Looking Through Rose-Colored Glasses or Tinted Windows?

Our view of the world, no matter who we are, is influenced by our interactions with others, our experiences, and the way other people react to who we are. It is also based on how we have seen people act, in person and through history, towards others with whom we identify. We think to ourselves " I am like A because we have x in common. B acted this way towards A because of x, therefore B will probably act that way towards me." Eventually, this fairly logical conclusion can stretch to the extreme of "B has y in common with many other people, and B acted in this way towards A because of x. Therefore, anyone with y will probably act that way towards anyone with x." Voila! a stereotype is born.

I thought anyone expressing frequent offense in everyday situations must simply be jumping to this extreme conclusion, focusing on stereotypes and searching to find harm in innocent behavior.

A Year and a half in BLSA, I have to say my perspective has changed. Willingly, or unwillingly, it has done so. I've met some people in my life who seemed to always look for racism. Any comment, any action, anything at all exemplified the racist bent of this country and every white person in it. (These people are often eager to explain that black people simply cannot be racist because they're a minority and thus unable to oppress anyone.) Now, I'm not so sure these people are looking for racism as much as it is trying to smack them in the face.

Several years ago, when I was in college, a song came out called Beer for My Horses (listen). Back then, Toby Keith's rousing duet with Willie Nelson conjured up pictures of the old west. I'd see John Wayne entourage types riding their horses through a desert landscape, chasing some outlaw with their lassos flying. The rowdy group would settle into a wooden saloon. With boots on the table and hats pulled low on foreheads, the dingy regulars would watch the dirt stained heroes celebrating and tossing back whiskeys. The bartender, with his waxed moustache and garters on his sleeves stood outside pouring beer from a barrel into the horses' trough.

Last week, I heard the song again. This time, the images on my internal movie screen had lost their innocent silliness. I was not trying to think of anything specific. I wasn't even really paying attention to the song at first; it was background noise to the hum of the sewing machine. But I started to feel uncomfortable, annoyed and angry. Subconscious reactions to the song forcing themselves out. Only a year and a half as a visitor to a small subsection of the black community, and the offense to the song was immediate.

"A tall oak tree"? "All the rope in Texas"? After a classmate in my History of Race and the Law class interviewed another classmate's relative about a lynching that occurred near her home town during her childhood, after Jena, after learning and talking and reading about a whole history of trees and rope and black men, how could these lines evoke anything other than immense repulsion? And just who are "all of them bad boys"? It doesn't help that, for me, this phrase immediately conjures up images of black men, the Bad Boys movies, Diddy and Biggie and Bad Boy Entertainment, etc. (And of course, I hear the theme song to Cops.) I wasn't trying to put together the worst possible meanings. These are my normal associations based on my life, on the popular culture with which I have come into contact.

By the time the song got to Willie Nelson's verse, I had realized I was hearing the song from a new perspective, and had focused more on the words. He started singing about "gangsters" and "crime in the streets". I recalled one of my friends in BLSA discussing why she believes words like thug and gangster have become a substitute for the n-word, being used to express the same sentiment without the backlash. I thought about all the conversations at school with my friends about hip hop, about crime, about statistics and stereo-types and the latest ignorant doings of some pseudo-star. From that perspective, even "crime in the streets" seemed to have a definite racial slant. It doesn't help it's a country song by two southern white-boys.

I don't think the song is actually racist, or has any real intent of expressing such a view. (Especially in view of the video.) But, I can see how innocent, harmless fun, can appear otherwise when the background and context it is put against gives things another distinct meanings. The trick is trying to separate interpretation from intention.

.... and I do still think there are some who would prefer to willfully misunderstand things and assume racism than to get on with life.

(Original Post)

Bedroom

Thoughtful

Toby Keith - Who's Your Daddy