L.Z. Granderson is an opinion writer on CNN.com that my wife and I occasionally read. Today he wrote a piece called “Why can't country music deal with race?” It’s an interesting question. But is it a valid one? I really don’t think so. As a matter of fact, I believe Mr. Granderson errs on several levels and his column reveals some prejudices of his own.
Granderson recounts how he learned about a particular battle in Vietnam, not in school or from a textbook but rather from a country song by Big and Rich. He lists several popular artists that he enjoys but laments, “…that so few artists will sing about the one glaring aspect of life in the country that greatly defines how many Americans view the genre -- and that is race.”
As I read Granderson’s words, the lyrics to the Brad Paisley song “Welcome to the Future” immediately came to mind.
I had a friend in school,
Running-back on a football team,
They burned a cross in his front yard
For asking out the home-coming queen.
I thought about him today,
Everybody who's seen what he's seen,
From a woman on a bus
To a man with a dream.
He-e-ey...
Wake up Martin Luther.
Welcome to the future.
He-e-ey...
Glory glory hallelujah.
Welcome to the future.
Then a few minutes later, I received an email from my wife with a link to the column. She wanted to make sure that I had seen it. We discussed it later when I got home and she said that she had also thought of the Paisley song.
Granderson argues the point that it would be very useful for country music to find the courage to take on the issue of race. He writes,
I've met some amazing people in the country
music field: Good folks without a racist bone in
their body. But they have seen and heard and
lived through some disturbing things. They, too,
have a point of view, a story. I wish the music
would tell it. Not just for the sake of the artists,
but for the millions of white Americans who come
from small towns, listen to country music and
should not be viewed as social pariahs by the rest
of the nation because of it.
Acknowledging racism does not perpetuate it but
rather exposes the disease where it festers and
hides. And just as "The 8th of November" taught
me something about the Vietnam War, country
music can remind people not to allow the
stereotypical few to unfairly define the whole.
Unfortunately for Granderson, he is guilty of the very thing of which he accuses country music. Apparently he holds some significant stereotypes of his own regarding the South, small town America, and country music. Country music fans are “…viewed as pariahs by the rest of the country…” Really? What an elitist thing to say!
The problem is that today’s country music artists are young and, unlike Mr. Granderson and others who continue to view the world through the prism of race, they have moved on. They feel no need to atone for sins that they didn’t commit.
In his chart topping hit, Songs About Me, Trace Adkins answers the question “Whatever makes you want to sings stuff like that?” by saying, “Cuz they’re songs about me. Songs about lovin’ and livin’ and good-hearted women, and family and God. Yeah they’re songs about me.” Instead of asking why country music doesn’t discuss race and racism, I think L.Z Granderson’s considerable talent as a writer would better serve African Americans and indeed the nation as a whole by asking the question, “Why won’t rap and hip hop artists sing about the things Trace Adkins sings about?”
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