Lost in the news of Margaret Thatcher's death yesterday was a kerfuffle about "Accidental Racist," a bizarre, misguided duet by country singer Brad Paisley and rapper LL Cool J. The song
laments how difficult it is to be a white man wearing a confederate flag on his shirt in the south. "To the man that waited on me at the Starbucks down on Main, I hope you understand," the song begins, "When I put on that t-shirt, the only thing I meant to say is I'm a Skynyrd fan/The red flag on my chest somehow is like the elephant in the corner of the south."I'm sure Paisley thought it was a brilliant idea to bring in a black performer to give him cover on this. But that just places the problem in high relief. The Confederate flag is the flag of slavery. It became a defiant symbol of the South of lynching and disenfranchisement and apartheid. Now, on the other side, what do LL and his fellow African-Americans get disrespect for? Let's go to the lyrics:
From there, Paisley offers up half-apologies and mea culpas for the Civil War, slavery and the region's history of institutional racism, intoning that he should not have to bear the consequences of the South's brutal past....
Then, LL comes in to offer his perspective as a black northerner, with some references to poverty and racial profiling.
"Dear Mr. White Man, I wish you understood," he raps, "What the world is really like when you're livin' in the hood/Just because my pants are saggin' doesn't mean I'm up to no good."
From there, they duet, agreeing to listen to each other with a more open mind.
Racism solved, obviously....
If you don’t judge my do-rag...So wearing hip-hop clothing is as much an affront to white people as enslavement was to black people?
I won't judge your red flag...
If you don’t judge my gold chains...
I'll forget the iron chains...
The only way this would make any sense would be if African-Americans controlled a large territory or state in which white people were, at various times, sold as property, denied full citizenship, and subjected to state and pseudo-state terrorism.
But maybe, if you're Brad Paisley, and Drudge and Fox News and the NRA regale you daily with lurid tales of violent urban "flash mobs" and marauding gangs of drug dealers, you become afraid to walk through black neighborhoods, so you think, "Yup, there is a place where blacks oppress the white man!"
(Also see the quote from Craig T. Nelson that Atrios regularly cites: "I've been on food stamps and welfare, did anybody help me out? No" -- Atrios's theory being that angry whites like Nelson "believe there's some secret super generous welfare system that only black people have access to.")
So the subtext of this song is: oppression in America has been a two-way street. If he can look across the whole of American history and say that, that's appalling.
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UPDATE: Try this one:
Paisley has history for writing and performing anti-racist material for the country audience, and risking at least part of his career for it: his string of 10 straight #1 country singles was broken by his "Welcome to the Future," which is explicitly pro-Obama and anti-racist. This effort may be misguided (I haven't even heard it yet), but he deserves to be cut some slack, he's been trying for a while.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Steve, you're pretty much completely misreading Paisley here (you're not alone, of course - a lot of critics who are totally unfamiliar with his catalog are joyfully leaping onto the dogpile). Hank Williams, Jr. he ain't.
ReplyDeleteSo he's earned a lifetime racism pass because he said nice things about Obama once in a song? We've got the bar awfully low, then.
ReplyDeleteLet's let Ted Nugent over, too, while we're at it, since he's said nice things about R&B music, too.
You don't mind if I skip on listening to it, do you?
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like a bad redux of "Ebony and Ivory," updated to accomodate stars and bars, and bling.
Steve is right. Paisley may have the most decent intentions in the world, but he's rationalizing racial insensitivity (with the complicity of LL Cool J) through the massive distortion of American racial history.
ReplyDelete(I wouldn't lump him in with Nugent, though. Still, he shouldn't get a pass.)
Don't conflate the singer with the character. Just FYI, Johnny Cash did NOT really shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die. Paisley is, and has been for a while, trying to raise debate among one of the most solidly reactionary communities in the country. He deserves support, not an uninformed put-down.
ReplyDeleteSee this 2009 essay by Robert Christgau for an impeccably lefty appreciation of his efforts on feminism as well as racism:
http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/bn/2009-11.php
The song is what it is. I stand by what I wrote about it.
ReplyDeleteOh, and Johnny Cash didn't ask for a pardon for his character. That's a huge difference between these two songs.
Shorter Brad Paisley & LL Cool J: "Let's not quibble about 'oo enslaved 'oom..."
ReplyDeleteI usually agree with you, but on this I think you are way off base and veering toward stereotyping. For instance, you write "that just places the problem in high relief" but do not seem to consider that putting it in high relief was actually the point. You write "if you're Brad Paisley, and Drudge and Fox News and the NRA regale you daily with lurid tales" without considering that he by all accounts is not someone who gets his news from those sources. And finally (and I promise I'll shut up and let you have the last word if you reply), Johnny Cash certainly was asking for empathy if not exactly pardon — that song is powerful because it is about the humanity existing even in a stone-cold killer. What the heck, keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteI think the headline of Steve's post makes the issue pretty cut and dried. No matter the intent, which for Paisley and LL may be to communicate effectively on the actual levels of their respective tribes, the overriding message of the equivalency made is so odious, that it kind of cancels out the "good intentions," in my opinion. If Bubba sees something dangerous and oppressive in supposed "ghetto clothes" that somehow equates to the dread blacks feel dealing with the historical legacy of slavery, well then Bubba don't deserve no slack.
ReplyDeletePete, thanks. And you're right -- Johnny Cash does ask for empathy in "Folsom Prison Blues." But a common thread in a lot of those songs is the assumption that you couldn't outrun your fate if you committed a crime. That's part of the reason they connect with your soul. That's true in "Folsom Prison Blues," "Green, Green Grass of Home," etc. Same with the cheating songs -- in real life Johnny eventually married June, but when he was cheating on his first wife with her he fell into a burning ring of fire. "Dark End of the Street" is the ultimate example of that -- "They're gonna find us, they're gonna find us"; "We have to pay for the love we stole."
ReplyDeleteNow, Brad Paisley wants clemency -- clemency for that damn flag. There wasn't much clemency in the old songs.
As a society, we need to talk about race. My preacher says we need to talk about race and holds discussion groups.
ReplyDeleteThese singers are trying to talk about race. They're not doing it real well, but they've put the topic out there, and we're talking, and that's good.
A for effort. Everybody Gets a Prize Day.
ReplyDeleteSteve, you were merely ahead of the curve and as fate would have it, your post has been redeemed, not by Wonkette or Gawker or any of the other usual suspects, but by Cracked.com:
ReplyDeleteHere are the ten most racist moments from Brad Paisley and LL Cool J's song about ending racism.
#10. Every Lynyrd Skynyrd Fan Loves the Confederate Flag