The Trouble With Jason...

I've Heard This Song Before...

Back in May, a new track by Jason Aldean entered the 10-song rotation on the "Modern Country" channel that we play at our store.  It was called "Try That in a Small Town," and it sounds a lot like several other "country good, city bad" songs that have appeared from time to time...same jingoistic "respect the flag or else"-"the gummint's comin' for my huntin' rifle"-"good ol' boys are the only decent people" straw-man claptrap that I have heard before.  In this case, though, it all appears in one song, sung in heavy-duty aggro mode.

Jason says that the song is about helping your neighbor and having a sense of community.  But there's already a perfectly good song with that theme:  "You Find Out Who Your Friends Are" by Tracy Lawrence.  The best part of that song is that anybody, anywhere who has ever been down and out and been rescued by true friends can relate.  But "Try That" is a definite threat, not only against big-city criminals who might try to bring their mess to Jason's town, but also anyone who might be raising awareness of police brutality, mass shootings, or the evils committed under the aegis of the American flag.

This was my problem with the song as it is, mind.

Then Came the Video!

I owe much to NPR, the Washington Post, and the "Now This News" YouTube channel for filling in the blanks for me on why everyone started calling the video--and by extension, the song--racist.  I already mentioned the implied "country good, city bad" vibe;  I could see that all the crime backgrounds in the video were urban.  The implication was that stuff like that never happens in small towns.  (This is complete bullshit;  I'll get back to this statement a little later.)

But what I did not know was that when it shows Aldean singing, the background is a courthouse where a lynching took place.  In 1927, an 18-year-old Black kid named Henry Choate was accused of attacking a 16-year-old white girl;  allegedly, he confessed, even though the girl never named him as her assailant.  A mob grabbed Henry from his jail cell, dragged him through town behind a car, and finally hung him off the courthouse balcony.  The courthouse in question--the Maury County Courthouse--is located in Columbia, TN, which was the scene of a "race riot" in 1946 (this is the white-supremacist term;  it was way more complicated than that, and it wasn't the Black people that started the trouble).  In the 1990's, it was the venue for a so-called "Good Ol' Boys' Roundup," which featured racial slurs and a pretend lynching.

Yikes.

The company that produced the video says that Aldean did not choose the video's location, and that the Hannah Montana movie was also filmed there (though I bet she never sang any racially tone-deaf lyrics against the background of a courthouse reflecting film of burning American flags).

That may be true, but...seriously.  You can Wiki both the Choate lynching (not the only one to happen there) and the 1946 confrontation.  The idea that the company didn't know Columbia's history rings false somehow.  It seems more like they didn't care.  Aldean obviously didn't;  he has consistently defended the song and said that calling the video racist is going too far.

But CMT pulled the "Try That" vid out of their rotation after the controversy heated up, and it makes me wonder if somebody there did some Wiki research of their own.  It's frighteningly easy to pick up a racist vibe from the video once you know Columbia's racist history;  CMT was doing the bare minimum of the right thing by pulling it.

Oh, and to all the Aldean fanfolk screaming about "cancel culture"...the Dixie Chicks (now just the Chicks) would like a word.  All they did to get cancelled was say they were ashamed to be from the same state as George Dubya.  Nobody I know was defending them when they disappeared from every radio station owned by Clear Channel.  So kwitcherbitchin'.

And Now, Back To My Comment...

Remember Aldean's implication that big-time crime didn't happen in small towns?  Remember, too, how I called "bullshit" on that?  Well, let me tell you a story.

Back in my hometown, there was a bachelor brother and his spinster sister, both middle-aged, who lived together in the same house.  This was in the 1980's, and things were still relaxed enough that hardly anybody locked their door unless they were leaving for a while.  The brother often came to our house of an evening, toting a case of cheap beer in the front of his overalls (he didn't own a car or truck, though he would gladly help you fix yours, or indeed help you with any odd job you needed) as a contribution to the evening's festivities (usually music played on the front porch).  His sister was a science-fiction fan like me, and we traded books and got together with the school librarian for road trips to large cities with book stores.  Neither sibling had a job, so I'm guessing one or both of them was on disability, or perhaps a military pension in the brother's case.  But if that was the case, they weren't getting much--enough for basic needs and a little beer (and book) money.

One day in the late 80's (I was away at college at the time), while the siblings were taking an afternoon nap, several teens from a neighboring small town (not city kids, mind you) walked right into the house looking for drug money.  They killed both of the siblings in their sleep, and got away with just a few dollars...not a hundred, or even twenty.  Less than that, and no jewelry or other saleable loot, since those people had none.

According to my mom, the whole town went up like a firecracker, with all kinds of threats if those punks ever showed up in town again.  The punks got caught by the county cops, they went to jail, and the only lingering effect of the murder was that now everybody locked their doors, even when they were home.

So, sorry, Jason.  Small towns do get their share of heinous crimes.  But you know what doesn't help?  Vigilante mobs.  All you get from those are lynchings.

In Memory of Ajike Owens

 What I Wanted to Do Today

Today, I was going to write another post about Juneteenth.  I was looking forward to it, in fact--I had the day off, the weather was much milder than it had been in a month, and the subject is both worthy and pleasant.

But I can't write about Juneteenth today, because I have to write about Ajike Owens.

She was a Black mother of four, who lived near Ocala, Florida.  She was a manager at McDonald's and worked hard to provide for her kids.  And I'm having to use the past tense here because she's dead.

Not from natural causes, mind.  Ajike--AJ to those who knew her--is dead of a fatal gunshot wound to the chest.  The gun in question was fired by a white woman named Susan Lorincz, who was safe in her own house, but didn't like it when Ms. Owens pounded on her door to confront her about the way Lorincz had treated her kids.  Lorincz shot AJ Owens through the door!

What Happened...

It was Friday evening, and AJ's kids were playing in a field next to a quadruplex.  One unit of that 'plex was rented by Lorincz, and according to neighbors, Lorincz had a long history of harassing not only the Owens kids, but also all the other kids in that neighborhood, who all liked to play in that field.  The field was apparently a sore point with Lorincz;  she called it "her property" (she didn't own any of that complex or its land) and did everything she could to chase the neighborhood kids off of it.  She would shout racial slurs at the kids, rev the motor in her truck or blast the horn in order to intimidate them, and even wave a gun in their direction!

So:  Friday, June 2nd.  Lorincz yelled at the Owens kids to get off the field.  Eventually, they did, but one of the kids had left his iPad there, and Lorincz went out and took it.

The details get a little confused here.  In one account, when the kids went to Lorincz's apartment to get the iPad back, Lorincz threw the iPad at the kids, hitting one of them and cracking the screen.  In another account, Lorincz threw a rollerblade and hit one of the kids in the toe.  Still another account has Lorincz poking an umbrella at the kids.  At any rate, her behavior caused the Owens kids to go and get their mother to handle the situation.

Owens went over to Lorincz's apartment and began to knock, good and loud, on that door and demand that Lorincz come out.  Lorincz, for her part, called 911 and told them that Owens was "pounding" on her door, and that she was "breaking it down."  And then Lorincz fired her gun through the door, hitting Owens in the chest.  One of her sons attempted CPR on his mom, but Ajike Owens died before an ambulance could get her to the hospital.

So, the Cops Arrested the Killer.  Right?

Wrong.

The sheriff on the case hemmed and hawed about how when you get to a crime scene, sometimes you only get "one side of the story."  He emphasized a "long-running feud" between Owens and Lorincz, as if that somehow explained how an armed white woman shoots an unarmed Black mom through a closed door.  He didn't want to interview the Owens kids right away because he thought they might not want to talk to officers; he was waiting for "trained counselors" (or some such bullshit term) to talk to the kids.  Oh, and they were also trying to determine if Florida's "stand your ground" laws were applicable. 

Dear God.  An unarmed Black woman is dead, and the cops are wondering if the armed white woman who did the shooting is protected by a stupid law that wouldn't even fly in the so-called "wild" West, where many towns required you to check your shootin' irons at the local sheriff's office.

But the Owens family were not about to take this in silence.  They hired attorney Ben Crump to represent them, and they got the word out about AJ and how she died.  As awareness grew, pressure on the local law did, too, and they finally arrested Susan Lorincz on Tuesday, June 6th--which also happens to be the anniversary of D-Day.  Rather appropriate.  By Friday, she had been charged with manslaughter, culpable negligence, two counts of simple assault, and battery;  her bond was set at $154,000.

Lorincz has pleaded "not guilty" and claims that the Owens kids--ranging in age from 3 to 12--had threatened to kill her, which I find laughable considering who had the guns (turns out Lorincz had a second gun in the house) and who did the actual killing.

The Thing I'm Really Afraid Of...

...is that Susan Lorincz will walk free.

Florida is a bad state for justice of any kind if you are a Black person.  Trayvon Martin's killer is free to this day, and it's looking like the only judgement he will ever face is when he dies and stands before God.

Lorincz has "outed" herself as a racist;  by her own admission, she called the Black children in her neighborhood the n-word and also "Black slave."  She was "afraid" that Ajike Owens was going to break in her door and kill her.  But her fears were imaginary.  Like so many white people, she looked at the color of her neighbors'--and their children's--skins and assumed them to be troublemakers and killers.  So she became a killer herself.

But will a jury see it that way?  I have my doubts.  Because Lorincz's lawyer will be damned sure to pile on as much victim-blaming as he can, and will dig up any dirt he can on AJ's character, work habits, parenting...anything to smear that good mother's reputation and make poor Susan look like the brave old lady protecting herself from a female Black thug.

Nevertheless, I pray that truth and justice will prevail.  The state of Florida owes that to both the family and the memory of Ajike Owens.

I Love My Country, But... : A Few Thoughts About Patriotism

The Last Refuge of Scoundrels

I have kind of a weird quirk:  I refuse to fly a U.S. flag.  Or wear a pin.  Or hang up anything "flaggy" like a wreath or one of those distressed wooden signs.  And I absolutely refuse to clothe any part of my body with anything red, white, blue, starred and striped.

It's not that I "hate America" or favor burning the flag or any such nonsense.  It's just that I feel the same way about patriotism that I feel about my Christian faith:  that if I'm a true patriot, it should be obvious from the way I act and the attitude I have toward my fellow Americans.  (Which, on the Christian side, is why I don't wear a cross, either.)

This whole "more patriotic than thou" flag-waving dates back to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.  Flags sprouted up everywhere, and it was considered a mark of support for our country.  All very well and good;  but as the years have ground on, that sort of patriotism has taken on the air of being more "the last refuge of scoundrels" than the genuine article.

And Just What Do You Mean by That?!

Oh, I can hear it now:  "Well, if the flag offends you, I'll help you pack!"

Hey, I'm not condemning the flying of the flag;  but when you see it everywhere, all the time, doesn't it sort of lose its meaning?  When you see full-size U.S. flags waving off the back of pickup trucks, or bandannas and other flag clothing being worn by all and sundry--not just on Memorial Day or the Fourth of July or the several other national holidays that call for flying the flag, but all year long--well, frankly, I'm tired of it. 

 The flag isn't supposed to be an object of reverence in and of itself;  it's a symbol.  It's supposed to be a symbol of goodness and doing the right thing and all that, and sure, some of that is true...but to be brutally honest, we've also done some massively awful things throughout our history.  From enslaving Black people to persecuting and killing Native Americans to meddling in the internal affairs of other countries (cough-cough-Iran-cough-cough), our record is far from spotless.  But a real patriot faces those actions and says,  "Yeah, it happened, and we were wrong to do it.  From now on, we need to do better."  What's so wrong about that?

Excuses, Excuses!

 And I'm sorry-not-sorry, but I have no use for any politician who waves the flag--either literally or figuratively--as an excuse for why he or she won't do something or help somebody or take a certain course of action.

A perfect example is the hate-on that the modern GOP has for a national health care program.  Heaven knows, the ACA is a patchwork solution at best, relying too much on the non-existent goodwill of Big Pharma and private companies who care more for the Almighty Dollar than for the well-being of their clients.  A single-payer system similar to that of Canada would do a lot to rein in the runaway horses pulling the private-insurance wagon, and would cost less for everyone, including the government.  But what do Republicans say when the idea is voiced?  "It's socialism!  It's not American!"   

Which is nothing but red, white and blue bullshit.  

The Preamble--the "mission statement" for the country--says that "we the people" were, among other things, aiming to "promote the general welfare."  Meaning, create an environment that was beneficial for all people to live in.  Health care for everyone is a natural fit for that part of the Preamble.  And as I have pointed out before in another post, keeping the American population healthy is a sensible investment;  healthy people can work better and produce more.  And when regular checkups and routine scans are free, serious diseases can be caught before costly treatments are needed;  even better, when people are following their doctor's advice, many ailments can be prevented.

So if a politician's only argument for failing to act is "But it's not American," he or she just might need to get voted out.  Because the concept of what is "American" is decided by all Americans...not just a few reactionaries who fear change.

Flag of Hate

Of course, there are those whose only real use of the flag is as a banner of hate, and I would be failing in my duty as a patriot if I didn't call those assholes out.

Yeah, that would be you, "Proud Boys" (notice it's not "proud men"...hmmm).  And you, too, "Oath Keepers" (any connection to the Promise Keepers?  Gotta wonder).  Yep, you Klukkers get a cyber-boo as well.  And every other stupid militia movement and white supremacist cabal sliming up the American flag while claiming to defend it.  You know why Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the National Anthem?  It was because of know-nothing hate junkies like them.  When people believe that justice and equal rights are only for those who look and believe the way they do, they reveal themselves to be fake patriots.  No one who truly loves this country should ever look to people like that for guidance.  And if any politician is following some hate group's guidance...well, on Election Day it would be an excellent idea to vote him out (but do be informed, lest you vote in someone worse).

And Finally...

I know I'm coming across as something of a doom-and-gloomer;  with Memorial Day approaching, most folks are looking forward to cooking out and hanging with the family, and the last thing they want is some little Worm like myself raining on the party!

But we need to be thinking about these things, now more than ever.  Muddy thinking has led us to this pass, and if we don't start defining terms like "patriot,"  we will continue to see the term misused and misapplied.  On this holiday, we are supposed to remember the many men and women who have lost their lives to defend the freedoms we have;  let us also remember that those freedoms have a flip side of responsibility.

So here are a few things a real patriot is and does:

• A real patriot loves her country, but not blindly.
• A real patriot is willing to admit when her country's people have done wrong, and is ready to make things right.
• A real patriot never calls another person's opinion "treason";  if the opinion is wrong, she will lay out the facts that demonstrate this, and not simply call her adversary names.
• A real patriot may disagree with what someone else says, but will always defend his right to say it.

And finally:

• A real patriot treats all other citizens and would-be citizens with respect and kindness, and does everything in her power to ensure that they are afforded the same rights and opportunities as everyone else.

 Have a safe and fun (but thoughtful) Memorial Day!