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Feet, Don't Fail Me Now?  Really?

10/14/2014

19 Comments

 
    Last week I walked into Second Sole, a local running apparel store, for a pair of Spenco arches for my tennis shoes.  Upon entering the store this strategically-placed rack of Homage running shirts hit my line of vision:
Picture
    I did a take, then a double take.  An image flashed through my mind of some old comedy movie scene of a simple-minded black man with a name like Catfish, or Willie,  or something, tip-toeing through the dark then turning around suddenly to see someone with a sheet  over their head. Thinking it's a ghost, he throws his hands up in the air, his eyes go all big and buggy and he cries, "Feets, don't fail me now!",  then  zips comically off.
    Though I'd only experienced a quick moment of mental free-association, I felt like the saying on that shirt, though it had changed "feets" to the more grammatical "feet",  had some racist origin, but I wasn't sure.  In fact, I wasn't even sure if I'd ever really seen the black-man-being-scared-of-a-ghost scene, yet I must have, or why would the image have leapt into my mind as soon as I saw that shirt?
    
    When I got home I yahooed "Feets, don't fail me now" and sure enough, there were several entries. 
    According to Wikipedia this phrase was:
    "
(A) Catch-phrase that possibly originated during the vaudeville and chitlin' circuit days. Spoken by several African-American actors in motion pictures of the 1920s to 1940s, usually when scared by a ghost or such (whereupon the character scooted). Delivered by actor Willie Best (1913–1962) in the 1940 Bob Hope film "The Ghost Breakers"; delivered by actor Stepin Fetchit (1902–1985) in several films; often attributed to actor Mantan Moreland (1902–1973)."
    According to another website called The Straight Dope,
which describes its mission as
"Fighting ignorance since 1973 (It's taking longer than we thought)":

     "(Feets don't fail me now) was one of the catch phrases of Stepin Fetchit, an early black film performer. He basically transitioned the old racist minstrel shows from stage to screen, portraying a humble, fearful Negro caricature for the delight of white audiences. He made a lot of money doing it, but it's still a rather hateful stereotype."
    The author of the entry then adds:
    "I find it interesting that the phrase has survived to the present, while somehow shedding its deeply racist origins, to the point that it can apparently be used in mainstream marketing (though I haven't seen that myself and would welcome a citation). In any event, if you choose to pick up this phrase for your own usage, be very careful about your audience, lest you inadvertently cause serious offense."
    I guess I could give the author a citation now.  Because the phrase is apparently being used as somebody's idea of a slogan for the upcoming 2014 Nationwide Children's Hospital Columbus Marathon,  which will take place in downtown Columbus on October 19.
    Now, granted, the Homage-brand running shirt on display in Second Sole doesn't actually say "Feets Don't Fail Me Now"; it says Feet Don't Fail Me Now".  In fact in my research I came across several different rock songs dating back as far as the 1980's with the name "Feet Don't Fail Me Now" which I listened to and found to be ballads about guys trying to find the courage to leave a relationship or escape from a bad situation.  I'm guessing that the inspiration for the slogan on the shirt was the title of one of these rock songs and not the phrase in its original form and usage.  I'm also guessing that whoever put those words on that shirt never heard the phrase in its original form and usage.
    But though the phrase may have been de-fanged and laundered by time and more innocent usages, "shedding its racist origins", as the Straight Talk" contributor noted, there still  obviously  hasn't been enough time gone by if its appearance minus one letter on a running shirt causes a stab of recognition in a 63-year-old white lady like myself.  And if those words resonated negatively with me, how much more negatively might they resonate with an African-American my age or older who might be watching the marathon and catch a glimpse of them on a shirt that appears to be official apparel of the Columbus Marathon? 

Picture
    Perhaps whoever chose to pick out this phrase for this use should have been a little more careful.
    Or at least done a little research.
19 Comments
Romaine
10/14/2014 12:03:22 pm

Great blog! The disregard for the connotation associated with the slogan on that t-shirt sounds like it may stem from a case of white privilege - if the designers haven't experienced racism and don't consider themselves racist, then it's probably didn't concern them and they didn't think twice about it. Or it could be they just don't know the history of the expression.

Reply
GEAH
1/24/2021 09:54:08 pm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feets,_Don%27t_Fail_Me_Now

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Deb
7/28/2016 12:27:28 am

I do like your synopsis on the subject.
I was looking up the origin of the saying. I thought my saying it may have been lost in translation to a younger crowd.
I always loved the saying. I took it as more universal, but softed

Reply
lo
10/30/2019 10:34:02 am

it's not racist

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be
10/12/2021 12:01:46 pm

this.

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best bass fishing line link
2/9/2020 06:29:03 pm

I now out fish anyone who comes on my boat and fishes with bait and I have a lot more fun landing these fish on light deal with

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Stanley C Armstead
10/8/2020 01:26:06 am

Please, don't call me a nigger.

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GEAH
1/24/2021 09:52:56 pm

Herbie Hancock has an album called "Feets, Don't Fail Me Now."

Hancock is a black American man born in 1940. Perhaps you can explain to him that it's racist.

Reply
Ted Daniels
2/19/2021 11:34:05 pm

My wacky adventure where I spent 6 hours researching whether a phrase that isn't inherently racist was at one point almost a century ago associated with problematic black performances and even though it has completely shed all of those origins and has been recycled and reshaped multiple times since then, it still violated the sensibilities of me, a 63 year old white woman, so you know it must be bad, not that I ever actually tried to reach out for the opinion of a person of color before being outraged on their behalf.

Reply
Velinda Simpson
4/13/2021 04:39:34 am

Actually, yes, I am shockingly a genuine 64 year old African American female. I do find the use of old racist stereo types offensive. It may be a unique problem for people of a certain age who have personally experienced so much racism during our lives. Funny, I came across this article while trying to explain a Missy Elliott song with the hook, "pussy don't fail me now" I was joking with my 70 year old African American boyfriend. He never heard the phrase because his parents attempted to shield him from these racist images. I would never had made such a reference if my boyfriend was Caucasian though. It's still too painful for that.

Reply
Patti
4/13/2021 11:49:08 am

Thank you for your comment, Velinda, I'm so glad to that you shared your voice.
Patti

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based and redpilled
6/25/2021 06:26:36 pm

nigger

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Velinda.simpson
6/27/2021 10:49:38 am

I feel sorry for you,( Based and redpilled). Yes, I am of African decent. I love that fact! Over the years, African Americans have been called many things, colored, negros, and yes, someone invented the N word as an insult. It's just a word. It actually means nothing. I don't know your ethnicity, but what ever it is, people have invented nasty words to describe your ancestors at one time or another in history. Nasty words have been created for the Irish, Polish, Italians, Mexicans,Chinese... and with what result? Open your mind to diffrences. I have never been a nigger, just because it is spoken.
Do some reading on your own people (what ever they are) Look at the ugly words they were historically called them when they came here to America. This may be a good mental excercise for you.I pray that you can grow.

Reply
Patti
6/27/2021 10:55:10 am

Thank you for your insights, Velinda.

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velinda Simpson
6/27/2021 12:01:27 pm

You are welcome Patti. I think civil dialog is always helpful. Name calling is not.

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John Holme
6/30/2021 12:41:45 pm

I was looking up to see where this phrase came from and came across your blog - also others citing, I'm sure correctly, origins from black actors playing up to stereotypes in the 1930s and 1940s.
The reason I was trying to find out its source is that I noticed it in Edwin Starr's 25 Miles from 1969 and remembered the same phrase being prominent in Funkadelic's One Nation Under a Groove from 1978. 25 Miles seems to have had an interesting and controversial genesis, and the song was subsequently covered among others by Michael Jackson, and released as a single in the US. In the Edwin Starr song, the phrase is used literally, about someone having walked 3 days and two nights with 25 miles to go back to his girlfriend, and not wanting his feet to give up. In Funkadelic's song, it's about dancing. Neither seems to relate to the copntext of its earlier use in films, though I think it must have been known at least to the 25 miles writers.....I think both these songs predate the use in Rock songs (I could be wrong on this) which seems quite extensive, but I imagine stem from these two. I think as a white person, it's always wise to be cautious about the use of phrases that had racist connotations and could still be offensive - though this wouldn't stop me dancing to or singing along to great songs!

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Velinda Simpson
6/30/2021 01:28:39 pm

i remember with joy listening to Edwin Starr, and especially the Funkadelics. I had seen the actors in blackface making fun of African Americans, and enjoyed the fact that Black artists had taken back the insulting phrase and made it part of OUR culture. As a child, I danced around like a Native American. I pulled my eyes back like an Asian. This was never okay, but we (and everyone) were ignorant of the cultures we were stepping onThis was in the 60's. When I learned better, I did better. When I became aware that I was being less than respectful, I stopped. The t-shirt that started this discussion was culturally disrecpectful. Yes, it was a clever turn of an old racist trope, but totally disrecpectful, considering it's history and how it was originally intended.

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AA
8/28/2021 03:17:16 pm

Bruce Jenner wore a Feet Don't Fail Me Now tee shirt when he won the gold medal at the Olympics...

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WPa Man
3/29/2022 08:26:25 pm

I thought those movies Stepin Fetchit Did were funny!? And this was ine of his funniest lines. I just heard Lionel Richey use it on American Idol when they had some paranormal type stuff happen on set. So its perfectly acceptable reference

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