strange Fruit" for their firm if they had never heard of this song?

Or maybe they had heard of the song but never bothered to look it up?

ETA: apparently this: 


“We thought the name would be perfect for a hospitality PR firm that specializes in food and drink,” co-founder Mary Mickel told the American-Statesman. “We of course Googled to ensure that it was not taken elsewhere and found the Billie Holiday song online. Thinking it would have nothing to do with our firm, and since it was written in 1939 it wouldn’t be top of mind in the public consciousness. We now know we were naïve to think that, and should have known better.”


So....they did know, they just thought it was NBD because, like, different kind of fruit lol!  :?

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa??


I had the same thought as Pamela - that it would not likely be TOP of the search list so I was ready to give them SOME benefit of the doubt, but still criticize because as a PR firm they should have been even more thorough than a simple google search.

BUT they found the Billie Holiday song. And left it alone. Wouldn't be top of mind in the public consciousness. I guess not top of mind in the WHITE public consciousness. OMG.

I had never heard of the song. But I got a heavy feeling deep inside when I read the lyrics. There is no way in hell I'd call my firm "Strange Fruit" once I came across those lyrics.

Fired.

[Michelle]

Dec 8, 2014 13:18:05 GMT -5 iammalcolmx said:

So to recap. This year I have discovered people don't know :

What a house n-word is
Haven't seen Roots
Don't know and won't bother to figure out what Strange Fruit is.

Your sig pic is perfect for this recap.


:?

[jillboston]

One of them is named Ali Slutsky... You would think she would understand the importance of names.

Co-owners Ali Slutsky and Mary Mickel are “thinking long and hard” about new names after pulling the plug on Strange Fruit’s Facebook page, Twitter and website, Slutsky told the Daily News over the phone, following a social media backlash.

“We are really sorry for offending people. We’re getting blasted on social media claiming that we’re racist ... It’s not true at all,” Slutsky said Sunday.

The owners knew of the song when creating their business, but chose Strange Fruit for its culinary sound. They had not researched the song's lyrics, Mickel added.

[hopecounts]

Dec 8, 2014 13:21:50 GMT -5 jillboston said:

One of them is named Ali Slutsky... You would think she would understand the importance of names.

Co-owners Ali Slutsky and Mary Mickel are “thinking long and hard” about new names after pulling the plug on Strange Fruit’s Facebook page, Twitter and website, Slutsky told the Daily News over the phone, following a social media backlash.

“We are really sorry for offending people. We’re getting blasted on social media claiming that we’re racist ... It’s not true at all,” Slutsky said Sunday.

The owners knew of the song when creating their business, but chose Strange Fruit for its culinary sound. They had not researched the song's lyrics, Mickel added.

So you find the song but can't be bothered to check out the lyrics?
*insert Jennifer Laurence Okay gif here*

It's not like the lyrics are particularly vague or interpretative, it's very clear what's being described and discussed in them from a cursory reading.  

[ttt]

They couldn't even read the damn Wikipedia page??

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Fruit

"Strange Fruit" is a song performed most famously by Billie Holiday, who first sang and recorded it in 1939. Written by teacher Abel Meeropol as a poem and published in 1937, it protested American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans.


IT'S THE SECOND SENTENCE. IT'S ABOUT LYNCHING. PICK A DIFFERENT NAME. 

[Deleted]

So they are telling me they saw the song but didn't see what the song was about and didn't care to know what they might be associated with?

[ttt]

Here are some more appropriate Billie Holiday songs that come to mind: 

Don't Explain
No More
This is My Last Affair
I'll Be Seeing You

[jillboston]

They were also apparently asked about it twice over the past year and explained their reason for choosing it. They were not ignorant of its meaning - just didn't give a fuck.

[gazpacho]

I will say that this is just another example of our (from a societal and individual perspective) lack of awareness about socio-historical events/happenings that impact others beyond those we know or are in close proximity to. More so than ever (given what is happening in our country at this very moment), this is illustrates the old saying "if you're not aware of history, you are doomed to repeat it".

[ttt]

So their LinkedIn page is still up...

Strange Fruit Public Relations is a boutique, PR firm that specializes in food, drink, hospitality, restaurants, music and more. SFPR is the brainchild of two friends searching for a fresh approach to the mundane packaged style of PR that dominates the industry. Our goal is to hand pick clients that have a truly compelling story, those who bring something new and inventive to their industry.

[Deleted]

What's odd to me is that I have only heard this phrase in relation to the song and an explanation of it's meaning. I'm not shocked someone wouldn't know the history but that they would have heard the phrase without it.

I think a lot of racism gets swept under the rug in American history classes as at least my K-12 history education at least tended to be really rah rah America.

We also ran out of year and I don't know that we ever got to WWII, so the 1960s weren't discussed on any level.

My lit classes probably did the best job in covering Harlem Renaissance. But I'm sure it was superficial--not in depth discussion of the socio-economic-political environment at the time.

[NitaX]

Dec 8, 2014 13:23:41 GMT -5 @smorriso said:

This reminds me of the ignorance in naming a car the Nova and having it bomb in Spanish speaking countries.

Do thorough research. Even if these chicks were that obtuse, how in the hell did they not have people around them to clue them into the connection to lynchings?? Which makes me even sicker in that the realm of these cutesy ass white girls was so limited that they didn't have one black friend there to check their asses.

But, we've already talked about how folks' circle of friends isn't likely to be very diverse. So, they didn't bother to crowd-source this thing to diverse groups of people. They just went with it. If you don't have people in your circle, you aren't going to know anything about it.

And not to pick on anyone here - but only a few people knew anything about this song. Well, read, intelligent people didn't know the first thing about it. 

[jillboston]

Dec 8, 2014 13:34:52 GMT -5 @kcpokergal said:

What's odd to me is that I have only heard this phrase in relation to the song and an explanation of it's meaning. I'm not shocked someone wouldn't know the history but that they would have heard the phrase without it.

I think a lot of racism gets swept under the rug in American history classes as at least my K-12 history education at least tended to be really rah rah America.

We also ran out of year and I don't know that we ever got to WWII, so the 1960s weren't discussed on any level.

My lit classes probably did the best job in covering Harlem Renaissance. But I'm sure it was superficial--not in depth discussion of the socio-economic-political environment at the time.

that's what I thought.

[Michelle]

Dec 8, 2014 13:31:47 GMT -5 @smorriso said:

You know what... I really hope our blackness is spreading to all of y'all out there. Because your friends IRL might not be black, but at least you all can take what you learn here and educate some idiots when it comes to situations like this.

Rub some blackness around. Spread that shit.

Actually, following National Women's History Museum on FB has helped a lot. There are so many women of color mentioned that I have never heard of. So I spread those around whenever one comes up. The odds of most of my FB friends knowing the content is small, so I also add a plug for the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

[hopecounts]

This is also why I love the concept of interdisciplinary learning in MS and HS.
Instead of the standard US history class I wish they would bring in relevant music/movies/etc from the time that branches out of the textbook learning that most HS history classes are.
How well would it work to show the youtube video of Billie singing Strange Fruit when discussing the 30s as part music of the time and part history.

[NitaX]

Dec 8, 2014 13:34:52 GMT -5 @kcpokergal said:

What's odd to me is that I have only heard this phrase in relation to the song and an explanation of it's meaning. I'm not shocked someone wouldn't know the history but that they would have heard the phrase without it.

I think a lot of racism gets swept under the rug in American history classes as at least my K-12 history education at least tended to be really rah rah America.

We also ran out of year and I don't know that we ever got to WWII, so the 1960s weren't discussed on any level.

My lit classes probably did the best job in covering Harlem Renaissance. But I'm sure it was superficial--not in depth discussion of the socio-economic-political environment at the time.

This was the very reason that my college elective classes focused on Af. Am. History, Af.American Lit, Af. American Political Thought, and I took a lit class on Toni Morrison. I had Civics, I had World and U.S History and even in college, my poli sci classes still included a great deal of info on US politics/history. I was tired of reading and knowing everything about mainstream US History. What about the folks that were enslaved? We just don't do a good job in K-12 covering these topics at.all. 

[ajj]

Dec 8, 2014 13:04:20 GMT -5 mrshandy said:

I can't believe that no one googled their name. I think they must have known but didn't care until someone else did.

I used to listen to a lot of jazz/Billy Holiday/Louis Armstrong and heard this song. I never learned about it in history class or anything.

Yep, it wasn't History class for me either. Just a love of music. I had a great music teacher that had us listen to all kinds of music and explained the history of it. 

[StrawberryBlondie]

I wonder if this is a song I'd recognise if I heard it. Cause the name rings no bells.

That aside, these people need to get out of PR.

[downtoearth]

Dec 8, 2014 13:31:47 GMT -5 @smorriso said:

You know what... I really hope our blackness is spreading to all of y'all out there. Because your friends IRL might not be black, but at least you all can take what you learn here and educate some idiots when it comes to situations like this.

Rub some blackness around. Spread that shit.

I giggled a little at this b/c it's pretty true.  I have heard this song, but years ago and the phrase "strange fruit" wouldn't have automatically been associated with lynchings without some context and google.  I have all of one black friend in another city and I talk to friends/family about stuff from you guys probably more than anything I've ever discussed with my IRL friend.

So is this the PR firm that the Ferguson PD hired?