/townhall/ - Townhall

>>12246
I'm generally opposed to ascribing "Dogwhistles" to anything, as it inevitably seems to me to be chucking out benefit of the doubt and only serves in a practical sense to further divide sides.

I would say it's political, but something being "political" is hardly a grand sin.
And I would certainly say that many have a mistaken presumption that rural areas are racist, or otherwise conflating the two.

>>12247
>inevitably seems to me to be chucking out benefit of the doubt and only serves in a practical sense to further divide sides.
I see.

>I would say it's political, but something being "political" is hardly a grand sin.
No, but it is common to criticize popular media for being political, I guess where it occurs in a space not designed for politics.

>many have a mistaken presumption that rural areas are racist, or otherwise conflating the two.
I do think it must be at least overgeneral to assume rural people will be racist or intolerant.  Even though I grew up in a rural area, I may have this prejudice and I suppose I need to work on it.

My take is that there is this culture of big dick posturing at perceived threats from strawmen that is just really obnoxious now and every single media outlet seems to think I'm supposed to have some opinion besides "I have never heard of Jason Aldean and I don't care what his opinion is on hot button issues from 5 years ago."

I think the sheer number of dog whistles in that video makes it a real stretch to belive it was unintentional, especially considering the lyrics of the song and what they are juxtaposed against in images in the music video. And yes, both events in Colombia Tennessee are historic events. I find the attempts to pretend like racism isn't a deeply traditional part of rural southern communities completely laughable.

Also while songs that raise up small town culture above big cities has been a staple of country music for the past century (many of them adapted from old minstrel shows performed in blackface by white musicians singing songs where a former slaves pines for the days before emancipation), this particular song seems to implicitly call on people who aren't law enforcement to enact violence on people who haven't broken any laws.

This is literally a song with lyrics stating that if you either burn an American flag in front of the vocalist or protest against police brutality in front of the vocalist that he will murder you as a consequence. And that he'll murder you if you venture into his perceived territory if you're a type of person given your voice, appearance, and the like that he finds threatening. It's all meant in absolute, direct sincerity. This is an objective statement of fact on his part.

This is not a matter of "dog whistles". It's clear-cut incitement to political violence stated as explicit threats. The closest musical I comparison I can think of is to this:

>

I can defend both pieces of music as a matter of freedom of speech, and I do. I'm not going to deny what they are, though. I really hate living in a post-truth, post-factual, and post-reality world where somehow you have to pretend that '2+2=5' and reality doesn't matter if somebody's opinion doesn't match the reality. Still, well, if a singer wants to give such a message, that's up to them. Freedom of expression. It's important.

>>12257

>I can defend both pieces of music as a matter of freedom of speech, and I do. I'm not going to deny what they are, though. I really hate living in a post-truth, post-factual, and post-reality world where somehow you have to pretend that '2+2=5'

This.

Respecting someone's right to free speech or freedom of opinion or whatever doesn't imply that the speech or opinion itself must be respected or even respected as logically valid or sound or treated like it's in good faith.

The all time best country song made by the artist as a deliberate insult to troll people, in my opinion, is still:

>>12257
>This is literally a song with lyrics stating that if you either burn an American flag in front of the vocalist or protest against police brutality in front of the vocalist that he will murder you as a consequence.
This is most certainly an uncharitable stretch, in the extreme.

While I can certainly understand the belief it's encouraging vigilantism, or praising violence, to say it is "literally" calling for murder of those who "protest against police brutality" is stretching the realm of credulity.

Going on to claim it's an 'objective statement' comes across as woefully dishonest, as a consequence.

>>12255
> I find the attempts to pretend like racism isn't a deeply traditional part of rural southern communities completely laughable.
Personally, I find the presupposition distinctly metropolitan.

The greatest racism I have ever seen has consistently been in northern territories. Not southern ones.
This has largely been because, at the end of the day, the population spreads are quite different. The flat reality is, they have to work with those of different races, shop with them, get their food from them, and so on.
Unlike what you find in northern cities, you don't have populations split off and segregated to the point of getting harassed if they ever should go outside those areas.

I won't deny that racism occurs, as it does anywhere. But the notion it's somehow greater in southern communities is one that rather clearly comes from outside these areas, from folk who've never set foot in the region, and have more interest patting themselves on the back than actually addressing racial issues in the country.

>>12265
Read the lyrics. You're engaged in something that honestly sounds like denialism by pretending that the lyrics aren't what they are.

>>12270
I have done so, as I was quite skeptical to your claim. Thus my position that it seems to be an extreme stretch, pushing the bounds of credulity.

>>12276
"Cuss out a cop, spit in his face
Stomp on the flag and light it up
Yeah, ya think you're tough
Well, try that in a small town
See how far ya make it down the road"

To be honest, the right-wing denialism that you're currently engaged in is so common that I find political discussions to be largely futile and meaningless these days. It doesn't matter what facts are. If right-wing ideology says that something must be so, then it's so. Reality be dammed.

Does it matter that the Earth isn't flat? That climate change is real? That there is no evil Jewish-LGBT conspiracy to recruit and groom children? That vaccines don't cause autism? And so on? I guess not. If right-wing beliefs say that 2+2=5, then 2+2=5. You can even see outright denial that lyrics mean what they say that they mean. *Sighs*.

>>12266

I meant in the sense of racism as a worldview of a white supremacist social order. The south has a long history of white people treating black people with some modicum of respect so long as black people know their place within that social order. I mean, it hasn't even been a century since Jim Crow laws were judged unconstitutional, the traditional culture of the south significantly predates that.

And being from the south having been born only a little over a couple decades since the end of the Jim Crow era, and only a little over a decade since the end of the civil rights, in the south, with a conservative family, I am well aware that the end of the Jim Crow era didn't just change everyone's minds overnight, or in many cases, at all, and it certainly didn't change the existing culture overnight either.

>>12277
As with most things, yes, if you selectively remove only the portions that aid your position, removing context or surrounding aspects, it can make it look worse.
The verse directly before that rather shows there's more than just spitting in the face of a cop, or stomping a flag.

And this leaves aside the claim of if you "protest against police brutality in front of the vocalist that he will murder you as a consequence", as you claimed here>>12257 , which of course your quotation here besides does not show.
To be flat about it; That claim was a lie.
You take the stance of "reality", while as an objective statement of fact claiming something that did not occur, regardless of your personal interpretation, as though it were "literally" so.

I have little care about the posturing of "truth" from one who demonstrates such a clear disregard for it.

For transparency's sake, here is the full lyrics;

Sucker punch somebody on a sidewalk
Carjack an old lady at a red light
Pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store
Ya think it's cool, well, act a fool if ya like
Cuss out a cop, spit in his face
Stomp on the flag and light it up
Yeah, ya think you're tough
Well, try that in a small town
See how far ya make it down the road
Around here, we take care of our own
You cross that line, it won't take long
For you to find out, I recommend you don't
Try that in a small town
Got a gun that my granddad gave me
They say one day they're gonna round up
Well, that shit might fly in the city, good luck
Try that in a small town
See how far ya make it down the road
Around here, we take care of our own
You cross that line, it won't take long
For you to find out, I recommend you don't
Try that in a small town
Full of good ol' boys, raised up right
If you're looking for a fight
Try that in a small town
Try that in a small town
Try that in a small town
See how far ya make it down the road
Around here, we take care of our own
You cross that line, it won't take long
For you to find out, I recommend you don't
Try that in a small town
Try that in a small town
Ooh-ooh
Try that in a small town

>>12283
>I meant in the sense of racism as a worldview of a white supremacist social order. The south has a long history of white people treating black people with some modicum of respect so long as black people know their place within that social order.
I suppose it will depend heavily on what we mean by "white supremacist social order", and "knowing their place within that social order".
Unfortunately, such items are incredibly nebulous, easy to maneuver to "unconscious" or similar matters, and so rather cause difficulty nailing down as to the objections.

Much of my contention with the depiction of the south as racist stems from that.
I prefer more tangible aspects, in how people are treated individually.
And, in the end, I dare say I'd rather live in a place where I could work, eat, shop, and so on unmolested, to one where being in the 'wrong' area for my 'kind' may get the police called on me.

>>12293
>Unfortunately, such items are incredibly nebulous, easy to maneuver to "unconscious" or similar matters, and so rather cause difficulty nailing down as to the objections.

I mean it's not the least bit nebulous, in a white supremacist social order, white people are supreme, that is on the top of the social hierarchy. In that social order, all other races are expected to be subordinate to white people. Black people are expected to stay on their side of town, but work minimum wage jobs for white people in the south and act as subservient as possible in presence of whites. The only difference between the past and the present is that it's unofficially enforced now rather than officially enforced by law.

It's extra insidious because it's immune to the mere exposure effect. It creates benign racism. It's not just basic xenophobia, it's a whole ideological worldview that is very much a part of traditional southern culture. I grew up with it down there Not even that long ago, the 1980s and 1990s to be exact, and a lot of people in my who were around for the civil rights movement believed it was supposed to be the natural order. And it's not like that generation of white southerners are all passed away at this point.

>I prefer more tangible aspects, in how people are treated individually.

That sounds like deliberate ignorance to me considering how people are treated individually if they so happen to violate that social order.

>And, in the end, I dare say I'd rather live in a place where I could work, eat, shop, and so on unmolested, to one where being in the 'wrong' area for my 'kind' may get the police called on me.

Which is still happening all over the place for black people in the south, only not as officially as it was during Jim Crow.

Seriously this willful ignorance is seriously spineless.

>>12292
It's astonishing to me that we're both literally viewing the same lyrics and yet your ideological denialism demands that you simply pretend that the words don't mean what they say in plain English because your politics says so.

I'm really not sure what to say.

I wish I didn't have to coexist in the same country as you since if my corpse was lying bleeding on the ground you'd just walk right past it because your politics would tell you to do so. That's griping, though. Talking is futile. See you later.

>>12295
>I mean it's not the least bit nebulous, in a white supremacist social order, white people are supreme, that is on the top of the social hierarchy. In that social order, all other races are expected to be subordinate to white people.
Right, if that's the framework we're operating from, I would say flatly that it is not the case here, and I've seen nothing whatsoever to suggest it is in my many, many years of living in the south.

I can't speak to your personal experiences, but I can tell you that the black folk I've worked with have gotten the same paycheck as any other white folk, they aren't obligated to stay on any particular "side" of town, and they most certainly are not expected to "act as subservient as possible", either.

To be quite frank, I find the claim extremely unlikely. But I grant it is possible you've come from a particularly uncommon and uniquely horrible location. Nonetheless, I would certainly say it does not represent any experience I've had with the south.

>Seriously this willful ignorance is seriously spineless.
Only if we presume your claims of what is occurring is accurate.

As I most certainly have no cause to believe such, doubly as it runs directly contrary to my observed reality in my daily life living in the region, I most certainly would not consider it "spineless".
I would however regard such accusations as exceptionally hostile, and doubly so when made on such faulty presumptions.

I would hope that wasn't your intent, but I am sure you can understand that such insulting rhetoric rather strikes so, nonetheless.

>>12299
>I wish I didn't have to coexist in the same country as you since if my corpse was lying bleeding on the ground you'd just walk right past it because your politics would tell you to do so.
I, too, wish so many people who would make such hostile presumptions over disagreements weren't so common in this country.

Alas, the kind of folk as you who'd assume someone a monster because they disagree with them are a dime a dozen these days.
It gives me worry for the future, as it seems such disregard for their own fellow man is liable to only escalate political division.

>My question: is this song political, problematic, or even dog-whistle support for lynching, as some say?  Or are people too quick to judge, or perhaps inappropriately associating rural American solidarity and or small-town culture with racism?

The song is a statement and perhaps a message, but also it's largely grandstanding and posturing, delivering threats you can't back up to strawmen that don't exist.  An empty calories feel good song for the "good ol' boys".  If it actually gets people to stop carjacking, that would be great, but more likely is it makes people want to stop carjackings, only to never encounter one, and at worst they may go on some perverse patrol to find someone they declare dangerous after a night of heavy drinking.