Since countering Aldean’s claim the video only contains “real news footage,” Destinee Stark has received a wave of hateful messages from defenders of the song.
Stomp on the flag and light it up
Yeah, ya think you’re tough.
Well, try that in a small town.
See how far ya make it down the road.
Around here, we take care of our own.
You cross that line, it won’t take long.
For you to find out, I recommend you don’t.
Try that in a small town.
Got a gun that my granddad gave meFlag burning is 1st Amendment protected free speech and he is threatening gun violence which is an actual crime.
It’s very telling that they thought this song was in defense of and promoting small towns. It’s the exact opposite.
For one, I doubt many small towns are having liberal protests. Largely, I imagine, because two, they’re proudly declaring they’re close minded and violent. This song is just “patriotic” violence porn over imagining someone protesting for equal civil rights. Frankly it just reminds me, a non-white person, to stay the hell away from small towns.
Is it too cruel to suggest that we let small towns fend for themselves completely if they’re so proud of it?
I’m white and it tells me to avoid small towns. These hickabilly cousin fucking dipshits scare me.
And it’s not like we haven’t let towns die before. There’s so many along railroads in the middle of nowhere that just stopped existing because people didn’t need to take trains everywhere anymore.
Flag burning is 1st Amendment protected free speech
Were you under the impression that he was going to call the cops on them? Because whoosh
he is threatening gun violence which is an actual crime.
Saying you own a gun is not the same as threatening to murder someone.
What a wild two statements to make back to back. Yeah, my entire problem with it is that it is a call for illegal vigilante violence, against someone exercising their constitutional right. As a political statement, it’s a messed up thing to be promoting.
And right after you “correct” me and tell me no, the people in the titular small town are not going to call the police, aka they are taking care of things themselves illegally, you try to also claim they’re not threatening the hypothetical flag burning person with a gun? They are obviously violently threatening repeatedly, and the next line is about a gun. If you want to claim the mentioned gun is not necessarily being brandished, I see why you’re saying that but “this is a man with a gun who is threatening physical violence…he never explicitly said he is threatening GUN violence” is such a weak point. Fine, remove the word “gun” from my point. He is still threatening violence which is an actual crime.
my entire problem with it is that it is a call for illegal vigilante violence
Or a notification that destruction of property won’t be tolerated? Could be either. I mean really it could mean any number of things. As with most songs, it’s intentionally vague. But you’re the one going around proclaiming what’s “obviously” going on.
Fine, remove the word “gun” from my point. He is still threatening violence which is an actual crime.
Also no.
“If you try to rape my wife, I’m going to kill you.” Is this a criminal threat of violence? If it’s preceded by “if” and *if *the consequences are perfectly reasonable given the situation?
Only difference is I’m being much more explicit.
Last week Country Music Television, which initially aired the video, pulled it from rotation. But after Aldean defended the music video by stating that “there isn’t a single video clip that isn’t real news footage,” Stark said it was easy to prove him wrong
In a TikTok video that’s gotten at least 1.5 million views, Stark found that two of the clips in the video came from stock footage. One showed a woman flipping off police at at labor day event in Germany and another was a commercial stock clip of a molotov cocktail.
Lying about it and then getting caught.
Stark shared screenshots with NBC News of hateful messages she’s received since posting her videos about Aldean’s song, which included racist slurs, fatphobic remarks and death threats.
Just bizarre.
It’s not bizarre, the right wing are terrorists. This is how they respond to anyone who challenges their fiction.
That’s a very bias comment, there are hateful people on both sides. And calling a whole group of people terrorists isn’t going to do anything but divide people more.
Anyone still trying to claim “both sides” at this point are just willfully ignorant.
Or being actively dishonest with an agenda.
Anybody who thinks “both sides” aren’t responsible for horrific shit are just as primally tribal as conservatives. Try thinking for yourself sometime.
One side is literally trying to erase the rights of people like me and my friends, while the other isn’t. So what I think is that you should shut the fuck up.
Okay so it’s 100% about you then? That explains a lot.
Want to know the difference between people who vote Democrat and people who vote Republican? Most people either vote for Republicans or against them. There isn’t a “both sides” it’s “these people scare me because they stand for violence, hate speech, less rights for anyone who isn’t a wealthy white male, and they attempted a literal insurrection when their guy lost an election”
deleted by creator
If they don’t understand American politics they shouldn’t be lecturing Americans about it. I don’t go around telling people in other countries what their political parties stand for.
Removed by mod
Not all instances have a default upvote. I’m on kbin.social and it doesn’t.
Removed by mod
It’s really not at this point. And claiming both sides are hateful is completely disingenuous at this point. One side is making death threats, talking about holy wars against Jews and intimidating the other side. It’s like saying your raving gun toting uncle is the same as his brother who said some bad stuff 20 years ago. Sure what was said 20 years ago is awful, but the other uncle is planning to shoot up a school because it won’t teach kids that slavery was good.
The right wingers and their former president literally attempted a coup. Yes, they are idiots and did a shit job of planning and preparing and trump lost his nerve but they still tried it.
In all fairness if the right stopped being terrorists they’d probably not be called terrorists.
Okay well if they don’t want to be called domestic terrorists they should stop calling themselves domestic terrorists
While they’re at it they could also stop being domestic terrorists.
Republicans are terrorist traitors and should be treated as such.
Domestic terrorism in the US is overwhelming committed by the right. Look up the FBI’s statistics if you don’t believe me.
People are divided for a reason: because one side is full of fucking Nazis, terrorists, and their sympathizers.
Oh, and “bias” is a noun, not an adjective. Maybe try consulting a dictionary before you misuse it again.
Looks at people on the other side of the divide, ranting about the latest conspiracy theory, very against abortion (to the point of stoning women who want an abortion), saying that slavery was beneficial towards slave’s skill sets, wanting to expand child labor because “No oNe Wants to woRk aNYmoRe” (rather than no one paying enough, which seems to be the real reason):
"I think I’m good. "
Fuck right off with your both sides comment.
Nope
@FaneW @MicroWave @originalfrozenbanana
BoTh SiDeS
Ayo remind me real quick which political party is forcing women to give birth to babies that won’t live and putting their lives in danger? Also, which one put up barbed wire in a river to try and drown people/children legally seeking asylum? Which political party was it again that had a shit-fit about being “forced” to make a website for gay people and it turned out that never happened but legislature was made anyway because your right to discriminate matters more than treating people like human beings?
If these are the people that you willingly affiliate with then you’re one of them. At least own it.
Yeah that two sides shit isn’t going to fly anymore. There is nothing more to divide. They are literally terrorists at this point and defending it puts you right with them.
deleted by creator
>A representative for Aldean did not immediately respond to a request for comment from on Monday.
Ofc they didn’t. 🙄
Don’t you see? Since the whole video is news now, by definition all footage contained in it is news footage. Check mate
Newsflash: unironically listening to modern country like Jason Aldean or any other arena country act, makes you an idiot. It’s a bad song, with bad lyrics, with bad music, sung by a millionaire larping as working class. Everything about Country is a lie.
That was a scarecrow.
🎶I write songs for the people who do🎶 🎶Jobs in the towns that I’d never move to🎶
I put my hands on your body… it feels like hay, IT’S THE FUCKING SCARECROW AGAIN!
deleted by creator
I’ve been trying to comb through (haha) why I’m so annoyed with the fact that Luke Combs just released a cover of Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car. At first blush I just thought “God damn, what an appropriating prick.” I’ve always thought of it as kind of a feminist song, and since Tracy is Black, as an intersectional song. And here is some rich white country star singing it in a less good way and making mountains more money than she ever made on it.
Intellectually, I know that there are instances where men are heavily burdened by becoming default caregivers of ailing parents, but it falls on women much more often.
I realized it is a bit sexist of me that it rubs me the wrong way for a man to complain about financially supporting his female partner who refuses to work, and it feels like an empowering feminist notion when a woman has had enough of the same and moves out on her own because of it. I guess that’s a pretty backwards thinking on my part.
But also, when he sings, he sounds like he’s constipated and trying to poop.
deleted by creator
It bothers me that the original is much better and his just sounds lifeless and generic af. Like the videos of taking pitch correction to a bunch of classics and making them dull and ruined.
Modern Pop country can go to hell. Want to listen to country, go look up Bluegrass or Folk Punk.
Or, you know, discover the roots of it all and actually come to recognize that modern music was largely ripped off non-white artists. 🤷🏼♂️
Depends on what you listen to. You’d be hard pressed to claim something like power metal, or folk metal to go further, has much of any roots in Black rock, beyond a long trail of this guy did a thing, which lead to another thing, and several artistic choices later you get the very basic foundation of metal itself.
A lot of those genres base their inspiration in folk music of Nordic and Euro origin, and the fantasy elements being just as local or more Tolkien in nature.
Saying modern music all distills down to ripping off black guitarists of the early 1900s is, at this point, an assinine discussion to hold. There is so much nuance, creativity, and departure from the norm in all the decades to follow.
Agreed. You can go to the artists in the early 1900s and find connections. Even the 1950s and they admitted the took inspiration from non white artists. But today with the internet and everything being accessible I just don’t see it.
Thank the gods for the internet when it comes to music. Mongolian throat singing got more attention then it would of, especially now with the Hu reviving interest after Tengger Cavalry brought it around in the 2000s. So much obscure goodness getting some main stream attention.
Seems I need to broaden my folk punk knowledge, all of the stuff I’ve listened to is more ska punk-adjacent, like Syke! Life Is Awesome by BTMI.
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE bluegrass.
Everything about Country is a lie.
What about Swedish horror country?
I love this band so much!
I wouldn’t go far enough to say that for the reason that enjoying the instrumentals (unsure if the correct word, but I mean the melody from non-vocal sounds) is a personal taste. Most people don’t care for my taste which is mostly electronica genres not much lyrics usually, but to each their own.
Personally country music sounds like nails on a chalkboard but I wouldn’t ever say enjoying a certain sound makes someone an idiot. I have read about this story and as a whole it does sound like someone scoring points on an ignorant (and false) view that I have no interest in checking out, for more reasons than just being country and annoying to personally listen to.
Basically proving everything people are saying about the awful things that song stands for right.
Someone with better video editing skills than myself (none whatsoever) should remake this video but exclusively use footage from the January 6th insurrection.
"No shirt
No shoes
No Jews…
Strike that last one"
“You didn’t hear that”
You mean people from small towns have an enfeebled ability to tolerate rhetoric that isn’t their own? I’m shocked.
Enfeebled implies the feeble was applied to them. They were born feeble. It’s in the water.
While true, I feel their born feeble nature is then further cultivated into further feebleness in these small towns.
Fair enough
Don’t know what he debunked. Video is racist as fuck.
She debunked that "“there isn’t a single video clip that isn’t real news footage,” as Aldean said in defense of the music video. She showed that some of the footage was from a an event in Canada, and a protest in Ukraine, as well as some stock footage. The article explains more.
Oh I thought the racists were saying that they had debunked the claim that the video was racist.
The title “TikToker who debunked Jason Aldean’s ‘Try That in a Small Town’ video…” is a little silly and confusing but the TikToker, Destinee, was pointing out how racist the music video is and also debunked Jason Aldean’s claim that all the music video footage is exclusively real American protests.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKkjJAIFGNE
there are a bunch of black people in this reaction video saying it isn’t racist. watch the reaction video then come back and let me know what you think about the reaction video.
Edit: I like how people are downvoting me. I wonder how many of them are white. Watch the reaction video, then come back and let me know you actually watched the reaction video all the way through. Also let me know if you are black or white. What I’m trying to figure out is what percentage of people that are pissed are they white or black. The more knowledge we have the better off we are.
When I first started hearing about this song, and they were people feeling was racist, I thought maybe I should start asking is it racist or not?. I am a middle-aged white guy, so I’m probably not real well qualified to determine what it is or is not racist towards Black people. I can make an assumption of how people, Black people, might view it. But I’ve never walked in the shoes of a black man or a black woman.
I’ve never been pregnant and I’m not a female so there’s no way I can know what it is like to be pregnant. Nor can I figure out what it is like for the emotional stresses of what a female goes through. I can make an assumption or a guess that a certain situation might be stressful or that a certain certain situation a female might not like, but I am not a female so I cannot know it for a fact. So I would have to go talk to a female.
I’m not a Marine so there is no real way for me to know what a Marine goes through.
So I thought the best way to figure out of what do Black people think about this video is effectively go online and look at YouTube videos of Black people responding to the video. That is why I am encouraging those who are down voting this to go watch that video and then come back and respond and tell me what do you think of that video. And also to state are you black or white. for example if I get a bunch of Black people come in here and tell me yes it’s racist as hell, well then obviously that’s where Black people are at and I need to listen to that.
That’s a terrible way to judge it. Part of the effect of systemic racism is that it obscures itself. Part of the tactics of white supremecy is to gaslight and deny. The people who chose to shoot this video at the site of a lynching and race massacre know that this video is racist as fuck, but they deny it and obscure it. It’s dog whistling and it’s not even that subtle.
I’m sure if it ask Kanye or Clarence they have no problems with the messaging in the video. Maybe it’s because they are tokens or maybe it’s because they don’t recognize the symbolism of lynching black people at a courthouse.
What do academics and social scientists say, students of history and anthropology?
The video says that in small town, the law will not protect you from extrajudicial murder if you burn a flag, which is a lawful, First Amendment protected activity. Any attempt to deny, excuse, or justify this messaging is yet another act of complete, unironic ignorance, or is intentional gaslighting.
I clicked on the link and literally none of the top comments are from black people, they’re from white people, so something is certainly wrong here and I don’t think it’s those downvoting you
What’s happening here is very typical with marginalized communities, pandering to White Supremacists to gain some semblance of respect. It isn’t the first time this has happened. Shall we take a walk back down memory lane to the time Malcolm X sat beside George Rockwell?
When I first started hearing about this song, and they were people feeling was racist, I thought maybe I should start asking is it racist or not?
If you read the article and watch the TikTok video a person of color is telling you that she considers it racist. It’s fine if some other PoCs disagree. But the discussion here started with the opinion of Ms Stark.
At this point I only know I’m right when I get death threats. We should wear em as a badge of honor at this point.
Probably not a good idea. People being proud of upsetting others is how we got here. And we have all seen how slippery that slope is.
People who make death threats are garbage people who deserve to be upset. Nothing wrong with being proud of upsetting them.
He didn’t even write the song.
Almost none of them do. They’re just mouthpieces for the Nashville pop trash machine.
And their fans don’t give a shit. I’ve lurked on some Facebook posts about this in the last week and I want to barf.
Thank you for your service.
Was he forced to perform it? Record it? Defend it?
It’s all AI, these days. Or at least most of it sounds like some garbage an AI would write
With how garbage the lyrics are it’s definitely AI. If I had no moral scruples and was asked to write a song like this, I could do a far better job.
I lived in conservative california and that sounds about right. Only thing that kept us alive was that my spouse happens to be a vet and we’re asian so we get a pass. We lived there for a while until my spouse got a job after covid. They literally think that it’s a warzone out there. So much bullshit spread about the city. Of course the news just fans the flames.
This lady I knew never went to the fashion district in LA because she pretty much believed that her blond and blue eyed kids would be snatched off the streets by minorities. The ironic thing is that we lived off the I-15 which is a huge human trafficking corridor so the kidnapping would have more likely happened closer to where they live. Also phelan is full of meth heads but you know, that doesn’t matter.
The song is about sundown towns and that makes it racist AF.
derka deherpa derr
There’s no such thing as “violent” hate mail. It’s words on paper.
And in person death threats are just spoken words. They’re both dangerous and unacceptable.
Threats are already illegal and words aren’t violence.
The words themselves aren’t violent, but they contain threats of violence. I thought that much was inferable from the headline.
By making this argument you appear to be supporting those who are sending the death threats. That’s not a good look. In every conflict in history between those who used racism as a reason to do things and those who oppose them, the racist people happened to be the bad guys. Probably not a good idea to align yourself with racists…
