http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_qbt1EVuw8
Brad Paisley's new song featuring LL Cool J has caused quite the stir on social media sites today.
The song is called Accidental Racist, and outlines how people may appear to be different than they are.
At least in my interpretation.
It starts as Paisley is in a coffee shop, wearing a Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt with the Confederate flag on it, and the man getting his coffee is LL Cool J, a black man. Paisley sings about how to him, it's just a Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt, and it's a part of the history of the south. They go on to sing how the past can't be re-written, and often times we're walking on eggshells to avoid accidentally offending someone we may not even know because of the history of our country and the different ways we all grow up.
Now, this won't be my new favorite song, but it honestly has a really good point. I don't know how many times I've accidentally offended people or felt like I've offended people after I have moved to the big city. Being from a small town, where you know everyone and there isn't anyone you'd offend, it can be a culture shock to learn the term "oriental" is no longer socially acceptable.
However, people on the Twittersphere and YouTubeland are saying how the Confederate flag is the equivalent of the swastika in America, and if you can't understand other people's point of view you're an ignorant racist, who doesn't deserve the time of day. Also, people think the song is about how hard it is to be a white man in America.
I don't agree with any of these points.
Yes, there were slaves under the Confederate flag. Yes, there was oppression. Yes, all of these things were terrible. However, that is not what the flag stood for. The Confederate flag stood for making a stand against the government that they believed to be tyrannical and oppressive. And in case you forgot, there were slaves and oppression under the United States flag that we see today. Now, we see slavery in the form of young girls sold at truck stops for sex trafficking. There's a lot less being said about that, isn't there?
Yes, people come from different backgrounds. Yes, people should be accepting. But this does not mean that you can know everything about a person, including what offends them before you talk to them for a long time. We all come from different places. I grew up around primarily white people, but not in a racist community by any means. Because of this, I don't get offended easily. I don't know what the politically correct terms are. I don't care if you call me a Kraut or a cracker. But that doesn't mean that I would call anybody else that, either. Especially if I knew that they thought it was offensive.
No, the song is not about how it's hard to be white. "Oh woe is the white man." Not even close. It's talking about how we have a past as a nation, and it's not pretty. But if we can't get over that past and quit getting offended by things that don't matter, we won't have a pretty future, either.
One point I would like to make, is that people think this song is offensive. Okay. Yeah, it's intense, but I don't think it's racist. You know what I do think is racist? All of these songs saying nigger this, and nigger that. It's now okay to make songs about Niggas in Paris and You A Stupid Hoe, but we can't make songs about how we're sorry if we accidentally offend someone? We can call girls bitch, hoe, cunt, twat, slampiece, what have you, but we can't display the Confederate flag? The inconsistency of our society maddens me. I refuse to accept that it is okay for me to be called a bitch, yet not for me to say something sounds Oriental. Or for you to say nigger, but not to display the Confederate flag.
This has been the latest from ChrissyJoy.
