Someone in Georgia attempted to run an unauthorized transaction using my credit card number. Yes I know this was probably the result of the grocery store I buy my dietary staples-Progresso soups and stir fry ingredients-having their credit card processing vendor cyber-attacked, it feeds well into my disdain for the South. So why not make a completely inappropriate logical extension, shall we?
Recently Brad Paisley, whom I've been introduced to via the country music tastes of my fiancée (you make compromises when you’re in love. She gives equal time to my music on car trips so it's more than fair) put out a new album with the song Accidental Racist (can anyone accidentally have preconceived notions? "Oops I've fallen and now I assume deontological ethics to be flawed!"). I couldn't find a link to the song because YouTube is dominated by reaction videos to the song (Two Girls One Song?). If you don’t already know the what the premise of the song is, Brad Paisley’s character in this work of fiction is a gentleman from the South who feels he is judged for wearing a t-shirt bearing the flag of the Confederate States of America, which was the official name for the bad guys in the Civil War. For you non-history buffs, they were the vampires Abraham Lincoln fought so diligently to defeat. The song is a “duet” in the sense that he and LL Cool J are combined into the same song in the sense that Paisley’s soothing country vocal verses are juxtaposed with Mr. J’s (non-fool pitying) rapped verses in a similar way one could try to make a soup-sandwich. The Onion AV Club said it best that the song itself is a hate crime, but don't worry, LL Cool J forgives Brad Paisley in the song as duly appointed "King of All Black People In America." Something new in the dialogue to me was the persistent fascination of the South with this symbol:
The “Stars and Bars” often waved and worn by folks who sympathize with the Southern United States cause of the 1860’s of state’s rights at various athletic, concert, or Jefferson Davis’ birthday events has a most fascinating history well after the South was put in timeout and forced to say sorry for being rambunctious in trying to break up the only free-ish democracy on the planet at the time. Simply put, I don’t understand why anyone would want to slap that flag emblem on anything and parade around in it proud of what it once stood or has come to mean.
First of all, they clearly just jacked the design from Scots in trying to reuse the played out St. Andrews Cross.
BORE-RING! They did try to steal the stars as state symbols from Betsy Ross, which is ironic because she was from Philly and her flag originality can’t be beat. So not only was it passé, they reverted back to the British for design. How unpatriotic is that?! That’s like getting your ex-girlfriend's name tattooed back on your arm but with a slightly different spelling. I assume this was the first instance where the South tried to say the States Rights argument wasn't about slavery by passing over the first design showing a plantation owner sitting on a throne made of slaves assembled Voltron-style on a green background.
So how is it possible for smart, fun, and good people of the South in 2013 to not make the association of that dull as door-knobs flag with the terrible human suffering of the day? Is it just a cognitive disconnect? I don't think there's another instance in the world where oppressors are honored by successive generations by parading around in their costumery at annual re-enactments. I mean Germans have long distanced themselves from Nazi symbols. In fact it’d be a crime in Germany to wear a shirt supporting the Windsor Canada hockey team of 1905-1916 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windsor_Swastikas
So back to the song’s point being made by Brad Paisley. I’m afraid I do get the right to automatically associate people who proudly display that flag with the decades of racists and bigots who also waved it proudly after the Civil War in the name of White Supremacy and steer well clear of them. People who say it’s part of their heritage and take umbrage at people like me for thinking that way should really target their anger towards the people that sullied the “good name” of the Confederacy by acting on hate and ignorance. Score points for Texas in not falling into that trap and getting behind their own state flag rather than an antiquated one. After all, we all know this is now the official flag of the South, anyway:
Your friend,
A.J.
No comments:
Post a Comment