THE HOUSE WE LIVE IN

by James Edwards

Anyone who wants to know how we got to the point of all this Diversity nonsense and multicultural madness, and where it came from, should watch this short film called The House I Live In. Starring Frank Sinatra, it came out in 1945, and was created “to oppose anti-Semitism and racial prejudice.” It was awarded both a Golden Globe and an Academy Award in 1946.

The plot’s pretty simple. Sinatra, playing himself, heads outside for a cigarette break in the middle of a recording session, where he happens upon a gang of about a dozen young boys chasing and cornering another kid, getting ready to pummel him. Sinatra intervenes, asking what the trouble is. The ruffians explain that they want to beat the kid up because they don’t like his religion. One tells Sinatra “he’s a dirty -” but Frank cuts him off before he can finish the sentence.

Frank then has a talk with the boys, and shows them how wrong they are. Does he tell them that, while religion is important, going around beating up people with a different religion is not appropriate behavior? Nah, Frank cuts right to the chase. He tells them:

“Look, fellas, religion makes no difference. Except maybe to a Nazi, or somebody that’s stupid.”

Christians like to complain about “modern day” Hollywood denigrating and downplaying Christianity, while insisting that back in the good old days Hollywood respected Christianity. But even back in 1945 Hollywood was giving Oscars to a movie that says that anyone who thinks Christianity is better than other religions is either a Nazi, or stupid.

Sinatra then goes on to explain that we’re all Americans, no matter what we believe, and “prejudice” and “intolerance” are wrong, because even though we all may not see eye to eye on religion, we’ve got to stick together to fight “the Japs.” And, yes, he says “Japs”, repeatedly. The kids then stare wide eyed as Frank breaks into an expurgated rendition of the title song.

The film is based on the song of the same name, The House I Live In. It’s all about America being a multiracial, multicultural Disneyland. But the songwriter was livid that the movie makers cut the verse that explicitly refers to blacks out of the movie. He even got tossed out of a theater for protesting the excision. But the people that made the movie knew that America wasn’t quite ready for a movie promoting that much Diversity just yet. No matter; they had plenty of time, and now they push not only racial integration, but miscegenation non-stop. And it goes without saying that if they were making the movie today, they would no doubt still leave in the line comparing evangelicals to Nazis for thinking religion is important, but they would take out the stuff about “Japs.”

Nowadays, of course, the message of the movie is considered mainstream. Who doesn’t love “tolerance” and “diversity” these days? But back then, the idea that race and religion were meaningless trivialities was only being pushed by radicals, Jews, and Communists. Forced racial integration was considered to be a Communist plot, largely because it was a Communist plot. And if you think I exaggerate, just consult some history books. Christians and conservatives of today love to pretend as if they’ve always stood for and promoted interracial marriage, integrated schools, integrated churches, Civil Rights laws, etc., and that Martin Luther King was the embodiment of Christian conservatism. But nothing could be further from the truth. Conservative evangelical churches in the era between WW 2 and the 1970s railed against racial integration and opposed all efforts to mix the races. Probably not five white preachers out of a thousand would’ve conducted an interracial marriage in 1964.

Conservatives and Christians weren’t “marching with Dr. King”; the non-blacks marching with MLK were Quakers, liberal apostate “Christians”, commies, beatniks, and, overwhelmingly, Jews. (One of the rare exceptions was Billy Graham, and he certainly didn’t take a prominent position in the Civil Rights crusade, because he knew it would kill his ministry. But he did invite King to pray at a New York City revival and insisted on integrated seating at all his revival meetings. He was widely denounced by conservative Christians for these actions.) Again, just check the history books if you doubt that modern day shibboleths on race were considered far out, dangerous radicalism by Americans up until quite recently, and that the people pushing such things were generally Communists.

But if you don’t have time to read some history books, just watch the credits for this Academy Award winning movie. It’s like a Who’s Who of Hollywood Communism and radicalism. Sinatra was just their front man.

Let’s start with the man who wrote the lyrics to the song on which the movie is based. In the movie he’s credited as “Lewis Allan”, but don’t pay any attention to that. His real name was Abel Meeropol. He also wrote Strange Fruit, the song about lynching in the South which Billie Holiday made famous, and which TIME magazine called the most important song of the 20th century. Holiday claimed she wrote it in her autobiography, but that was a lie. And who was Abel Meeropol? Our good friend Max Blumenthal tells us that he was “a Jewish school teacher”, but there’s a bit more to it than that. Quite a bit more. Remember Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the nice Jewish couple executed for giving our atomic secrets to the Soviet Union? Well, after they were executed, Abel Meeropol adopted their kids. Was that because he took pity on a couple orphans? Possibly. It might also have to do with the fact that the “Jewish school teacher” was an “ardent Communist” himself. Funny how Blumenthal forgot to mention that little fact…

OK, so we’ve seen that the lyricist for the song which inspired the movie was some strange fruit, indeed. What about others? Well, Earl Robinson wrote the music for the song. You remember Earl Robinson, right? He was one of the notorious Hollywood Ten, who were blacklisted for refusing to tell Congress whether or not they had ever been members of the Communist Party. Of course, every single one of the Hollywood Ten either was or had been a member of the Communist Party. Most still were. Robinson also wrote the music for other songs, like "Ballad For Americans," an anthem all about how race and religion don’t matter. It was performed at the Communist Party national convention of 1940. (They also played it the GOP convention that year, which oughta tell you something.) Robinson also wrote "Black and White," a celebration of the Brown vs. Board of Education travesty of jurisprudence. You’ve probably heard a watered down version of "Black and White" – Three Dog Night had a #1 hit with their less blatantly political form of the song in 1972.

OK, so the guy who wrote the words to the song that inspired the movie was an America hating Communist. And the guy who wrote the music was another Communist. Anyone else? Well, there’s also the guy who wrote the screenplay for the movie. His name was Albert Maltz, surprise, surprise, and he, too, “was a man on the rise both inside and outside of the Communist Party.”

Yes, The House I Live In, and its message, was a Communist production through and through. And make no mistake. The message of the movie wasn’t that people shouldn’t go around beating up Jews. We have no problem with that message; we oppose violence against anyone. But that wasn’t the message of the movie. The message was that religion and race are meaningless trivialities, and anyone who disagrees is either “a Nazi” or “stupid.”

In 1945, that was a radical Communist idea. Now, it’s a mainstream view parroted by nearly everyone.