REVISITING ACCIDENTAL RACIST

Two years ago country artist Brad Paisley and rapper LL Cool J caused a stir when they released “Accidental Racist,” a ballad about racial imperception centered specifically around the “red flag.” Whether he meant to be or not, Paisley was prophetic. Here we are, two years later in the wake of an act of domestic terrorism debating the role of that red flag in creating the conditions in which these tragedies can occur.

Paisley got a lot of criticism, but I think he was trying to bridge a racial divide, and for that he deserves some credit. But after Charleston, I think it’s worth combing through his lyrics once again to see if there is more we can learn.

I used the website AZ lyrics to find these.

“To the man that waited on me at the Starbucks down on Main, I hope you understand. When I put on that t-shirt, the only thing I meant to say is I’m a Skynyrd fan. The red flag on my chest somehow is like the elephant in the corner of the south. And I just walked him right in the room. Just a proud rebel son with an “old can of worms. Lookin’ like I got a lot to learn but from my point of view.”

In his opening lines, Paisley admits he knows the truth about the flag, or at least he understand that others know the truth about the flag. He feels judged. But that doesn’t mean his use of the flag isn’t legitimate. He probably is simply a Skynyrd fan, and there probably aren’t conscious racial undertones to what that means to him.

“I’m just a white man comin’ to you from the southland. Tryin’ to understand what it’s like not to be. I’m proud of where I’m from but not everything we’ve done. And it ain’t like you and me can re-write history. Our generation didn’t start this nation. We’re still pickin’ up the pieces, walkin’ on eggshells, fightin’ over yesterday. And caught between southern pride and southern blame”

“They called it Reconstruction, fixed the buildings, dried some tears. We’re still siftin’ through the rubble after a hundred-fifty years. I try to put myself in your shoes and that’s a good place to begin. But it ain’t like I can walk a mile in someone else’s skin”

Repeat Chorus

Paisley says what many white men feel, that the flag is a symbol of his Southern heritage. I am a white Mississippian, and I do not feel that way, but many do. And I do feel Paisley’s pride in the south. There are tons of great things about my part of the country. But Paisley hits on two important themes: his more explicit acknowledgement of the south’s ugly past; and his well-intentioned, if futile, attempt to understand what the other side of the railroad tracks is like. LL Cool J now joins us.

“Dear Mr. White Man, I wish you understood. What the world is really like when you’re livin’ in the hood. Just because my pants are saggin’ doesn’t mean I’m up to no good. You should try to get to know me, I really wish you would. Now my chains are gold but I’m still misunderstood. I wasn’t there when Sherman’s March turned the south into firewood. I want you to get paid but be a slave I never could. Feel like a new fangled Django, dodgin’ invisible white hoods. So when I see that white cowboy hat, I’m thinkin’ it’s not all good. I guess we’re both guilty of judgin’ the cover, not the book. I’d love to buy you a beer, conversate and clear the air. But I see that red flag and I think you wish I wasn’t here.”

I’m not a black man, so I’m not totally comfortable speaking for black men, but I do have friends who echo LL Cool J’s sentiments, who feel as though they are not welcome when they see the Confederate flag. He also reinforces what Paisley has already admitted, that we, as white people, are not able to understand, empathize though we may, and we don’t always. He is still misunderstood, and too often, still dodging the invisible white hoods of systemic racism.

I’m just a white man

(If you don’t judge my do-rag)

Comin’ to you from the southland

(I won’t judge your red flag)

Tryin’ to understand what it’s like not to be

I’m proud of where I’m from

(If you don’t judge my gold chains)

But not everything we’ve done

(I’ll forget the iron chains)

it ain’t like you and me can re-write history

(Can’t re-write history baby)

Oh, Dixieland

(The relationship between the Mason-Dixon needs some fixin’)

I hope you understand what this is all about

(Quite frankly I’m a black Yankee but I’ve been thinkin’ about this lately)

I’m a son of the new south

(The past is the past, you feel me)

And I just want to make things right

(Let bygones be bygones)

Where all that’s left is southern pride

(R.I.P. Robert E. Lee but I’ve gotta thank Abraham Lincoln for freeing me, know what I mean).

It’s real, it’s real. It’s truth.

The last lines alternate between Paisley and Cool J (in). Paisley reiterates his desire to put himself in the other man’s shoes, his understanding of the south’s past and the flag’s meaning, and his desire to move forward.

But he also totally fails to hear what LL Cool J is trying to tell him. Despite his claim to be a son of the new south, and that he just wants to make things right, he ultimately misses the point. In fact, to an extent Cool J himself misses the point: If you don’t judge my do-rag, I won’t judge your red flag. Fair enough, except do-rags are not explicit images of criminality. As Paisley points out, many Southerners who present the flag in different manners are not racist, but they still display a symbol that is explicitly racist. Paisley knows it.

The effort at conversation and reconciliation is noble, but they did not push the needle far enough. Far from concluding that he can neither re-write history nor be a black man, Paisley almost wipes the whole issue away with a song that somehow manages to end with a shout out to Robert E. Lee. He gives us no indication that he understands the deep-seated and justified feelings of angst black people feel when they see the flag. It’s as if he can just acknowledge the symbolism of the flag as the source of that angst then he can explain away its real effects. I don’t think LL Cool J really pushes the point either, expressing an admirable desire for conversation and setting aside judgement without going so far as to say, get rid of that symbol. So if you’re a white guy wearing a red flag shirt, and a black person doesn’t want to talk to you then you can rectify the situation by simply saying, “no worries man, I know it’s a racist symbol, but I don’t mean it that way, we’re cool.”

And this is where the desire to create conversation fails to manifest as the end goal. Two years ago Brad Paisley and LL Cool J tried to hint at the power of the red flag. They each acknowledged the darkness inherent within it, but they don’t push past it, rather they erase it. An acknowledgement and a clean slate: the past is the past, you feel me?

Except when it isn’t. Except when the symbols of hatred still stand in places of honor giving legitimacy to their cause. No, not every red flag wearing white man is a racist. I grew up surrounded by the flag, and I understand how both implicitly and at times explicitly it is presented as a remnant of our heritage, not as a symbol of the Confederacy and the Klan. Paisley is correct in a sense, it is possible to be an accidental racist, at least to a point. Children internalize what is around them, we’re not born in tune with the racial reckonings of the world.

By Paisley’s own admission, he’s no longer an accidental racist. He understands what the flag represents and how it makes black people feel. He has learned its true meaning and its connections with violent racism, and yet he wears it anyway. Are the feelings of others more valid than his feelings? Maybe so, maybe not, but in this case the feelings of others are based in historical fact, and his in the warped reality of southern mythology that surrounds the flag.

Not everyone who wears the Confederate flag is a racist, but as it stands as an official and cultural symbol of southern heritage it inspires in some what it really stands for: murder in a church, and many similar such atrocities.

It’s time for us to stop being racist, accidentally or otherwise and acknowledge that no matter how any one of us may feel about the flag, we have much better things to be proud of as southerners, football and food foremost among them.If we’re going to build Paisley’s new south, it will be without Confederate trappings.

#RacialReconciliation