Exactly how I felt Peter. Just when you thought this next generation had been hopelessly tainted by an education system that insists on separating us, this young man let his own thoughts and emotions lead him to a better place.
Very nice piece. Especially happy to see it from a Brown intern, where I recently saw a “man on the street piece” asking students how many genders there were, and got looks of confusion, and “I can’t say” responses. Hopefully young men like Evan can help right listing ship.
A really great article. I loved all of it until I got to the last paragraph where he wrote, "The car he and Chapman sing of is equal parts sweet chariot and Ford F-150", at which point I kinda threw up in my mouth a little bit. That said, hats off to Evan for a solid story!
I disagree, Evans. The writer’s allusion to “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” is apt: that 1909 a capella recording by the Fisk Jubilee is probably the earliest recorded Negro spiritual. The Ford F-150 is country about as much as cowboy hats. The writer sums his whole point in that one sentence! I do agree with you that it’s beautifully written and heartfelt.
What about the "roots" style? I mean The Band et al. It's tricky and shows the limits of overly rigid categories. They're not "country" -- but they would be unimaginable without country and folk. They sang "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." But they also sang "The Weight," basically a spiritual, with the Staples, one of the great black spiritual groups.
Dylan went down to Nashville and connected with Johnny Cash in the late 60s. A Jewish-American folk singer from Minnesota ends up singing something like country and has a backing "folk" band led by a half-Jewish/half-native American singer from Canada (Robbie Robertson, who just passed away) and a white drummer from Arkansas (Levon Helm). The cross-cultural, cross-geographic, and cross-racial connections were already at work in the late 50s and 60s. There were biracial studios in the South, like STAX and FAME.
BTW, for that time and place, the classic country singers of the 1960s and 70s were remarkably careful to not associate themselves with neo-Confederate/Dixiecrat politics (like George Wallace's campaigns). So did southern rockers like the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd, who both performed with Aretha Franklin, for example. I remember the conclusion was, if you wanted to vote more conservative, you stayed away from Wallace and voted in '68 and '72 for Nixon, who was moderately liberal on race and a pioneer of affirmative action at the federal level. (Yes, that's correct, another piece of very distorted misunderstandings, about Nixon.)
And realized CW wasn't nothing but The Blues with a nasal twang.
As for George Wallace. He later changed his position, being a good politician, and he was a very good one. Which is why I don't trust any of them. Even the ones I like.
There's a line from the book and movie Hunt For Red October "Now look I'm a politician. Which mean I'm a cheat and a liar. And when I'm not kissing babies, I'm stealing their lollipops."
Yes, I love that quote from HRO. I think Wallace's change of heart was real. He had started out in the 1940s as fairly liberal on race, but was beaten in the primaries more than once by a race-baiting opponent. He learned how to win in Democratic primaries in those days. Obviously, things had changed by the 1970s, and that approach was no longer welcome.
From what have read (I was in the ROK at the time so didn't really know what was going on.) If George Wallace had not gotten shot, he might have gotten Hubert Humphrey. A lot of people, (like today) were really Pissed Off. Both he and Richard Nixon were 1. Speaking to the same people who wanted rule of law. 2. Both were outsiders in their party's.
Now have my problems with Richard Nixon (Wage & Price Controls? Give me a break!) But one way to look at hm is he was the Donald Trump of that time. Particularly the way The Press treated him.
Wallace was shot in 1972, not 1968. (The assassination attempt took place very close to where I grew up.) He was a serious candidate in 1968 and ran on a third-party ticket with carpet-bomber Curtis LeMay, who advocated use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam. He ran again in 1972 in the Dem primaries but made no headway.
Trump is somewhat reminiscent of Nixon. But Nixon was a fairly conventional politician in many ways, in an era very different from ours, where both political parties were pretty functional. Not like now, when their place has been taken by wealthy donors in alliance with legacy media and with social media as the enforcement mechanism. Nothing like that existed then.
Although some people didn't like his personality, Nixon was the much more conventional choice for the Republicans in 1968, after their disastrous 1964 campaign with Goldwater. Nixon turned out to be more of a Great Society/big spender president than even Johnson was. His policies on race were, on the whole, moderately liberal, even if his rhetoric sometimes was not. This still confuses some people.
I am going to momentarily suspend my scroll on by Comprof rule to point out the obvious - nothing ever from you but pure unadulterated hate. 24/7. 365. That must be a horrible way to live. If of course you are a human.
My instinct as well. I usually ignore it. But it's derogatory comment to such a beautiful moment got the better of me. Now I have rewarded contemptible behavior. Sigh.
Lol. Dude, I don't even know/interact with with you.
Nevertheless, "transcending" what exactly? By going to a concert and the Country Music Hall of Fame?
Country music is not "supposedly" white - it is. The fans too, are overwhelmingly white and are mostly likely Republican/Trump voters, NRA members, etc. (Well...at least until their concert is getting shot up)
And, all that is 100% fine. So, don't really know what's so "transcendent" about going to a country music concert. Big deal.
These trucks have become monsters, though. I know the F-150 is a classic. It was first sold in 1948, a direct descendant of its WWII truck and a cousin of its school bus models.
Who really barfs in their mouth? From reading? Just a bit of performative snowflakery.
I remember a literal word for word translation of normal Georgian prose. (Georgia the country in the Caucasus.) It was so flowery I got tears in my eyes laughing. My PhD linguist friend, native of the country was miffed. But she had spent time in the USA, so she understood. She told me, You Americans are sooo boooring! Indeed we can be... trust me Evan. This line you fake barfed about is... confronted with Georgian, would have to turn in a dying swan performance 24/7 worthy of a Trockadero. Go for it!
BORROWING YOUR COMMENTS BOX PETE. DESPITE ENDLESS MESSAGING TO SUBSTACK MINE REMAINS BLOCKED. (Thank you Sir!!)
Some of us (worldwide) are free men. Others are bound and crippled by fear and prejudice. Then, there are the sycophants, race baiters, oppressive political slime buckets and vampire financiers who exploit the ignorance, poverty and desperation of the poor and dispossessed, in order to steal their lives and labor, for personal power and gain.
I see color. And I'm stronger for it because I see the people standing behind the man. Those men and women who, despite terrible defeat, faced every horror and inhumanity, and now, folded in time, become the light of transformation shining in the eyes of every child. And every child shouts victory. Our tongues may proclaim it but it is the human heart that speaks the language. And Soul, has no specific color.
It is time to heal the shattered psyche of the truth we call the American Republic and abandon the manufactured hyperrealism of the lie attempting to usurp it. Tired if the ass whipping? Return too and embrace the essential joy of the liberty so dearly bought by those who went before us. ESSENTIAL JOY!! The child. The sunrise. First snowfall. Around the bend in the highway, the full moon rising. Honest tears shed for the departed. Hot coffee on a chill autumn morning and the thoughts of a friend. We are undefeatable.
"...Some may come and some may go. We will surely pass. When the one who left us here returns for us at last. We are but a moments sunlight fading in the grass..come on people now..smile on your brother...everybody get together..try and love one another right now..." The Youngbloods
"Jesus man--he's on the mainline.." Mississippi Fred McDowell
"..I have reason to believe..we all will be received...in Graceland..." Paul Simon
My sentiments exactly...it brought me to tears since I so hope the next generation (I am a baby boomer) gets to live the wonderful life I have had in this beautiful yet flawed country...we can all get along...everyone just needs to stop being so angry....please keep writing....you have a talent :))
Pain, loss. grit, and hope know nothing of race, sex, religion or country or origin. These are universal emotions and all part of a shared human experience. May the journey of one inform and inspire the journey of all.
That is such a great point. I always wonder why poor white people with a culture of hating others through racism are never equated to poor black people who are raised to hate the person in the other gang—the same with Latinos fleeing Central America. Yes, everyone does it, but what breaks down those barriers are the universal emotions and shared human experiences you speak about. It touched Evan as it spoke to you and me. Something everyone should ponder.
That culture of hating others thing is seriously overdone and getting very tiresome. It is merely a deflection away from those who genuinely intend us harm.
Evan Gardner needs to replace Chris Anderson as TED Head. Such a sagacious piece by such a young man. You’re going places, Evan! Stay strong!
Of all his many fine sentences, this stood out: “To insist on viewing country, or any other art form, through a racial lens is to obscure its history and to miss the beauty in that art form. It is to sap the art of its art.”
Two days ago I toured the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh. Amidst all breathtaking masterpieces by Rembrandt, Frederic Edwin Church, Benjamin West, Sir Henry Raeburn, and other masters too numerous to list, was posted an innocuous 8.5x11 piece of paper announcing that the NGS is reviewing its collection as part of its “core research purpose as well as our commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion.”
Guess I’m just that privileged white Karen who simply wants to savor the art of art, but I’ve got to ask, when will this stop?
By the way, I was born and raised in CT, lived five years in South Carolina, have returned to CT, and am now looking at property back in SC. The dirty little secret up here is the South has nothing on the Northeast when it comes to racism.
“The dirty little secret up here is the South has nothing on the Northeast when it comes to racism”.
So true, it plagues the Midwest and West too. Systemic racism is EVERYWHERE, just ask Ibram X. Kendi and the wealthy, white, country music loathing donors who paid him 30 million dollars to say so
The only thing "systemic" in terms of racism is that it has existed since the dawn of society. It is not new and does not know color, economic condition, or language. It does not know privilege or political party. It does not identify as rural or urban. It has always existed in an imperfect world, since the sins of Adam and Eve.
In economics there are models to account for racism; we can tell the black baker how much to discount her pies to sell them in a upper class (AND vice versa). But economists are not so stupid as to assume racism can ever be eliminated.
"Systemic racism" is a popular term used by people who don't know the difference between "systemic" and "anecdotal" or maybe they do know the difference but want everyone else to think racism is everywhere you look.
Now, there's just lots of racist everywhere. No longer coordinated around a system, but coordinated around a goal of convincing everyone that they (racist) no longer exist.
“Can I use your "speak, scream, tear things down" quote Timothy? Or did you just mean white people?”
I know you’re not big fan of accuracy so I’m going to assume you mean “If you tell people they can’t speak, they scream. If you tell people they can’t scream, they tear things down”.
It’s a quote from Vivek Ramaswamy discussing the consequences of censoring people. It seems to me the only ones being censored are those exposing race baiting
Hustlers like Kendi and Patrice Cullors, the black BLM Marxist that scammed millions from mostly dumb, rich, white people and corporations and spent buying California mansions.
For the past couple of years anarchists, Marxists and plain old criminals have skipped the speaking part and gone straight to the screaming and tearing down part in places like Chicago, NYC, Philly…
If you need a “doll”, try talking to the mostly poor black folk in those places who’ve been hurt by opportunists using Kendi’s propaganda as an excuse to loot, murder and destroy.
As for me, I live in a small town, and you know what they say about small towns…
I was born and raised in the Deep South, the Mississippi gulf coast. After college I took a job in Milwaukee and was shocked at how segregated it was as compared to my hometown. I spent 4 years there with very little change, before moving to TX where no one cared about race.
I’m also from the Deep South and still live here. I was a teen in the 80’s and I agree with you that nobody cared about race. We always attended school together from elementary school to high school. I didn’t know any different. I never observed or experienced hatred toward each other. We were actually friends.
I have a good friend from South Carolina which, when I lived in the North, I had always just assumed would be terribly racist. Quite the contrary. How embedded we all become in the baseless assumptions that surround us.
“The dirty little secret up here is the South has nothing on the Northeast when it comes to racism.”
I live in a 100 year old neighborhood in CT, where some of the property deeds still say that black people cannot live in the house except as domestic servants. This is long since obsolete and unenforceable, but the woke police here keep reminding us of ‘our racist past’, and how we need to do something.
From what I can see, they chose to live in this neighborhood for the same reasons the rest of us did, and I don’t see them offering up their homes for sale at discounts for people of color.
Redlining was a product of the financial industry. Headquartered in the saintly northeast. Same financial industry that financed slavery, profited therefrom and to my knowledge has never issued a mea culpa, much less financial reparation. Nor, despite taking credit for freeing slaves, was it kind of northerners to just abandon those folks in the aftermath of the civil war.
Redlining is actually the spawn of the precursor to the National Association or Realtors (this group had the gall to run a billboard saying “Hate has no home in CT.” LOL!) and the FDR administration. Amazing the lengths the Dems go to expiate past sins.
I grew up in Baltimore. I'm white like our blue-collar neighborhood was. The 60s. My mom was always on the lookout for "block busters"... Whites who buy a house with the intention to immediately sell to a black family at a premium. Pocket the difference. Did this ever actually happen? Don't know. It was my mom.. a sweet, loving, Christian woman who couldn't shake that fear. None of us is without sin. No, not one.
The neighborhood is mostly black now, and never looked better.
The promotion of redlining in the 30s, through the late 60s, was part of the New Deal's compromise with the de facto racism of many northern cities and their Democratic machines and the legal, formal racism of the Southern states.
Exactly, Faith! I’m from (live in) Texas. In 2013 bought a condo in Brooklyn Heights, NY, to be near my only child. Was widowed in 2009.
Was wonderful for a few years UNTIL Trump vs Hillary! Up until that time, everyone in NY commented on how much they “loved” my Southern accent!
After the election, without reason or provocation, I became a “White Supremacist Deplorable” JUST BECAUSE MY ACCENT became my “identifier” Go figure!
I leased out my condo and returned to Texas! The irony, I am not a Trump supporter, but I made the mistake of saying I could not stomach another Clinton White House. You’re either with them, or against them! The WOKE Left does not tolerate “free speech, or free opinions” Sad!
Just saw this. Unfortunately Honey your experience is not one off. Over the decades I have witnessed the condescension of the northeast towards those who speak with "accents." And while I have met and studied and worked with lots and lots of smart people from NY Boston etc I have met even more not as smart as they think they are ( and who stereotype those with the "accents " and southern zip codes as not quite as smart or quick ..until the subjects of their scorn ever so politely make them " aware" of why stereotyping is not what really smart people do).
Been there, done that, son. :-) I’m a middle-aged black woman who appreciates…Black Sabbath. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been the only dark face in the crowd -- at least as far as the eye could see -- at a rock concert. And I’ve never let that bother me. Life’s too short to let other people dictate what kind of music I should like.
I’ve always had a soft spot for alt-country, and lately I’ve been diving into the real thing. Lots of Chris Stapleton and Zac Brown Band on my playlist these days. Cheers!
Ha ha. Cannot go that far in my musical taste but I absolutely support others who do. Actually you make a good point akin to Evans. I will stop looking askance at the heavily tattooed unnatural hair color folk.
Good golly, yes! “Life’s too short to let other people dictate”...ANYTHING! I’ve lived my entire life (yes, even in childhood) not letting other people constrain me (except for laws; I am law abiding). Music, sports, hobbies, art, culture -- if you find something that speaks to you, it’s worth your time, even if it’s not “normal” for your gender, race, socioeconomic background, etc.
That’s why the whole “cultural appropriation” concept is so ridiculous: the world as we know, it was built on cross cultural influences. We should be celebrating that, not continuing to drive wedges between every group.
A friend and I were two white polka dots in a blues club in south Chicago in 1993. It was fine, no problems, although I'm sure many in the audience wondered what we were doing there. We were listening to the blues, is what we were doing.
I'm reading David Maraniss' Once Upon a City, about Detroit in the early 1960s, and I just finished the chapter on Berry Gordy, Jr., and the birth of Motown. Quite a time and place.
This kid can write! Bari ought to give him one of her writing awards. Jill Biden who has a "doctorate", (ask her, she'll tell you) can take writing lessons from this kid. If you read her doctoral thesis you will find she has a hard time stringing words together to form a sentence.
writing lessons from my five year old granddaughter. I pray that three thousand years from now her dissertation is not one of the few surviving artifacts of our times.
Given that she got it from U of Delaware, where they have a school named after Joe, you might not be far from the truth. There was no way they weren't going to give her that degree.
You picked up more education than you will get at Brown. Look at all the race stereotypes you carried around in your backpack and you enter the world and are puzzled that most of it just isn’t so.
Evan, you are a talented writer. It is not only your writing that impresses me, but it’s your open mind and your open heart you willingly expose. You have a brave authenticity and young people like you will be the ones who help build some much needed bridges in our culture.
You and your Dad bridging a generation, your open mind bridging music genres and your heart bridging racial divides makes you shine. I loved every word of your essay.
Since you mentioned Charlie Pride I’ve saved a quote of his and it seems fitting to share it here.
“They used to ask me how it feels to be the ‘first COLORED country singer.’ Then it was the first ‘NEGRO country singer.’ Then the first BLACK country singer.’ Now I’m the ‘first AFRICAN AMERICAN country singer.’ That’s about the only thing that’s changed. This country is so race-conscious, so ate-up with colors and pigments. I call it ‘skin hang ups’-it’s a disease.” Charlie Pride
You know, there was a system (apartheid) in a country (South Africa) where people were obsessed with these distinctions. They still are, in a different way now. I hope we're not heading there.
Oh, my goodness, I loved that. Thank you for giving me a renewed appreciation for country music, music I was raised with but drifted away from as it became more commercialized and as my tastes in music broadened. But like the best blues, the core of country is about suffering, longing, living life on your own terms, which everyone in this world can relate to.
If it weren't for suburban white boys, rap and hip hop wouldn't be a thing. Jay Z, Snoop, Ice Tea and Ice Cube would have been relegated to a niche type of "music" if the people with money, i.e. White Boys, didn't buy the product. So, why did the angry rhymes and rhythms of a Balck art form appeal to a very different listening base? Because it struck a chord in the hearts and minds of people who couldn't identify with the artist, other than to listen to the words.
Country is much the same. Once you get past the "Whiteness" of the artists, you begin to identify with the emotion and poetry of the music itself. That the author, a young Black man, has finally realized, this is not new. Plus the fact that he was raised in a very privileged atmosphere (Hello, cultural appropriation!) makes this article scream "What took you so long?".
I grew up with the sounds of Hank Williams, Ferlin Husky, etc. in my northern city neighborhood, populated by expats from West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and further South who migrated north for the auto industry jobs. It is a part of who I am, and who I will always be. In fact, I moved to Georgia after I retired, so in a sense I am home.
I am glad that a young privileged, Black man from the North has finally had a "Come To Jesus" moment! More power to him.
“That the author, a young Black man, has finally realized, this is not new. Plus the fact that he was raised in a very privileged atmosphere (Hello, cultural appropriation!) makes this article scream "What took you so long?".”
Finally? What took you so long? The author is barely twenty years old, and he’s had the kind of realization that most people don’t have until they’re past middle age--if at all. The fact that he’s able to think for himself in today’s climate of DEI indoctrination is very impressive and cause for hope.
I’m so happy that TFP is finding these bright young people and giving them a platform. We all know the legacy media aren’t interested in their message.
Among the best pieces i have read on this site. For so many reasons. A young man who gets it. Not that America is perfect but that it is an amalgamation of so many different cultures, religions, races and thinkers that makes us unique . Evan is a thinker who looks for the good but not blindly and without forgetting the rich history ( good and bad) of this complex wonderful country we are privileged to have been born in (or have moved to). I am most curious to hear more from Evan about the reactions to his journey from his classmates at brown and folks back in NYC who have never been to the The Grand Ol Opry and likely have different views about country music.
Excellent piece. It does give one hope that we may find our way out of the current insanity. I mean, hell, I'm an older white guy who still loves and listens to Motown. What you're writing is not incongruous.
Great piece. David Hackett Fischer's African Founders tries to get at the complex presence of African culture that is deeply interwoven into the South's culture. And I think that is what the author here is feeling even though part of the "fabric" is troubled, discredited and rejected by so many. We are one people and Country Music is rooted in that complex oneness.
Fischer wrote the monumental classic, Albion's Seed, about the four founding cultures from the British Isles that provided the initial layers of American life in the 17th and 18th centuries. You will get the South and its peculiar history once you read it. I think he's trying to make up for the obvious gap with looking at Afro-Caribbean culture and its role, as it's centrally important in the tidewater South.
A beautiful and well written piece. It gives me hope.
Exactly how I felt Peter. Just when you thought this next generation had been hopelessly tainted by an education system that insists on separating us, this young man let his own thoughts and emotions lead him to a better place.
Very nice piece. Especially happy to see it from a Brown intern, where I recently saw a “man on the street piece” asking students how many genders there were, and got looks of confusion, and “I can’t say” responses. Hopefully young men like Evan can help right listing ship.
A really great article. I loved all of it until I got to the last paragraph where he wrote, "The car he and Chapman sing of is equal parts sweet chariot and Ford F-150", at which point I kinda threw up in my mouth a little bit. That said, hats off to Evan for a solid story!
I continue to be a satisfied TFP customer.
I disagree, Evans. The writer’s allusion to “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” is apt: that 1909 a capella recording by the Fisk Jubilee is probably the earliest recorded Negro spiritual. The Ford F-150 is country about as much as cowboy hats. The writer sums his whole point in that one sentence! I do agree with you that it’s beautifully written and heartfelt.
It was my opinion so no worries......and I actually own a F-150 so felt like I was entitled to comment :-)
Get your self a Lightning, then you can be old school and pretentious at the same time.
🙄
I thought you were disparaging Fords. ;)
🤣🤣🤣
"The Ford F-150 is country about as much as cowboy hats."
Define "County"? The Carter Family, Eddy Arnold, Garth Brooks? which one IS Country?
BTW Sept. 30 1958 Marty Stuart was born. How "Country" Is He?
How Country were a bunch of long haired dope smoking hippies from CA, when they recorded "Sweethearts Of The Rodeo"?
What about the "roots" style? I mean The Band et al. It's tricky and shows the limits of overly rigid categories. They're not "country" -- but they would be unimaginable without country and folk. They sang "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." But they also sang "The Weight," basically a spiritual, with the Staples, one of the great black spiritual groups.
Dylan went down to Nashville and connected with Johnny Cash in the late 60s. A Jewish-American folk singer from Minnesota ends up singing something like country and has a backing "folk" band led by a half-Jewish/half-native American singer from Canada (Robbie Robertson, who just passed away) and a white drummer from Arkansas (Levon Helm). The cross-cultural, cross-geographic, and cross-racial connections were already at work in the late 50s and 60s. There were biracial studios in the South, like STAX and FAME.
BTW, for that time and place, the classic country singers of the 1960s and 70s were remarkably careful to not associate themselves with neo-Confederate/Dixiecrat politics (like George Wallace's campaigns). So did southern rockers like the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd, who both performed with Aretha Franklin, for example. I remember the conclusion was, if you wanted to vote more conservative, you stayed away from Wallace and voted in '68 and '72 for Nixon, who was moderately liberal on race and a pioneer of affirmative action at the federal level. (Yes, that's correct, another piece of very distorted misunderstandings, about Nixon.)
Well said!
The sky opened up when I bought in 69 (for some unknown reason) Same Train, A Different Time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoMfmWCt2e0
And realized CW wasn't nothing but The Blues with a nasal twang.
As for George Wallace. He later changed his position, being a good politician, and he was a very good one. Which is why I don't trust any of them. Even the ones I like.
There's a line from the book and movie Hunt For Red October "Now look I'm a politician. Which mean I'm a cheat and a liar. And when I'm not kissing babies, I'm stealing their lollipops."
Yes, I love that quote from HRO. I think Wallace's change of heart was real. He had started out in the 1940s as fairly liberal on race, but was beaten in the primaries more than once by a race-baiting opponent. He learned how to win in Democratic primaries in those days. Obviously, things had changed by the 1970s, and that approach was no longer welcome.
From what have read (I was in the ROK at the time so didn't really know what was going on.) If George Wallace had not gotten shot, he might have gotten Hubert Humphrey. A lot of people, (like today) were really Pissed Off. Both he and Richard Nixon were 1. Speaking to the same people who wanted rule of law. 2. Both were outsiders in their party's.
Now have my problems with Richard Nixon (Wage & Price Controls? Give me a break!) But one way to look at hm is he was the Donald Trump of that time. Particularly the way The Press treated him.
Wallace was shot in 1972, not 1968. (The assassination attempt took place very close to where I grew up.) He was a serious candidate in 1968 and ran on a third-party ticket with carpet-bomber Curtis LeMay, who advocated use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam. He ran again in 1972 in the Dem primaries but made no headway.
Trump is somewhat reminiscent of Nixon. But Nixon was a fairly conventional politician in many ways, in an era very different from ours, where both political parties were pretty functional. Not like now, when their place has been taken by wealthy donors in alliance with legacy media and with social media as the enforcement mechanism. Nothing like that existed then.
Although some people didn't like his personality, Nixon was the much more conventional choice for the Republicans in 1968, after their disastrous 1964 campaign with Goldwater. Nixon turned out to be more of a Great Society/big spender president than even Johnson was. His policies on race were, on the whole, moderately liberal, even if his rhetoric sometimes was not. This still confuses some people.
Whoosh!
The Negro spiritual part is what made him throw up in his mouth a bit.
I am going to momentarily suspend my scroll on by Comprof rule to point out the obvious - nothing ever from you but pure unadulterated hate. 24/7. 365. That must be a horrible way to live. If of course you are a human.
Oops! That BOT should be completely ignored - getting any response is what it's all about.
I know. Forgive my weakness.
It's not human. That's what makes it easier to ignore.
My instinct as well. I usually ignore it. But it's derogatory comment to such a beautiful moment got the better of me. Now I have rewarded contemptible behavior. Sigh.
Nah...I'm human.
We doesn't like me either. Oh, well.
I suppose someone has to epitomize what Evan Gardner is transcending.
Good point. Team Evan for me. Most it looks like.
That should be "He doesn't like me either. 🤣🤣🤣 WTF spellcheck?
Lol. Dude, I don't even know/interact with with you.
Nevertheless, "transcending" what exactly? By going to a concert and the Country Music Hall of Fame?
Country music is not "supposedly" white - it is. The fans too, are overwhelmingly white and are mostly likely Republican/Trump voters, NRA members, etc. (Well...at least until their concert is getting shot up)
And, all that is 100% fine. So, don't really know what's so "transcendent" about going to a country music concert. Big deal.
Don’t feed it!!!!
Let it die
Compost 2.0 can’t help himself.
That does indeed appear to be the problem.
Lol. Yeah....please explain to all of us how what I just said is "hateful."
No. The rule is back in play.
9
The Ford F-150 is a sweet chariot. You've a bit of learnin' to do, son. Stay frosty.
These trucks have become monsters, though. I know the F-150 is a classic. It was first sold in 1948, a direct descendant of its WWII truck and a cousin of its school bus models.
My bigger issue is the number of people who have them that can't drive (or more importantly PARK) them.
C'mon man! Is saying "hats off to Evan" meant to assuage you guilty conscience for being nasty so early on a Sat. morning??
That didn't come across as nasty. The line was a little corny, that's all.
just thinking about "throwing up in your mouth a little bit" early in the am is plain nasty!
Relax. It's gonna be ok. :-)
Who really barfs in their mouth? From reading? Just a bit of performative snowflakery.
I remember a literal word for word translation of normal Georgian prose. (Georgia the country in the Caucasus.) It was so flowery I got tears in my eyes laughing. My PhD linguist friend, native of the country was miffed. But she had spent time in the USA, so she understood. She told me, You Americans are sooo boooring! Indeed we can be... trust me Evan. This line you fake barfed about is... confronted with Georgian, would have to turn in a dying swan performance 24/7 worthy of a Trockadero. Go for it!
The entire piece was a contrast of past and present, so the juxtaposition of “Swing Low” and the F-150 is perfect.
BORROWING YOUR COMMENTS BOX PETE. DESPITE ENDLESS MESSAGING TO SUBSTACK MINE REMAINS BLOCKED. (Thank you Sir!!)
Some of us (worldwide) are free men. Others are bound and crippled by fear and prejudice. Then, there are the sycophants, race baiters, oppressive political slime buckets and vampire financiers who exploit the ignorance, poverty and desperation of the poor and dispossessed, in order to steal their lives and labor, for personal power and gain.
I see color. And I'm stronger for it because I see the people standing behind the man. Those men and women who, despite terrible defeat, faced every horror and inhumanity, and now, folded in time, become the light of transformation shining in the eyes of every child. And every child shouts victory. Our tongues may proclaim it but it is the human heart that speaks the language. And Soul, has no specific color.
It is time to heal the shattered psyche of the truth we call the American Republic and abandon the manufactured hyperrealism of the lie attempting to usurp it. Tired if the ass whipping? Return too and embrace the essential joy of the liberty so dearly bought by those who went before us. ESSENTIAL JOY!! The child. The sunrise. First snowfall. Around the bend in the highway, the full moon rising. Honest tears shed for the departed. Hot coffee on a chill autumn morning and the thoughts of a friend. We are undefeatable.
"...Some may come and some may go. We will surely pass. When the one who left us here returns for us at last. We are but a moments sunlight fading in the grass..come on people now..smile on your brother...everybody get together..try and love one another right now..." The Youngbloods
"Jesus man--he's on the mainline.." Mississippi Fred McDowell
"..I have reason to believe..we all will be received...in Graceland..." Paul Simon
Pretty much what I was going to say. His perspective transcends his youth and taps into some real truths.
My sentiments exactly...it brought me to tears since I so hope the next generation (I am a baby boomer) gets to live the wonderful life I have had in this beautiful yet flawed country...we can all get along...everyone just needs to stop being so angry....please keep writing....you have a talent :))
Pain, loss. grit, and hope know nothing of race, sex, religion or country or origin. These are universal emotions and all part of a shared human experience. May the journey of one inform and inspire the journey of all.
That is such a great point. I always wonder why poor white people with a culture of hating others through racism are never equated to poor black people who are raised to hate the person in the other gang—the same with Latinos fleeing Central America. Yes, everyone does it, but what breaks down those barriers are the universal emotions and shared human experiences you speak about. It touched Evan as it spoke to you and me. Something everyone should ponder.
That culture of hating others thing is seriously overdone and getting very tiresome. It is merely a deflection away from those who genuinely intend us harm.
Thank you for this. Overdone is the word.
They (those race-baiters on the Left) ARE the ones who truly genuinely intend harm to us.
David, beautifully stated! Thank you
Evan Gardner needs to replace Chris Anderson as TED Head. Such a sagacious piece by such a young man. You’re going places, Evan! Stay strong!
Of all his many fine sentences, this stood out: “To insist on viewing country, or any other art form, through a racial lens is to obscure its history and to miss the beauty in that art form. It is to sap the art of its art.”
Two days ago I toured the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh. Amidst all breathtaking masterpieces by Rembrandt, Frederic Edwin Church, Benjamin West, Sir Henry Raeburn, and other masters too numerous to list, was posted an innocuous 8.5x11 piece of paper announcing that the NGS is reviewing its collection as part of its “core research purpose as well as our commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion.”
Guess I’m just that privileged white Karen who simply wants to savor the art of art, but I’ve got to ask, when will this stop?
By the way, I was born and raised in CT, lived five years in South Carolina, have returned to CT, and am now looking at property back in SC. The dirty little secret up here is the South has nothing on the Northeast when it comes to racism.
“The dirty little secret up here is the South has nothing on the Northeast when it comes to racism.”
I’m a native Texan (and still live here) and I hear this from every yankee I’ve ever met.
“The dirty little secret up here is the South has nothing on the Northeast when it comes to racism”.
So true, it plagues the Midwest and West too. Systemic racism is EVERYWHERE, just ask Ibram X. Kendi and the wealthy, white, country music loathing donors who paid him 30 million dollars to say so
I guess Boston University didn’t quite dismantle the racism in the accounting curriculum, which appears to be the source of Kendi’s undoing.
The only thing "systemic" in terms of racism is that it has existed since the dawn of society. It is not new and does not know color, economic condition, or language. It does not know privilege or political party. It does not identify as rural or urban. It has always existed in an imperfect world, since the sins of Adam and Eve.
In economics there are models to account for racism; we can tell the black baker how much to discount her pies to sell them in a upper class (AND vice versa). But economists are not so stupid as to assume racism can ever be eliminated.
"Systemic racism" is a popular term used by people who don't know the difference between "systemic" and "anecdotal" or maybe they do know the difference but want everyone else to think racism is everywhere you look.
This crap is so tiring...
Actually I think they have replaced anecdotal with systemic and even accept hearsay anecdotal as systemic.
This crap is not only tiring; it is being utilized to fundamentally and detrimentally change America.
Exhausting!
Among the places Kendi forgot to mention as bastions of racial hatred is the black community who apparently even hate white music a a group.
The systemic stopped in 1965.
Now, there's just lots of racist everywhere. No longer coordinated around a system, but coordinated around a goal of convincing everyone that they (racist) no longer exist.
“Now, there's just lots of racist everywhere”
Prove it.
I would ask some people in FL, but they can't come to the phone right now :)
Entonces nada.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Hold on a moment, need to swing by Tops grocery store.
“Now, there's just lots of racist everywhere”
Not everywhere, but certainly every time you look in the mirror
Nah. Have a a white spouse and am coordial with white co-workers. Can't be racist. Sorry.
Can I use your "speak, scream, tear things down" quote Timothy? Or did you just mean for that to apply to white people?
Show me on the doll where Kendi's book hurt you, Timothy.
“Can I use your "speak, scream, tear things down" quote Timothy? Or did you just mean white people?”
I know you’re not big fan of accuracy so I’m going to assume you mean “If you tell people they can’t speak, they scream. If you tell people they can’t scream, they tear things down”.
It’s a quote from Vivek Ramaswamy discussing the consequences of censoring people. It seems to me the only ones being censored are those exposing race baiting
Hustlers like Kendi and Patrice Cullors, the black BLM Marxist that scammed millions from mostly dumb, rich, white people and corporations and spent buying California mansions.
For the past couple of years anarchists, Marxists and plain old criminals have skipped the speaking part and gone straight to the screaming and tearing down part in places like Chicago, NYC, Philly…
If you need a “doll”, try talking to the mostly poor black folk in those places who’ve been hurt by opportunists using Kendi’s propaganda as an excuse to loot, murder and destroy.
As for me, I live in a small town, and you know what they say about small towns…
Yes...amazing how you and Vivek don't apply that quote to others though, isn't it?
I'm sure you have/had no problem with a silent protest like taking a knee or anything like that, do you?
And please, save me your fake concern for the "mostly poor black folks." Go try your rhetorical gaslighting with someone else.
Yeah, familiar with Mt. Laurel, NJ. So....what exactly should someone not try there?
What is Marxism?
8
I was born and raised in the Deep South, the Mississippi gulf coast. After college I took a job in Milwaukee and was shocked at how segregated it was as compared to my hometown. I spent 4 years there with very little change, before moving to TX where no one cared about race.
I’m also from the Deep South and still live here. I was a teen in the 80’s and I agree with you that nobody cared about race. We always attended school together from elementary school to high school. I didn’t know any different. I never observed or experienced hatred toward each other. We were actually friends.
I have a good friend from South Carolina which, when I lived in the North, I had always just assumed would be terribly racist. Quite the contrary. How embedded we all become in the baseless assumptions that surround us.
Most northern cities are more racially segregated than much of the South.
“The dirty little secret up here is the South has nothing on the Northeast when it comes to racism.”
I live in a 100 year old neighborhood in CT, where some of the property deeds still say that black people cannot live in the house except as domestic servants. This is long since obsolete and unenforceable, but the woke police here keep reminding us of ‘our racist past’, and how we need to do something.
From what I can see, they chose to live in this neighborhood for the same reasons the rest of us did, and I don’t see them offering up their homes for sale at discounts for people of color.
Redlining was a product of the financial industry. Headquartered in the saintly northeast. Same financial industry that financed slavery, profited therefrom and to my knowledge has never issued a mea culpa, much less financial reparation. Nor, despite taking credit for freeing slaves, was it kind of northerners to just abandon those folks in the aftermath of the civil war.
Redlining is actually the spawn of the precursor to the National Association or Realtors (this group had the gall to run a billboard saying “Hate has no home in CT.” LOL!) and the FDR administration. Amazing the lengths the Dems go to expiate past sins.
I grew up in Baltimore. I'm white like our blue-collar neighborhood was. The 60s. My mom was always on the lookout for "block busters"... Whites who buy a house with the intention to immediately sell to a black family at a premium. Pocket the difference. Did this ever actually happen? Don't know. It was my mom.. a sweet, loving, Christian woman who couldn't shake that fear. None of us is without sin. No, not one.
The neighborhood is mostly black now, and never looked better.
The promotion of redlining in the 30s, through the late 60s, was part of the New Deal's compromise with the de facto racism of many northern cities and their Democratic machines and the legal, formal racism of the Southern states.
Thanks for the info. I tend to put real estate under the financial industry umbrella.
Exactly, Faith! I’m from (live in) Texas. In 2013 bought a condo in Brooklyn Heights, NY, to be near my only child. Was widowed in 2009.
Was wonderful for a few years UNTIL Trump vs Hillary! Up until that time, everyone in NY commented on how much they “loved” my Southern accent!
After the election, without reason or provocation, I became a “White Supremacist Deplorable” JUST BECAUSE MY ACCENT became my “identifier” Go figure!
I leased out my condo and returned to Texas! The irony, I am not a Trump supporter, but I made the mistake of saying I could not stomach another Clinton White House. You’re either with them, or against them! The WOKE Left does not tolerate “free speech, or free opinions” Sad!
Just saw this. Unfortunately Honey your experience is not one off. Over the decades I have witnessed the condescension of the northeast towards those who speak with "accents." And while I have met and studied and worked with lots and lots of smart people from NY Boston etc I have met even more not as smart as they think they are ( and who stereotype those with the "accents " and southern zip codes as not quite as smart or quick ..until the subjects of their scorn ever so politely make them " aware" of why stereotyping is not what really smart people do).
And to me, a Bawston or Long Eyeland accent is just ugly. To borrow a phrase, like someone pushed a steamer trunk down cement stairs.
Glass houses and all that.
Sad?
The understatement of the century!
Been there, done that, son. :-) I’m a middle-aged black woman who appreciates…Black Sabbath. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been the only dark face in the crowd -- at least as far as the eye could see -- at a rock concert. And I’ve never let that bother me. Life’s too short to let other people dictate what kind of music I should like.
I’ve always had a soft spot for alt-country, and lately I’ve been diving into the real thing. Lots of Chris Stapleton and Zac Brown Band on my playlist these days. Cheers!
I am so glad people like you, and Evan, exist. Not because you are black but because you do not let others define you.
And because you like metal! That is so METAL!
Ha ha. Cannot go that far in my musical taste but I absolutely support others who do. Actually you make a good point akin to Evans. I will stop looking askance at the heavily tattooed unnatural hair color folk.
Good golly, yes! “Life’s too short to let other people dictate”...ANYTHING! I’ve lived my entire life (yes, even in childhood) not letting other people constrain me (except for laws; I am law abiding). Music, sports, hobbies, art, culture -- if you find something that speaks to you, it’s worth your time, even if it’s not “normal” for your gender, race, socioeconomic background, etc.
That’s why the whole “cultural appropriation” concept is so ridiculous: the world as we know, it was built on cross cultural influences. We should be celebrating that, not continuing to drive wedges between every group.
So agree about “cultural appropriation”…..to me it’s a compliment, whatever happened to “ imitation is the sincerest form of flattery “?
I was a white polka dot in the crowd at the Apollo in 1991. What fun!!
A friend and I were two white polka dots in a blues club in south Chicago in 1993. It was fine, no problems, although I'm sure many in the audience wondered what we were doing there. We were listening to the blues, is what we were doing.
That has happened to me many times. Never had a problem at a blues club.
I'm reading David Maraniss' Once Upon a City, about Detroit in the early 1960s, and I just finished the chapter on Berry Gordy, Jr., and the birth of Motown. Quite a time and place.
Always happy to see another Black Sabbath fan!
I've found metal and punk fans to be very welcoming and accepting, much more than one might expect.
My parents were once in the same-but-reversed situation as you, as probably the only white people at an Ike & Tina Turner concert in DC in the 70s.
Heavy metal is a style you don't see with many black fans. Congratulations :)
Ye Gods, an actual adult.
Those guys are so good! And Zach Bryan is becoming a new favorite.
This is one of the best essays featured in the FP. I can’t wait to read more of Evan’s writing. Thank you.
This kid can write! Bari ought to give him one of her writing awards. Jill Biden who has a "doctorate", (ask her, she'll tell you) can take writing lessons from this kid. If you read her doctoral thesis you will find she has a hard time stringing words together to form a sentence.
Dr. Jill could take
writing lessons from my five year old granddaughter. I pray that three thousand years from now her dissertation is not one of the few surviving artifacts of our times.
She is as big an idiot as her husband. I think she got her doctorate by sending in the right amount of box tops.
Right NUMBER of box tops. ;)
Given that she got it from U of Delaware, where they have a school named after Joe, you might not be far from the truth. There was no way they weren't going to give her that degree.
Write on! “Nothing that endures—nothing with value—is about race at all. It goes beyond that.” Thank you Evan for that fine sentence.
You picked up more education than you will get at Brown. Look at all the race stereotypes you carried around in your backpack and you enter the world and are puzzled that most of it just isn’t so.
Brown is indoctrination, not education. They have an orientation program just for “third world” students. I saw up close that it was a Maoist struggle session: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-groom-commissars-maoist-struggle-session
Country music rocks!
Evan, you are a talented writer. It is not only your writing that impresses me, but it’s your open mind and your open heart you willingly expose. You have a brave authenticity and young people like you will be the ones who help build some much needed bridges in our culture.
You and your Dad bridging a generation, your open mind bridging music genres and your heart bridging racial divides makes you shine. I loved every word of your essay.
Since you mentioned Charlie Pride I’ve saved a quote of his and it seems fitting to share it here.
“They used to ask me how it feels to be the ‘first COLORED country singer.’ Then it was the first ‘NEGRO country singer.’ Then the first BLACK country singer.’ Now I’m the ‘first AFRICAN AMERICAN country singer.’ That’s about the only thing that’s changed. This country is so race-conscious, so ate-up with colors and pigments. I call it ‘skin hang ups’-it’s a disease.” Charlie Pride
You know, there was a system (apartheid) in a country (South Africa) where people were obsessed with these distinctions. They still are, in a different way now. I hope we're not heading there.
Oh, my goodness, I loved that. Thank you for giving me a renewed appreciation for country music, music I was raised with but drifted away from as it became more commercialized and as my tastes in music broadened. But like the best blues, the core of country is about suffering, longing, living life on your own terms, which everyone in this world can relate to.
If it weren't for suburban white boys, rap and hip hop wouldn't be a thing. Jay Z, Snoop, Ice Tea and Ice Cube would have been relegated to a niche type of "music" if the people with money, i.e. White Boys, didn't buy the product. So, why did the angry rhymes and rhythms of a Balck art form appeal to a very different listening base? Because it struck a chord in the hearts and minds of people who couldn't identify with the artist, other than to listen to the words.
Country is much the same. Once you get past the "Whiteness" of the artists, you begin to identify with the emotion and poetry of the music itself. That the author, a young Black man, has finally realized, this is not new. Plus the fact that he was raised in a very privileged atmosphere (Hello, cultural appropriation!) makes this article scream "What took you so long?".
I grew up with the sounds of Hank Williams, Ferlin Husky, etc. in my northern city neighborhood, populated by expats from West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and further South who migrated north for the auto industry jobs. It is a part of who I am, and who I will always be. In fact, I moved to Georgia after I retired, so in a sense I am home.
I am glad that a young privileged, Black man from the North has finally had a "Come To Jesus" moment! More power to him.
“That the author, a young Black man, has finally realized, this is not new. Plus the fact that he was raised in a very privileged atmosphere (Hello, cultural appropriation!) makes this article scream "What took you so long?".”
Finally? What took you so long? The author is barely twenty years old, and he’s had the kind of realization that most people don’t have until they’re past middle age--if at all. The fact that he’s able to think for himself in today’s climate of DEI indoctrination is very impressive and cause for hope.
I’m so happy that TFP is finding these bright young people and giving them a platform. We all know the legacy media aren’t interested in their message.
Among the best pieces i have read on this site. For so many reasons. A young man who gets it. Not that America is perfect but that it is an amalgamation of so many different cultures, religions, races and thinkers that makes us unique . Evan is a thinker who looks for the good but not blindly and without forgetting the rich history ( good and bad) of this complex wonderful country we are privileged to have been born in (or have moved to). I am most curious to hear more from Evan about the reactions to his journey from his classmates at brown and folks back in NYC who have never been to the The Grand Ol Opry and likely have different views about country music.
Excellent piece. It does give one hope that we may find our way out of the current insanity. I mean, hell, I'm an older white guy who still loves and listens to Motown. What you're writing is not incongruous.
What a beautiful and thoughtful article. You are able to articulate the nuance of our daily. Thank you for sharing….
Just a terrific piece. Thank you.
Give folks a chance, the might just surprise you…
Great piece. David Hackett Fischer's African Founders tries to get at the complex presence of African culture that is deeply interwoven into the South's culture. And I think that is what the author here is feeling even though part of the "fabric" is troubled, discredited and rejected by so many. We are one people and Country Music is rooted in that complex oneness.
Fischer wrote the monumental classic, Albion's Seed, about the four founding cultures from the British Isles that provided the initial layers of American life in the 17th and 18th centuries. You will get the South and its peculiar history once you read it. I think he's trying to make up for the obvious gap with looking at Afro-Caribbean culture and its role, as it's centrally important in the tidewater South.