So LL Cool J and country singer Brad Paisley did a song called ‘Accidental Racist‘ where Paisley raps about why he rocks the confederate flag.. he says it’s about Southern pride and has nothing to do with the hateful past.. LL raps that he wishes white men wouldn’t judge him for wearing sagging pants.. He says if you don’t judge my doo rag, I’ll forget the iron chains..
I get the who notion of wanting to spark dialogue and wholeheartedly deal with racism.. but c’mon LL the iron chains can’t be forgotten.. especially since those chains never left.. Systemic oppression and the system of white supremacy never left..
Today its called the Prison Industrial Complex.. Today it’s called police terrorism where Black people are shot and killed every 36 Hours by law enforcement. Today’s its called the Rap Industrial Complex, where we have rich mostly white executives bombarding us and the world with the most vile and absolute coonish music the planet has ever seen..
Today those iron chains are replaced by one out of four Black folks in the US living below poverty thanks to continued land grab and pillaging in the form of fraudulent foreclosure, corporate tyranny and gentrification.
Maybe on an individual basis LL and Brad can get along.. and that’s nice.. the real enemy is still alive and well and ain’t listening to songs like this.. The sooner we all can separate corporate agendas and imperialism and those who represent it from average folks trying to do right, we might be better off.. But as it sits, many want their cake and eat it to…until then Brad Paisley can rock his confederate flag as soon as he gives back the economic resources his daddy stole from my daddy..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uC6Ev5o5r7Y
There is a valid point here Dave, but I think a lot of why Southerners rally around this symbol of the South is because as the losers in the war, they took on all of the guilt and blame for a war that wasn’t really about slavery for many of them.
My initial hunch was that owning slave was more of a middle class reality, and I don’t know if this data is to be trusted here http://civilwarcauses.org/stat.htm but if so, the % of families that owned slaves was something around 25%. Still a huge percentage, but that also would mean that a large majority of people didn’t own slaves (this isn’t taking into account the fact that an even larger % of people probably didn’t even have family in the South until after slavery was gone). Like most (all?) wars, it was poor fighting poor, and the historians fill in the “reasons” for the fighting after. I think most were protecting their land and kin, not their plantations and business interests.
I understand that the symbol of the Confederate flag is generally understand as a nod towards White Supremacy, and I wonder if there was a less divisive way for people to acknowledge their Southern pride if their could be a way for Southerners to show a pride that might not be thinly veiled, or “Accidental” racism.
In my limited experience in the South it now seems to be less segregated than the Bay Area-despite a lot of people’s impression that there is just a think veneer of Southern hospitality. I think people vote with their feet and most of the Southern states have higher %’s of African americans.
Maybe we are putting too much into people’s use of a symbol.
A lot of folks probably think of Daisy Duke before they think of slavery when they see the Confederate flag, sure, they’re idiots, but not necessarily racists.
My initial hunch was that owning slave was more of a middle class reality, and I don’t know if this data is to be trusted here http://civilwarcauses.org/stat.htm but if so, the % of families that owned slaves was something around 25%. Still a huge percentage, but that also would mean that a large majority of people didn’t own slaves (this isn’t taking into account the fact that an even larger % of people probably didn’t even have family in the South until after slavery was gone). Like most (all?) wars, it was poor fighting poor, and the historians fill in the “reasons” for the fighting after. I think most were protecting their land and kin, not their plantations and business interests.
I understand that the symbol of the Confederate flag is generally understand as a nod towards White Supremacy, and I wonder if there was a less divisive way for people to acknowledge their Southern pride if their could be a way for Southerners to show a pride that might not be thinly veiled, or “Accidental” racism.
In my limited experience in the South it now seems to be less segregated than the Bay Area-despite a lot of people’s impression that there is just a think veneer of Southern hospitality. I think people vote with their feet and most of the Southern states have higher %’s of African americans.
Maybe we are putting too much into people’s use of a symbol.
A lot of folks probably think of Daisy Duke before they think of slavery when they see the Confederate flag, sure, they’re idiots, but not necessarily racists.
Can ya’analyse it ‘en francaise’ please, when ya over whole the fact on symbolic partizipatin the drag of money in tha cell system for sure semitic stream lines on Louie the ville?
It can’t be, that the politics from millionaires to millionaires has the big blog on the casual print of such ‘bodily other_ing’ the deficit diets on never eat ma bread with ya…
Here we have a much better mode on consensus the artificial vandals unity with an International standard on movement: http://www.rhizomes.net/issue25/index.html
Salaam!
mattybeans,
I think your hunch is spot on to the fact that poor nonslave-owners fought for rich slave owners, but it was made possible because of race, “fight with your white race or be enslaved like nonwhites.” However, when you ask about being proud of Southern heritage I think the question that comes to mind is what does it mean to be “Southern”? While I can’t answer that question for those who hold that identity, if it is tied to the Confederacy then it is tied to racism, if it is about large houses on large farms (aka plantations) then it is about racism because those are the conditions of its birth. “The South,” in other words, could not have existed without slavery.
Where this leads us I do not know. But as Davey D points out, “until then Brad Paisley can rock his confederate flag as soon as he gives back the economic resources his daddy stole from my daddy..” that is, there will remain a rift until something about racial relationships and meanings have been addresses, either socially or the ever moving wheel of history. Whereas Brad and LL are trying to cover up their relationship.
Rob,
I don’t know that considering the percentages that I quoted, that your average Southerner feels that they need to take “stealing” from 150 years ago to heart. If their family wasn’t directly enriched by it, which it seems the majority of families were not.
I’d think that families that didn’t own slaves were probably often anti-slavery because of the challenge of competing against slave labor.
I don’t know what addressing racial relationships and meanings would ever mean on a grand-scale. It makes sense in a college seminar, but I wonder if there is much more than can be done in our country along these lines unless we consider things like the progeny of slavery, like the prison system, which should face massive reform.
Read Disunion in NY Times. White Southerners who did not own slaves feared a loss of their status to blacks. Read declarations of secession by Miss and other states. All mention slavery and the Vice President of Confederacy Alexander Stephens states that theirs is a better system since it is based on the belief that the Black race is inferior to the White race. He juxtaposes this with the Union’s belief that all men were created equal. Your statement that non-slave owners did not benefit seems to ignore the whole benefits of living in a system that provides white privilege. Germany paid war reparations to Jews yet many of their citizens may have never belonged to SS or may have opposed Hitler. The other problem I have is his thanking Lincoln. Does he know that there were US colored Troops? These brave patriots fought for their own freedom. LL Cool J should open a book or read the Disunion series in the NY Times. Basically, Cofederates were traitors to the Union. Plenty of Southerners fought for the Union. If LL opened a book he would know that Sherman was a Southerner. He was teaching at the Louisana Military institute when war broke out. He made a decision to remain a patriot. We have statues commemorating Southern generals but why none of Benedict Arnold? So what is Southern pride if so many Southerners stayed with the Union and fought for the Stars and Stripes? What is Southern pride if a whole state WV was created because those proud Southerners refused to fight the rich Plantation owners’ war? T
great post, those iron chains are placed on ALL people, just not Black. Wealth maybe blinded LL.
Reblogged this on IJusWanna Party and commented:
Read. Learn. Grow.
L.L. Cool J., like Lil Wayne, is simple-minded about our history; the reason they take events so lightly. The iron chains of slavery, backed by the power of the American government stole the humanity of Africans and African Americans and turned our ancestors into property to be bought and sold and worked and whipped like horses and cows. Wearing a doo-rag and/or sagging pant don’t have the affect of dehumanizing white folks. Such practice can not be considered oppressive to white folks, unless they were themselves forced to dress that way. No comparison, L.L. As for Brad Paisley, the Confederate flag, in truth, represents the violent attempt to maintain the immoral institution of slavery and “Southern pride.” The slave-holding economy was the Southern pride. There would be no Southern pride without it. Who could even imagine Southern pride without slaves. Also, that flag represents treason, rebellion against America; the same America that Brad pledges allegiance to. Poor simple-minded L.L. and Brad!
LL Cool J is too nestled into the Hollywood life style to care about the brutality his people suffered when those iron chains were placed on their neck, waist and angles.
true @rasha
And it still goes on…ask the brothaz in jail bout iron chains. LL is disrespectful to any of the forefathers who went through that kind of oppression or those who are incarcerated such as Mumia Abu Jamal or Mutulu Shakur for starters. Not good enough Mr Cool J, your last good album was 14 Shots To The Dome and Mr Smith. Since then your s–t is garbage with the exception of 4-3-2-1 which you introduced the world to your greater successor CANIBUS.
As I fore shadow never debatin the civil war death camps industrial complex, I will leave the critics on LL Cool J’s stocks into such the _Ism off into German narrated Cop filth frames on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critique_of_Practical_Reason
Against all identity fascist burdens…burn facist burn…
Maybe beating up a thief that broke into his house changed him but I haven’t bought a LL Cool J album in a long time.
The Wealthy European Americans benefitted from the business of slavery.People also forget slavery existed in the North. Who was selling all of this cotton for the White cotton barons? Wall Street Bankers and investors. Africans died making “Wall Street!”
Poor whites were the lumpen proletariat. Some working class, poor whites suffered from slavery because most of the value of their labor was undermined by the free labor of slaves. But they were afraid of African people because they had been brainwashed to feel that African people were inferior and they were superior. After the Civil War many white workers had to compete with black labor which led to Jim Crow. Some poor whites talk and eat the same foods as Southern blacks but to distinguish themselves and appear better, they use racism, terrorism and ignorance to suppress and depress African people, things we now do to each other.
I think it would have been better for LL to make a song about black on black crime.
I could see where these two musical artists were trying to make a song about acceptance but it’s a poor attempt.
Thuggery is just as bad as Confederacy – white supremacy. Now some people use their circumstances to make something positive but I can’t support LL on this. I love rap, but we need to be more conscious of what we are doing. I’ve had to think about the music I like and what impact it has had on communities and lives and had to ask myself, “What am I really supporting when I purchase this product – entertainment?” The struggle for equality in the U.S. and the world is not over. There is a lot of good music out right now but you won’t here it on the radio.
thats wassup…