04.09.13
WhiteManistan Pop
A fan tribute video which, it’s probably safe to say, is not exactly what Brad Paisley was aiming for.
Having pilloried Brad Paisley before, I’m delighted to find he’s embarrassed himself nationally with the lead single, “Accidental Racist,” off his new Wheelhouse record.
With “Southern Comfort Zone,” another single from the same record, Paisley has had a nervous breakdown over his southern identity. In response, he’s tried to make music that explains to the rest of us why the south isn’t so bad and that it’s hard being a white guy from there.
It’s an in-defense-of-Dixie shtick, something that endears him to his fans in country music while making everyone else laugh contemptuously at the rich pop music celebrity who’s made a song telling everyone he thinks the stars-and-bars flag is cool.
Like everyone from WhiteManistan Paisley doesn’t quite get why this is so.
Anyway, Brad Paisley has always thought of himself as quite the lyricist. In a guitar magazine he once laughably compared himself to Mark Twain. But he has neither the nerve nor incision of Sam Clemens and way too much stupid on hand.
So you get what Brad Paisley delivers, apparently serious songs that are very public embarrassments, which — nonetheless — are received well by his country audience.
If you look on chat board or comments sections, I would suspect his grass roots love his “Accidental Racist” and “Southern Comfort Zone” songs and are astonished, even enraged, that others would laugh at him.
Which fits one of the definitions of WhiteManistan. You can condemn the bozos all you want but they view condemnation as affirmation. They expect it. It defines who and what they are. It is a very real measure of the polarization over race and antique traditions in society and that there will be no reconciliation or reconstruction. This war is truly forever.
There is nothing complicated in the ideology of the current white right/south. It’s one of hate, very real confederacy against outsiders, paranoia, and white supremacy.
And Brad Paisley, because of his great commercial success, seems to have foolishly picked himself as someone who can be an explainer and a middleman, a moderate, for it to the rest of us.
He’s failed grandly although sales might not reflect it and Barack Obama might still invite him to play the White House on July 4 because Paisley is a safe southern man, not someone overcome with spittle-flecked rage who elects heirs to the spirit of John Wilkes Booth to the US House of Representatives.
“Accidental Racist??? appears on Paisley’s ninth studio album Wheelhouse, which debuts today,” reports the TIME magazine website. “[However], the video appears to have been pulled from the Internet.”
One might say Brad Paisley has accidentally reverse-Dixie-Chicked himself.
Geez, it’s tough being a southern white guy.
Dude from WhiteManistan describes the “Accidental Racist” conspiracy.