I don’t usually pile on when someone is getting their ass kicked by the multitudes on social media. I’m making an exception in this instance. And that is why Jason Aldean is malaka of the week.
Aldean is getting a well-deserved ass kicking over the racist ickiness of the video for Try That In A Small Town.
Aldean claims ignorance of the import of that Tennessee courthouse but I’m skeptical:
“Aldean’s performance backdrop is the Maury County Courthouse, which at times appears to be on fire as images of burning American flags are projected onto it. It’s the same building where a mob hanged 18-year-old Henry Choate from the balcony in 1927. The teen had been accused of attacking a White girl who never identified him as her assailant, and whose mother begged the mob to let him stand trial.
Columbia is also the site of an infamous 1946 race riot that nearly resulted in the lynching of future Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall.”
Aldean disclaims any racist content. I call bullshit: the video is full of visual dog whistles easily understood by Aldean’s fellow wingnuts. He says he’s anti-lynching but the location of the video shoot and the clips involving BLM protestors make such a claim hollow. I guess antifa made him do it. The malakatude, it burns.
The scary big city is a trope that goes back to the beginning of the Republic. The tropes have become more inflammatory since the Indicted Impeached Insult Comedian became the extreme right’s hero. Aldean was publicly apolitical before Trump but was emboldened by his blatant bigotry; another reason to hate former President* Pennywise.
Malaka Aldean is a phony. He says he grew up in a small town. In fact, he’s from Macon, Georgia: population 154K. It’s arguably a small city but it’s a far cry from TV’s Mayberry.
The idea that all small towns are as safe as TV’s Mayberry on a Sunday morning is a pernicious myth. A reminder that two of the worst mass shooting in recent history took place in small towns: Uvalde, TX and Newtown, CT. As long as our gun laws are so lax, there will be mass shootings in towns large and small.
There have always been right-wing country stars. Klansmen have attended the Grand Ole Opry and some even played there. I don’t follow country music controversies that closely. This one reminds me of the 2003 shitstorm after the Dixie Chicks denounced George W Bush and his fool’s errand in Iraq.
This time, the negative reaction comes from the left: It’s the Dixie Chicks mishigas in reverse. Presumably, Aldean hopes to benefit from the right-wing backlash to the left-wing backlash to his tacky and bigoted video. It’s owning the libs, country music style.
Aldean’s response to the controversy has been disingenuous. Thus far he hasn’t said that he doesn’t have a racist bone in his body, but it’s bound to happen. It’s Trump’s stock defense to charges of bigotry and Aldean is just another Trumper in a cowboy hat.
The video for Try That In A Small Town is a political attack ad in musical drag. Does Aldean think he can scare people into buying his records or attending his concerts?
It’s time to trot out a venerable, well-worn, and overused Texas phrase: Aldean is all hat and no cattle. And that is why Jason Aldean is malaka of the week.
It’s time to put a liberal spin on the small town myth. The last word goes to John Mellencamp:
Some one in St. Bernard is already selling t-shirts that say “Try that in da’ Parish” according to an acquaintance who lives there. (Heidi shared it on Facebook).
Shouldn’t dat be dat?
“Doesn’t have ‘a’ racist bone” still allows the possiblity that one has “all” racist bones