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   From: nowomr@protonmail.com   
      
    Country music: An ugly past and troublesome present   
   by Katie Beekman June 17, 2020	   
      
      
      
   Black squares. Thoughts and prayers. Heart emojis and hashtags. That about   
   sums up the country music community’s response to the recent uprisings for   
   racial justice that were sparked by the murders of George Floyd, Breonna   
   Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and so many others. Instead of using their platforms to   
   advocate for change and denounce white supremacy, many country artists have   
   been reprehensibly quiet.   
      
   As a longtime fan of the genre, I’d be lying if I said I was surprised by the   
   silence. Artists’ flowery calls for “peace” and “unity” might as well be   
   plucked from the lyrics of hit songs like Tim McGraw’s “Humble and Kind” or   
   Luke Bryan’s “Most People Are Good.” Fear of backlash for taking a stance is   
   so prevalent in country music, the presumed resulting downfall for doing so   
   has its own verb: getting “Getting Dixie Chicked.” But don’t get me wrong.   
   This isn’t the time to lament artists’ avoidance of anything “political” or   
   make excuses for a culture that skirts around the “controversial.” It’s time   
   to get specific. We need to talk about country music’s relationship with   
   white supremacy.   
      
   Before there was “country music” and “R&B,” there was “hillbilly” or “old   
   time” music and “race records.” “Hillbilly music” was strictly sung by white   
   people, while “race records” were exclusively recorded by Black people. But   
   the music itself? It was all the same kind of sound. Predominantly poor   
   Southerners, white and Black, had been swapping songs, techniques and styles   
   for years. Long before the recording industry, which got its start in the   
   1920s, could officially start to segregate the music by using different   
   labels. Hank Williams, for example, learned to play guitar from the Black   
   street performer Rufus “Tee-Tot” Payne. Lesley Riddle, a Black musician,   
   accompanied A.P. Carter of the Carter Family on song-collecting trips   
   throughout Appalachia.   
      
   Of course, appropriation is important to this story too. Few people know of   
   “Tee-Tot” Payne or Lesley Riddle, but Hank Williams and the Carter Family are   
   country music legends. How many other influential Black musicians have been   
   forgotten, only to have their contributions live on, credited to white   
   performers? The history of the banjo provides another example. Today, the   
   banjo is a decidedly country instrument associated with whiteness. But it has   
   African origins. The banjo was a plantation instrument solely played by   
   enslaved people decades before blackface entertainers popularized it in   
   minstrel shows in the 1830s.   
      
   The institutions dedicated to telling country music’s story have played a   
   part in preserving the myth of its essential whiteness. Three out of the 139   
   members of the Country Music Hall of Fame are Black. The label executives who   
   guide country music’s future have contributed as well. When Charley Pride was   
   first releasing records in 1967, his label didn’t send promotional pictures   
   of him to radio. Darius Rucker’s country career was only made possible by his   
   previous success as the Hootie and the Blowfish frontman. The narratives   
   surrounding the careers of newcomers Kane Brown and Jimmie Allen are examples   
   of this too. As successful Black country artists, they have been tokenized —   
   simultaneously used to represent industry “inclusion” and made to feel like   
   they don’t belong. This is acutely insulting when so many hit songs on   
   country radio today are heavily influenced by hip hop and R&B. Thomas Rhett’s   
   rise to fame was bolstered by synths and drum machines. Sam Hunt literally   
   raps on almost all of his songs. Their acceptance as “country” has been met   
   with criticism, but Rhett and Hunt, both white, have been accepted   
   nonetheless. The same can’t be said for Lil Nas X. “Old Town Road” was   
   excluded from Billboard’s Hot Country chart for “not being country enough” —   
   a move that echoes the decision to separate genres by race from nearly 100   
   years ago.   
      
   This history has cultivated a culture that is not only unwelcoming of non-   
   whiteness, but distinctly anti-Black. A few weeks ago, I came across a post   
   that some of country’s more outspoken artists were sharing on their Instagram   
   stories. Rachel Berry, a Black country music lover, shared the nervousness   
   she’s experienced while attending concerts. Before buying tickets, she looks   
   up “the name of the town/city and then ‘racism,’” when she wants to stand up   
   for a song, she worries “‘what if someone yells a racial slur at me?’” and   
   when she walks through a festival full of confederate flags, Berry writes   
   that she feels “uneasy.” Her story went viral and for good reason. Everything   
   she wrote seems obvious upon reading it. But having gone to quite a few   
   country music concerts myself, I have to confront the less obvious fact that   
   my whiteness has shielded me from those kinds of worries. When I’ve seen   
   confederate flags waving in the parking lot of a concert venue or printed on   
   a fan’s T-shirt, I have had the privilege of merely looking away. How many   
   Black country fans haven’t seen their favorite artists in concert for their   
   own safety?   
      
   In a similar vein, how many Black country artists haven’t been given the   
   chance to be seen? Unsurprisingly, many of the racial justice movement’s   
   biggest advocates in country music have been Black country artists   
   themselves. Every single day since George Floyd’s murder, I’ve watched Mickey   
   Guyton speak out, share information, write articles, give interviews and   
   release her new, timely song “Black Like Me.” She shouldn’t have to educate   
   the industry that has, for the most part, rejected her talent, but that’s   
   what she’s been doing. Alongside fellow Black country artists like Rissi   
   Palmer and Rhiannon Giddens, Guyton is demonstrating the importance of Black   
   women specifically in country music. While Black men have been tokenized,   
   Black women have been excluded almost entirely.   
      
   Unequivocally, Black people belong in country music. Giving in to the idea   
   that country music is “white music” means giving up on Black country artists,   
   Black country fans, country music’s real, albeit messy, history and the   
   essence of country music itself — telling the truth.   
      
   The widespread use of sayings like “anything but country” prove that the   
   genre’s reputation remains rooted in whiteness. As Prof. Nadine Hubbs   
   explains in her book “Rednecks, Queers & Country Music,” that phrase works   
   because country music is not only associated with whiteness, but a particular   
   kind. The picture of the person you’re imagining, the stereotypical country   
   music fan, is layered with labels any “good” white person knows to avoid.   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)