Punk Politics #111 That song is racist not praxis

So by now we’ve all heard or at least heard about “the new working class anthem” aren’t ya fuckin excited. Yes, following in the great tradition of Joe Hill, Billy Bragg and many others emerges an illiterate white dude with a song that has enough coded racism that I’m calling him radio friendly Johnny Rebel. I don’t mean the southern proud term, dude just made explicitly racist country songs including Klan recruitment, his grave is a gender neutral bathroom. I believe we were told this was a viral thing… the atroturf fuck boi getting ratioed by every online creative isn’t viral, we mulching your white bullshit. I’d mention hist name, but I forgot the second I clicked away and there’s no value for me looking that up further. For those who don’t get it, the idea that what we’re supposed to accept as class solidarity in 1023 a white man country song that hates melanin and poor people is way the fuck past insulting. Full disclosure, I’ve looked up the lyrics but not listened since I’ve already heard enough white whine country that I can well enough figure how it sounds. The lyrics I’m talking about are these two verses

I wish politicians would look out for miners
And not just minors on an island somewhere
Lord, we got folks in the street, ain’t got nothin’ to eat
And the obese milkin’ welfare

Well, God, if you’re 5-foot-3 and you’re 300 pounds
Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds
Young men are puttin’ themselves six feet in the ground
‘Cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin’ them down

The welfare complaints are a direct Reaganomics Rush Limbagh one liners about “welfare queens”. This specifically meant an image of a notably overweight black mother being an economic problem for needing to be on welfare to live and feed her children. I was on welfare and stamps in as a kid in LA County 80’s and 90’s and the indignity was fuckin real. We had a store called alpha beta that was the cheap grocery store with the foodstamp section. It was more restrictive like a lot of WIC is as far as what you can even have since you paid with actual stamps and the section wasn’tas well lit along with the “food” of clearly questionable nutritional value. Sadly, happier memories in my childhood trauma patchwork. So Mr. White whine is upset that people on EBT can buy actual food without clearly having been abused and shamed by the process itself. I’ve had some “punks” assert that it is a solidarity anthem and y’all are fuckin wrong. Providing cover for classism is class solidarity. Coded racism isn’t revolutionary, it’s just American. This astroturf motherfucker isn’t viral, he’s just getting constantly ratioed along with any illiterate fuckery that defends this supposedly populist trash. I personally find the timing interesting as the studios are looking for ways to break up people’s solidarity with the Hollywood strike on the basis of either perceived or economic inequities between them and us hoping we get lost in the sauce of a manufactured class war. Only a tiny percent of them are in those far away tax brackets. I’m not saying he’s a part of that idea since I’ve no proof, I’m just stating that surrounding circumstances make this sus as fuck. Back to an earlier point, anything that non intersectional at this point in time has limiting to zero value in the current protest movement. At this point most of us have a specific view of country music as being the soundtrack of white supremacy that’s honestly well earned so no, twangy white trash can’t encompass populism unless you’re a Klan Stan at this point.

– C Fish

Source: punxinsolidarity.wordpress.com