Dear Gossips,   

Not that I really want to but we have to talk more about Jason Aldean. Last week the video for his song, “Try That in a Small Town” was pulled from rotation on CMT because the song and video are racist. Variety’s chief music critic Chris Willman called it “the most contemptible country song of the decade”. 

 

As Stephanie addressed in her post about the controversy last week, Jason has denied that “Try That in a Small Town” is about race, despite so much evidence to the contrary and all the dog whistles in the lyrics and the video. But this weekend, while on stage in Cincinnati, he told the crowd that “everyone is entitled to their own opinion” and that people can think what they want, it doesn’t mean it’s true before declaring himself a proud American and that: 

“I love our country; I want to see it restored to what it once was before all this bullsh-t started happening to us.”

Well, there’s another dog whistle. White supremacists do this all the time – reminisce about how much better things used to be, before marginalised and oppressed people resisted, before they started demanding equality, before they mobilised to fight for their rights. BEFORE. The good old days of BEFORE. 

 

“Before all this bullsh-t starting happening to us” – “us” of course being the white people who are now being asked to learn, grow, change, and share. How terrible for them. In his song, Jason Aldean is calling out to white nationalists to protect the sick legacy of colonisation, and using his song to fuel the violent fantasy of white retribution. He might say that his music is being misrepresented, but the lyrics and the imagery unmistakably points to his intention. 

Here's yet another example – a clip that is still on his social media pages that was shared this weekend to show, once again, that there is really only one way to read into the song: 

Yours in gossip, 

Lainey