"Everyday People" By The Thought Police

I was letting my ears Wander a little while listening to some oldies station my college buddy tuned to recently and was pleasantly surprised to hear Sly & The Family Stone's Everyday People come on.

It's the one that everyone sings along to when it says, 'Different strokes for different folks... I am everyday people..."
It event says, "Scooby-Doo Be Doo-be..."
How can a song that says Scooby Doo and Doo-Bee go wrong?

I was in the middle of something, I don't remember what, but I wound up taking a break and was singing along with the chorus near the end of the song at the part where it says, "

"Oh sha sha-we got to live together

There is a yellow one that won't accept the black one
That won't accept the red one that won't accept the white one

And different strokes for different folks..."

But the middle two lines were missing.

The background music played, the music didn't fade away like the song was ending, but the words were edited out.

Poof.

I wasn't sure what to make of it.

It was like walking along and stumbling on an unseen object. You look back and nothing was there. But you know something was supposed to be there. Sometimes, the lack of something is just as real and physical as its presence. This is one such case.

Why would someone do something like that? I thought to myself. Was it a White station manager who liked the song, but didn't like the Black writer's reference to people of different colors not liking each other? Or did whomever edited it out believe that that social issue had been resolved and was no longer worth mentioning? Who are they to decide what I hear?

As I gathered myself, I remembered growing up in the 60's and 70's when that song was a popular one. It was an anthem speaking to social injustices and an imbalanced social situation. Sly put to music the way America and the world he lived in was, while espousing tolerance in dealing with people of other races.

For that radio station to remove a part of Sly's song that makes it relevant, alive and healing for us today is wrong and worse, it's an action like that of Orwell's Thought Police.

I had to leave shortly afterwards and didn't get the station's call letters - I should have, but it didn't start to really bug me until later. Then, I began to wonder if anyone called them on that one. I wondered if anyone noticed. But mostly, I wondered why it was edited out.

What if all radio stations just cut out lyrics they didn't like? Who's to say what stays and what goes?

It's a form of censorship. And I feel it's wrong.

Beware the Thought Police.