Band Aid’s anthem is criticized for lyrics about “racist and condescending African stereotypes”.

Nearly four decades after topping the UK Christmas charts and raising millions of pounds for charity, the charity song “Band Aid” has come under fire again for lyrics that critics say perpetuate racist and derogatory stereotypes about Africans.

the song, Do you know it’s Christmas? was written and recorded by dozens of Britain’s most popular pop artists in response to the devastating famine that was ravaging Ethiopia at the time. Millions of copies were sold and within a year it raised £8 million ($10.1 million) for humanitarian aid.

It is known that it did not stay at the top of the charts either Last Christmas by Wham!, a song that ended up reaching number one this year. At that time, the author of this song, George Michael, donated all proceeds to the Band Aid Fund.

But Band Aid’s lyrics have not aged well, with critics now lining up to condemn what writer Indrajit Samarajiva called “a terrible, racist song”.

He writes: “It is not just that these texts have not aged well. They were never good.

“They have an ignorant and colonialist attitude that is more concerned with making white people feel good than helping anyone.”

And he adds that the song contains broad allusions to Africa without specifically referring to the suffering in Ethiopia:

“For example, the text: ‘There will be no snow in Africa this Christmas.’ The greatest gift you will receive this year is life.

“Where nothing ever grows, there is no rain and no rivers flow.” Do they even know it’s Christmas?

“I mean, it’s all wrong. It snows in Africa, but not much.”

Meanwhile, Nigerian Igbo-British writer Ije Teunissen-Oligboh expressed her discomfort with growing up in Britain at the time of the song’s release:

“The intention is great and should be praised rather than criticized, but the execution was brutal and contributed to perpetuating stereotypes and misinformation.

“The discomfort I felt as a child watching the single’s music video with my predominantly white friends at school assemblies was unnecessary and avoidable… I struggled to explain to my classmates that the images they saw in the video saw was not an accurate representation of the continent. “

The song has been re-recorded by various artists and released several times since 1984 to raise money for various charities and to change the lyrics. But the original remains the standard and is widely played throughout the UK during the holidays.