The recent collaboration between Brad Paisley and LL Cool J is still making waves throughout the blogosphere/twitterverse/interwebs, and rightfully so. It’s simultaneously hilarious and dreadful. And that is always a potent combination.
But let it be known that “The Accidental Racist” is also just racist:
I can understand why an artist like Paisley would be attracted to an artist like LL Cool J. I can’t for the life of me understand why he’d choose LL Cool J to begin “a conversation” to reconcile. Rap is overrun with artists who’ve spent some portion of their career attempting to have “a conversation.” There’s Chuck D. There’s Big Daddy Kane. There’s KRS-ONE. There’s Talib. There’s Mos Def. There’s Kendrick Lamar. There’s Black Thought. There’s Dead Prez. And so on.
In an artform distinguished by a critical mass concerned with racism, LL’s work is distinguished by its lack of concern. Which is fine. “Pink Cookies” is dope. “Booming System” is dope. “I Shot Ya” is dope. I even rock that “Who Do You Love” joint. But I wouldn’t call up Talib Kweli to record a song about gang violence in L.A., and I wouldn’t call up KRS-ONE to drop a verse on a love ballad. The only real reason to call up LL is that he is black and thus must have something insightful to say about the Confederate Flag.
The assumption that there is no real difference among black people is exactly what racism is.
Coates is absolutely right in that Paisley’s selection of Cool James is, well, accidentally racist – insofar as the only possible explanation for the selection is that the latter is a black man, and that the former is simply looking for ways to make black slavery comfortable to present-day white men. But sometimes there is no comfort to be found. And sometimes there is no conversation worth having.
The very idea that a white man and a black man can “work it out” is somewhat offensive on historical grounds, at least as I see it. For there really is nothing to work out. When someone starts from where Paisley seems to be starting, middle ground is impossible. But in fact Paisley is the one – crucially, the only one – who needs to do the changing. A real answer to Paisley’s question “How do I show my Southern pride? What is offensive to you?” would be this: what’s offensive is that “your southern pride” isn’t actually southern pride; it’s white pride, and that, by definition, is both racist and offensive.
Wearing a Confederate Flag, and having the audacity to equate that with “The South,” is unequivocally racist. There are many Souths, as Coates perceptibly points out. The fact that Paisley chooses this one as his South is therefore telling. If he wants to change, the only correct thing for him to do is take off his CSA shirt, burn it, and accept history as something other than comforting. But he’s of course not willing to do that. This “conversation” is his way of insisting that he has no interest in changing. He’s merely looking for black validation to keep wearing the goddamn shirt.
Put another way, a real answer to Paisley’s query is to say “fuck you.” It’s not really black people’s jobs to provide validation to white people’s racial pride. It’s not really anyone’s job, frankly. In the end, if Brad Paisley and all the other assholes who want to wear Confederate Flag t-shirts want to have a conversation, they’d best begin by changing both their shirts and minds. Because “their” South – and “their” U.S. history – is exclusive. And that’s unacceptable.
