All things Racist...USA edition (2 Viewers)

[Farb]

I was looking for a place to put this so we could discuss but didn't really find a place that worked so I created this thread so we can all place articles, experiences, videos and examples of racism in the USA.

This is one that happened this week. The lady even called and filed a complaint on the officer. This officer also chose to wear the body cam (apparently, LA doesn't require this yet). This exchange wasn't necessarily racist IMO until she started with the "mexican racist...you will never be white, like you want" garbage. That is when it turned racist IMO

All the murderer and other insults, I think are just a by product of CRT and ACAB rhetoric that is very common on the radical left and sadly is being brought to mainstream in this country.

Another point that I think is worth mentioning is she is a teacher and the sense of entitlement she feels is mind blowing.

https://news.yahoo.com/black-teacher-berates-latino-la-221235341.html

 

[Optimus Prime]

Jason Aldean is a country music star and a big fan of law and order. He loves the law so much, in fact, that he’s willing to take it into his own hands.

If you come to his (imaginary) small town and disrespect a cop or engage in any sort of protest, you will regret it.

Such is the theme of Aldean’s new song, Try That in a Small Town, which is all about how the singer and his pals will aggressively deal with unseemly behaviour on their turf. A sample extract: “Cuss out a cop, spit in his face … Well, try that in a small town / See how far ya make it down the road. / Around here, we take care of our own …”

A little later in the song Aldean elaborates further on what might happen if lines are crossed. “Got a gun that my grandad gave me / They say one day they’re gonna round up. / Well, that shirt might fly in the city, good luck.”

He is, it would appear, referencing a conspiracy theory that the government is going to confiscate Americans’ guns to impose martial law.

Try That in a Small Town was released in May but when the music video came out last Friday it generated immediate controversy.

The video leaves little doubt as to what Aldean is trying to communicate: it intersperses footage of him singing in front of Maury county courthouse in Tennessee – the site of the lynching of a Black man, Henry Choate, in 1927 – with footage from protests, looting and civil unrest.

Small towns are wholesome, the message is. Full of “good ol’ boys” who were “raised up right”. Cities, meanwhile, are hotbeds of violence … and diversity.

That last bit isn’t spelled out – it’s not like Aldean yells “I’m a massive racist!” in the middle of the track – but the dog whistles are difficult to ignore.

The song has been called “a modern lynching song” by detractors and the video was pulled from Country Music Television (CMT) on Monday. (While CMT has confirmed the video was taken off rotation, it hasn’t put out a statement as to why.)

Fellow country star Sheryl Crow has also voiced her disapproval. “There’s nothing small-town or American about promoting violence,” Crow tweeted on Tuesday. She further noted that Aldean should know better, “having survived a mass shooting”.

Crow was referencing the shooting at Las Vegas’s Route 91 Harvest festival in 2017: the deadliest mass shooting by a lone shooter in modern US history. Aldean was performing and got out unscathed. He was lucky. Sixty people were killed and 867 injured. Those people weren’t killed and injured by a Black Lives Matter protester. They were killed by Stephen Paddock, an angry white man from Iowa…….

Jason Aldean’s Try That In a Small Town sums up the delusions of the right wing | Arwa Mahdawi

The embrace of the country star’s anti-city ‘modern lynching song’ by Republicans encapsulates their nostalgia and paranoia

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

Like most Nashville stars, Jason Aldean spent years steering clear of politics to avoid alienating a portion of his audience.

But with the rise of Donald Trump and the outspokenness of Aldean’s wife, a MAGA Instagram influencer, Aldean stopped hiding his conservative views.


The result — Aldean’s latest single, “Try That in a Small Town” — is an exercise in belligerent rural hostility, and it will almost certainly make him the right’s latest hero who was “canceled” for speaking the truth.

Don’t be surprised if Republican presidential candidates start playing the song at their rallies…..

The song’s video juxtaposes scenes of urban violence and chaos against gentle rural imagery.

This is precisely the message you’ll hear from countless Republican politicians and right-wing media figures:

Cities are hellholes; rural towns are where real Americans live. And if the latter want their ideals to survive, they might have to protect them with force…….

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/07/20/jason-aldean-try-that-in-a-small-town-violent-fantasy/

 

[superchuck500]

Like most Nashville stars, Jason Aldean spent years steering clear of politics to avoid alienating a portion of his audience.

But with the rise of Donald Trump and the outspokenness of Aldean’s wife, a MAGA Instagram influencer, Aldean stopped hiding his conservative views.


The result — Aldean’s latest single, “Try That in a Small Town” — is an exercise in belligerent rural hostility, and it will almost certainly make him the right’s latest hero who was “canceled” for speaking the truth.

Don’t be surprised if Republican presidential candidates start playing the song at their rallies…..

The song’s video juxtaposes scenes of urban violence and chaos against gentle rural imagery.

This is precisely the message you’ll hear from countless Republican politicians and right-wing media figures:

Cities are hellholes; rural towns are where real Americans live. And if the latter want their ideals to survive, they might have to protect them with force…….

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/07/20/jason-aldean-try-that-in-a-small-town-violent-fantasy/

Just so we're all on the same page - Aldean didn't write the song. Like many Nashville hits, the artist on the record didn't write the song.

Aldean is from Macon, Georgia, the state's fourth largest city with over 150,000 people. Macon is 54% African American, 39% white. The city leans Democrat and voted for Biden, 61%.

And since his time in Macon, he has lived in Nashville. He doesn't really know what it's like to live in the small town he's singing about. He didn't write the song. It's all very on-brand for modern radio-country music.

 

[MT15]

I think the term “cashes in” is pretty relevant in this case:

 

[Optimus Prime]

Just so we're all on the same page - Aldean didn't write the song. Like many Nashville hits, the artist on the record didn't write the song.

Aldean is from Macon, Georgia, the state's fourth largest city with over 150,000 people. Macon is 54% African American, 39% white. The city leans Democrat and voted for Biden, 61%.

And since his time in Macon, he has lived in Nashville. He doesn't really know what it's like to live in the small town he's singing about. He didn't write the song. It's all very on-brand for modern radio-country music.

He always could have refused to record it

To me that suggests one of 3 possibilities

1. Completely oblivious to the dog whistles in the lyrics, and truly doesn't understand how people are misinterpreting the intent and meaning of the song

2. He not only fully understands the meaning of the song he believes in the song, He either always has or has come to but either way he felt comfortable recording it and putting it out there

3. He fully understands the song but doesn't believe it at all. Which makes the song a bit of a pandering cash grab

But that said, it brings up an interesting point.

For whatever reason we need to have singers personally believe in the songs they make in a way we don't for actors

Actors say all the time they love playing villains, they love playing characters that are different than they are in real life, they love playing characters that are completely opposite to who they are in reality

If he was known as a Hollywood liberal and not for his Q views Jim Caviezel could have said, "I didn't write or direct this movie, I'm just an actor"

I don't know why but we tend to hold singers to a different standard

But it exists, so I'm not giving the "he didn't write it or live in a small rural town" a pass

 

[brandon]

For some current events:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/oth...-tennessee-state-rep-justin-jones/ar-AA1e8lv9

Is calling this song, about riots and violence, racist in fact actually racist? Meaning, the lyrics talk about car jacking, sucker punch (the knock out game) and armed robbery. The left's attempt to virtue signal that this is racist is actually showing that they believe these crimes are a specific to a certain race. I think their (the left's) true colors are showing. What is the saying, 'when people show you who they are, believe them'? As most on here know and have been discussed, the violence and riots of the summer of Floyd were not just the black community. Are there even black Antifa members?

I think the answer is that they know the song is not racist but they don't like the song, so as we have also seen here on this board, if someone says something the left does not like, that thing is then considered racist thereby making anyone who disagrees with them, a racist in return. Also works with 'white supremecy' and 'nazi'. Just my take on this whole thing.

Good song too btw.

I was looking all over for some J6 video in that music video about disrespecting police, but imagine that - not a single shot.

Odd.

 

[Saintamaniac]

But with the rise of Donald Trump and the outspokenness of Aldean’s wife, a MAGA Instagram influencer, Aldean stopped hiding his conservative views.

Is he really expressing conservative views or racists views?

 

[MT15]

He actually has almost no self-awareness.

 

[BullSheetBuddha]

He always could have refused to record it

To me that suggests one of 3 possibilities

1. Completely oblivious to the dog whistles in the lyrics, and truly doesn't understand how people are misinterpreting the intent and meaning of the song

2. He not only fully understands the meaning of the song he believes in the song, He either always has or has come to but either way he felt comfortable recording it and putting it out there

3. He fully understands the song but doesn't believe it at all. Which makes the song a bit of a pandering cash grab

But that said, it brings up an interesting point.

For whatever reason we need to have singers personally believe in the songs they make in a way we don't for actors

Actors say all the time they love playing villains, they love playing characters that are different than they are in real life, they love playing characters that are completely opposite to who they are in reality

If he was known as a Hollywood liberal and not for his Q views Jim Caviezel could have said, "I didn't write or direct this movie, I'm just an actor"

I don't know why but we tend to hold singers to a different standard

But it exists, so I'm not giving the "he didn't write it or live in a small rural town" a pass

Of course. What difference does it make whether he wrote it, or whether he's from a small town or not? He put his name on it and knows what the words mean. It's his song from the point of view that he recorded it and pushed it out the door and on air. He's as responsible as the author if not more so.

 

[BullSheetBuddha]

When Black Ivy League graduates aren't as good as college dropouts

"But at least I dropped out of a college I got into on my own merits"
============================================

............Obama graduated from Princeton University and then Harvard Law School. Jackson graduated from Harvard then got her law degree there.

Reid graduated from Harvard and became a fellow at the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism. Jackson Lee graduated from Yale and earned a law degree from the University of Virginia.

Kirk, on the other hand, dropped out of college.

.....................................................

MSN

www.msn.com

"Kirk, on the other hand, dropped out of college."

A junior college I might add that I suspect virtually anyone with a HS diploma could get into.

 

[BullSheetBuddha]

Three Reactions from African Americans to "Try That in a Small Town." Now, I didn't go looking for these reactions in terms of HOW they reacted. I'm aware of two of these reactors through music videos, not politics, and the third one I stumbled across. I'm sure there are other opinions out there from black music reactors but these three don't see a problem with the song.

Many of you know I listen to a lot of music. If posting these videos here breaks a rule take the post down.

 

[MT15]

Here is my question - how were these slaves supposed to benefit from these skills “later in life”? Does he think slaves got to retire? And then go into business for themselves?

 

[RebSaint]

The Alt-Right is absolutely clueless when it comes to American history, esp. regarding slavery.

The real goal is to purge all the "revisionism" on the historiography of slavery because people will learn of the history of systemic racism and draw direct parallels to the modern day.

What's also unsurprising is the party of "small government" is becoming more authoritarian to erase and eradicate the gains and progress of historically-oppressed people. Wanting to control and change the narrative of the struggle of slaves and black people in general is part of achieving this goal.

As someone who has studied slavery and race all my life, I find it disgusting.

 

[RebSaint]

One more point: these new "standards" of teaching slavery are literally parroting proslavery writers before the Civil War.

I know because I read and studied these men and read what they wrote. Claiming that slavery was a "positive good" for African Americans, usurprisingly, is nothing new.

 

[cuddlemonkey]

There's a Part 4.

 

[BullSheetBuddha]

One more point: these new "standards" of teaching slavery are literally parroting proslavery writers before the Civil War.

I know because I read and studied these men and read what they wrote. Claiming that slavery was a "positive good" for African Americans, usurprisingly, is nothing new.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3141.html#:~:text=In the antebellum period, pro,slavery provided a civilizing influence.

^^^

Historical Document
George Fitzhugh advocates slavery

"In the antebellum period, pro-slavery forces moved from defending slavery as a necessary evil to expounding it as a positive good. Some insisted that African Americans were child-like people in need of protection, and that slavery provided a civilizing influence. Others argued that black people were biologically inferior to white people and were incapable of assimilating in free society. Still others claimed that slaves were necessary to maintain the progress of white society.

George Fitzhugh was a Virginia lawyer and the author of two books and numerous articles advocating slavery. Says Fitzhugh, "... the negro race is inferior to the white race, and living in their midst, they would be far outstripped or outwitted in the chaos of free competition." This is only one of many arguments which he presents in this piece."


https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3141t.html

^^^

We would remind those who deprecate and sympathize with negro slavery, that his slavery here relieves him from a far more cruel slavery in Africa, or from idolatry and cannibalism, and every brutal vice and crime that can disgrace humanity; and that it christianizes, protects, supports and civilizes him; that it governs him far better than free laborers at the North are governed. There, wife-murder has become a mere holiday pastime; and where so many wives are murdered, almost all must be brutally treated. Nay, more; men who kill their wives or treat them brutally, must be ready for all kinds of crime, and the calendar of crime at the North proves the inference to be correct. Negroes never kill their wives. If it be objected that legally they have no wives, then we reply, that in an experience of more than forty years, we never yet heard of a negro man killing a negro woman. Our negroes are not only better off as to physical comfort than free laborers, but their moral condition is better.



The negro slaves of the South are the happiest, and, in some sense, the freest people in the world. The children and the aged and infirm work not at all, and yet have all the comforts and necessaries of life provided for them. They enjoy liberty, because they are oppressed neither by care nor labor. The women do little hard work, and are protected from the despotism of their husbands by their masters. The negro men and stout boys work, on the average, in good weather, not more than nine hours a day. The balance of their time is spent in perfect abandon. Besides' they have their Sabbaths and holidays. White men, with so much of license and liberty, would die of ennui; but negroes luxuriate in corporeal and mental repose. With their faces upturned to the sun, they can sleep at any hour; and quiet sleep is the greatest of human enjoyments. "Blessed be the man who invented sleep." 'Tis happiness in itself--and results from contentment with the present, and confident assurance of the future.

 

[RebSaint]

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3141.html#:~:text=In the antebellum period, pro,slavery provided a civilizing influence.

^^^

Historical Document
George Fitzhugh advocates slavery

"In the antebellum period, pro-slavery forces moved from defending slavery as a necessary evil to expounding it as a positive good. Some insisted that African Americans were child-like people in need of protection, and that slavery provided a civilizing influence. Others argued that black people were biologically inferior to white people and were incapable of assimilating in free society. Still others claimed that slaves were necessary to maintain the progress of white society.

George Fitzhugh was a Virginia lawyer and the author of two books and numerous articles advocating slavery. Says Fitzhugh, "... the negro race is inferior to the white race, and living in their midst, they would be far outstripped or outwitted in the chaos of free competition." This is only one of many arguments which he presents in this piece."


https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3141t.html

^^^

Yep. I read lots of Fitzhugh's literature. But there were plenty others. The racist argument was real simple: slavery was essential to teach and/or provide Africans with "civilization;" They weren't smart enough to care for themselves, so they needed slaveowners and slavery.

Additionally, emancipation for slaves threatened white supremacy and would endanger white communities because of their predilection for violence (sound familiar!) and would touch off an endless race war.

Here's the frustrating part: slaves DID acquire important, artisinal skills while being slaves. Slaves also brought specific skills, like blacksmithing, cooking, and even growing and cultivating rice (which they taught white planters!), which was why skilled slaves fetched higher prices. But these fools aren't interested in teaching (or students learning) the real history and nuances of the institution, they're only interested in appealing to racist dog whistles from the Alt-right base.

 

[Optimus Prime]

For what it’s worth
==============

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jason Aldean ‘s “Try That in a Small Town” is experiencing exponential growth following controversy over its music video.

“Try That in a Small Town,” which was released in May, debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 this week just behind BTS’s Jung Kook solo single “Seven,” featuring Latto. The track experienced the biggest sales week for a country song in over 10 years.

According to Luminate, the song hit 11.7 million on-demand audio and video streams between July 14 and 20, marking a 1,000% increase from the previous week. Prior to the music video release on July 14, the track accounted for 987,000 streams in the U.S.

Digital song sales increased from 1,000 to 228,000, in those same weeks, respectively.

The music video for the song lasted just one weekend on Country Music Television before the network pulled it in response to an outcry over its setting and lyrics. When the network removed the video from its rotation, it had 350,000 views on YouTube. Now that number is now over 16 million, and it is the No. 1 trending video under the “music” category.……

On Friday, July 21, while performing at Cincinnati’s Riverbend Music Center, Aldean addressed the audience with “Cancel culture is a thing... which means try and ruin your life, ruin everything. One thing I saw this week was a bunch of country music fans that could see through a lot of the bulls---, all right?”, according to “The Columbus Dispatch.”

For those wondering if he would play the song live, he said, “The answer is simple. The people have spoken and you guys spoke very, very loudly,” he said, before launching into the song.……

Jason Aldean's 'Try That in a Small Town' rockets to No. 2 on charts after music video controversy

Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” is experiencing exponential growth following controversy over its music video.

apnews.com