6 Thursday, June 18 , 2020 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com ARTS Confronting a legacy of racism in country Black squares. Thoughts and prayers. “Love,” heart emojis and hashtags. That about sums up the country music communi- ty’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. Art- ists’ 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 pre- sumed resulting downfall for doing so has its own verb: 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 rela- tionship 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. Much before the recording industry, which got its start in the 1920s, could offi- cially 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-collect- ing 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, and be credited to, white performers? The history of the banjo provides another example. Today, the banjo is a decidedly country instru- ment associated with whiteness. But, it has African origins. The banjo was a plantation instrument solely played by enslaved people decades before blackface entertainers popu- larized it in minstrel shows in the 1830s. The institutions dedicated to telling coun- try music’s story have played a part in pre- serving the myth of its essential whiteness. Three out of the 139 members of the Coun- try 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, like Black music and Black people aren’t key to country music’s very existence. This is acutely insulting when so many hit songs on country radio today are heav- ily influenced by hip hop and R&B. Thomas Rhett’s rise to fame was bolstered by synths, sound effects and dance beats. Sam Hunt lit- erally 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 festi- val 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 favor- ite artists in concert for their own safety? KATIE BEEKMAN Daily Arts Writer FILM NOTEBOOK FILM NOTEBOOK Film and the history of racism in America In the summer of 2016, my cousin and I saw “Southside with You,” a biographical indie film depicting Barack and Michelle Obama’s first date in 1989, filled with intelligent conversa- tions between the future POTUS and FLO- TUS about everything from bigotry to desserts. After Michelle and Barack watch a screening of Spike Lee’s 1989 film “Do the Right Thing,” the two run into a white colleague from their law firm, who expresses confusion about the film’s end: Mookie (the film’s main character, played by Lee) throws a garbage can through the storefront window and incites violence from bystanders. Barack tells his colleague that Mookie did it to save the white storeowner — a common justification used by people who didn’t understand the film — but after he and Michelle are alone, he makes the truth clear: “Mookie threw that trash can because he was fucking angry.” These words have been echoing through my mind as I watch the Black Lives Matter move- ment unfold over the death of George Floyd. Between the peaceful protests and strong social media coverage, some people have focused on moments of violence and looting peppered throughout the movement, finding riots to be just as coarse and confusing as white audienc- es did in 1989. White critics and viewers who watched “Do the Right Thing” in 1989 clung to their explanation because they struggled to comprehend the place of violence in the conflict — if Mookie threw the trash can with the good intentions of saving Sal, they think, then the vio- lence is justified. The belief that violence dele- gitimizes the movement only demonstrates that these people don’t understand the conflict. And the fact that I was surprised by Barack’s com- ment while watching this movie in 2016 means that I don’t really understand it either. These past few weeks have seen a whirlwind of protests as the Black Lives Matter movement gains steam across the country. There are many ways to get involved, whether it’s marching in protests, donating to bail funds or buying from Black-owned businesses. It’s also crucial for non-Black allies to take this time and educate themselves. There are many ways to do this: reading books or articles, listening to podcasts, watching speeches from community leaders, etc. Simple education on the Civil Rights move- ment is half the battle; the other half is forcing yourself to realign your view of the world to match those who have been oppressed for cen- turies. I turned to watching films, inspired by lists I’d seen circulating around social media. Film has long been an effective method of tell- ing stories that aren’t always told and sharing voices that aren’t always heard, capable of fill- ing in some blanks left by the American educa- tion system. Fictional or not, these stories are powerful, able to humanize people that are consistently dehumanized by the system and the media. In January, I reviewed “Clemency” for the Daily, heralding it as a tragic but important depiction of the crippling prison system and death row. What I didn’t mention is that it took days after I’d watched it to process the full force of the story. It was a glimpse into a system so broken and destructive — murder that is sanc- tified because the state said it was okay, based on a crime that the man likely didn’t do. By becoming embedded in the story, you’re forced to acknowledge the sheer inhumanity of the system. Understanding the consequences of institutionalized racism and realities of police brutality is not simple — there are many layers to the conflict, extending from the macro to the micro. KARI ANDERSON Daily Arts Writer Read more at michigandaily.com MUSIC NOTEBOOK MUSIC NOTEBOOK Read more at michigandaily.com