In the wake of the announcement of acclaimed country music singer Brad Paisley’s return to Atlanta in the summer of 2014, one wonders if the tensions in his song “The Accidental Racist” on his last album Wheelhouse reflecting on the still prevalent silence on the effects of racism and the Civil War is still on the minds of music fans.
With regard to this issue, the words of Toni Morrison, in her essay “Playing in the Dark” comes to mind. http://www.amazon.com/Playing-Dark-Whiteness-Literary-Imagination/dp/0679745424 While regarding race in literature she states that “it is further complicated by the fact that the habit of ignoring race is understood to be a graceful, even generous, liberal gesture. To notice is to recognize an already discredited difference. To enforce its invisibility through silence is to allow the black body a shadowless participation in the dominant cultural body. According to this logic, every well-bred instinct argues against noticing and forecloses adult discourse.” We can utilize this statement in examination of not only a vast amount of literature, but can also extend the net to include other forms of art as well.
In 2012, Brad Paisley teamed up with acclaimed rap singer LL Cool J, to write with Lee Thomas Miller, for Paisley’s new album Wheelhouse, a song penned “The Accidental Racist,” which brings to the surface how damaging ignoring race and all of the discord in the past that Morrison spoke of still can be. Paisley speaks in a stream of consciousness style as a southern man wearing a Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt with a Confederate flag on it walking into a Starbucks feels immediate tension. LL Cool J responds to it also in unspoken conversation. Examples of the lyrics are:
Brad Paisley: “…the only thing I meant to say is I’m a Skynyrd fan. The red flag on my chest is somehow like the elephant in the corner of the South… I’m proud of where I’m from, but not everything we’ve done. It ain’t like you and me to rewrite history.”
LL Cool J: “You should try to get to know me, I really wish you would. Now my chains are gold, but I’m still misunderstood.”
Interestingly, though the song was construed of thoughts and not the conversation it could have been, it still ensued a large reaction and controversy in the media. Critics extensively panned both Paisley and LL Cool J in their efforts to speak on the issue that people apparently wish to remain unspoken. One of the biggest criticisms (though there were many) came from Billboard Magazine’s Jason Lipshutz when he stated that although the song obviously had good intentions it “fails to become more than a flat-footed apology for hate-induced uneasiness.” One of the harshest criticisms was directed at one of LL Cool J’s verses when Lipshutz stated that his line about the gold chains versus slavery’s iron chains was “the most downright offensive line. Maybe…’forget’ is the wrong verb to use in this line? Does anyone really want to ‘forget’ the horrors of slavery instead of learn from them?” http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop-shop/1556654/brad-paisleys-accidental-racist-ll-cool-js-10-craziest-lyrics In response to Lipshutz, Morrison may counter that if discussion or addressing of issues is shut down, than how can we possibly learn from the horrific choices or mistakes that were made?
Education and knowledge seems to be the pervasive power than can penetrate through ignorance that would include prejudice and racism. If art and literature act as the creative medium where issues can be discussed and analyzed, but those actions are then suppressed, then how possibly can we be educated as to the human condition. Morrison’s words in “Playing in the Dark” on how …”ignoring race is understood to be a graceful, even generous, liberal gesture,” but addressing it and trying to discuss the feelings surrounding it unfortunately causes discourse certainly does ring true in this issue surrounding “The Accidental Racist” as Paisley and LL Cool J have learned.