Accidental Racist by Brad Paisley and LL Cool J is the Worst Song Ever Recorded

Culture

 

The song arose out of an incident with a Starbucks employee who was opposed to Brad Paisley's Confederate flag shirt. Paisley claims that he wore it out of his devotion to the band Lynyrd Skynyrd and that he meant no offense by it. 

NOPE.

Let's make one thing clear, there's no such thing as "accidental racism." Racism is either implicit or explicit, but it's not accidental. Lynyrd Skynyrd has also disavowed all association with the Confederate flag, as The Atlantic aptly reports in an article about the southern band's disdain of the flag.

To understand just how bad this is, here are some of the lyrics from Mr. Paisley:

I'm just a white man comin' to you from the south land tryin' to understand what it's like not to be.

I'm proud of where I'm from but not everything we've done. It ain't like you and me can rewrite history.

Our generation didn't start this nation. We're still pickin' up the pieces, walkin' on eggshells, fightin' over yesterday.

Caught between southern pride and southern blame.

Here is part of LL Cool J's verse: If you don’t judge my do-rag /I won’t judge your red flag / If you don’t judge my gold chains / I’ll forget the iron chains… Let bygones be bygones.

This song has fail written all over it. 

What do my fellow PMers think? Is a song really the right medium to discuss issues of race?