Eric Clapton a racist?

[sweetloukillbot]

I stumbled on this yesterday - apparently at a concert in the mid 70s he went on a profanity and racial-epithet laced rant about kicking all foreigners out of England to keep it white.
Warning: This is pretty shocking...
"Do we have any foreigners in the audience tonight? If so, please put up your hands. Wogs I mean, I'm looking at you. Where are you? I'm sorry but some fucking wog...Arab grabbed my wife's bum, you know? Surely got to be said, yeah this is what all the fucking foreigners and wogs over here are like, just disgusting, that's just the truth, yeah. So where are you? Well wherever you all are, I think you should all just leave. Not just leave the hall, leave our country. You fucking (indecipherable). I don't want you here, in the room or in my country. Listen to me, man! I think we should vote for Enoch Powell. Enoch's our man. I think Enoch's right, I think we should send them all back. Stop Britain from becoming a black colony. Get the foreigners out. Get the wogs out. Get the coons out. Keep Britain white. I used to be into dope, now I'm into racism. It's much heavier, man. Fucking wogs, man. Fucking Saudis taking over London. Bastard wogs. Britain is becoming overcrowded and Enoch will stop it and send them all back. The black wogs and coons and Arabs and fucking Jamaicans and fucking [indecipherable] don't belong here, we don't want them here. This is England, this is a white country, we don't want any black wogs and coons living here. We need to make clear to them they are not welcome. England is for white people, man. We are a white country. I don't want fucking wogs living next to me with their standards. This is Great Britain, a white country, what is happening to us, for fuck's sake? We need to vote for Enoch Powell, he's a great man, speaking truth. Vote for Enoch, he's our man, he's on our side, he'll look after us. I want all of you here to vote for Enoch, support him, he's on our side. Enoch for Prime Minister! Throw the wogs out! Keep Britain white!"

I've never heard anything about this in the press, but it seems to be fairly well documented - and apparently he's never apologized for his comments, even reaffirming his support for Enoch Powell's ideas in 2007 or so.

I'm shocked by it. I expect stupid shit to come out of Ted Nugent's mouth, but for someone who brought Bob Marley's music to the world to spout this National Front garbage is unbelieveable..

The quote is on this blog - but I've seen it sourced elsewhere...

http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/2010/12/eric-claptons-evil-speech.html

Elvis Costello is still apologizing for his racist statements from 35 years ago, why haven't I heard about this before? Have I been living in a bubble? Or does Clapton have even better PR than Mel Gibson?

[Joe Shlabotnik]

1. As much as Clapton's early music is awesome,

he sounds like quite a self absorbed douchebag. This quote:

"I had never really understood or been directly affected by racial conflict... when I listened to music, I was disinterested in where the players came from or what colour their skin was. Interesting, then, that 10 years later, I would be labelled a racist..."

is either laughably disingenuous, or outrageous illogical.