Is anything ever accidental?

"You are a racist."

"No, I am not.  My best friend from high school is black."

For most of a two year period one of my college roommates and I carried an ongoing argument over whether I was a racist.  I defended myself against the charge by claiming that my best friend from high school was black.  I now know that I used one of lamest excuses for not being a racist.  One evening, before that realization, my roommate changed the terms of the debate when he asked me a rather innocent question.  It wasn't until years later that I understood the full implications of the question.  He asked, "would you marry a black woman?"  Without thinking, I said "no."  That night, somewhat unbeknownst to me, I began the process where I came to understand what he meant by calling me a "racist."  I had been programmed to think in racial terms. 

Years later it occurred me that when folks walk away from the "racist" tag they do so because they think it only means hateful things.  If they are not members of a hate group, then how can they be racists.  That is the problem with our discussion of race in the U.S.  We want to understand a complex social construction in simple terms.  For most of us, the process of racialization occurs almost from birth.  When our parents make choices about where they worship, our preschools, or non-school activities.  Interestingly, it can occur before our births when they make choices about where we live, if they can afford that choice.  We are taught to make choices from within racial categories.  In the abstract the categories are all wrong, but in our practical, everyday lives, we hold tight to them.  The choices we make to get from point A to point B in our hometowns suggest how we think and act in racial terms.   In Macon, Georgia, the choice of sending a child to public school versus private school after fifth grade shows the process.  We racialize our music.  My current example is Darius Rucker, but there are other examples.  But the process of racialization is even more subtle than that.  In reaction to a question posted on Facebook about Brad Paisley's "Accidental Racist" song, a young woman said she was proud to be "Black."  Since the young woman claimed her racial identity, she is in effect making a "racist" claim that a racial category helped define her understanding of herself.  No one would suggest she should have done anything else, but this is what makes the Paisley song interesting.  What happens to a white man if he does so?  Given the initial reaction to the song, it is clear that he must be the worse kind of racist: one who doesn't understand his sin.  It might have helped if Paisley had had a little more historical perspective before launching the song.  Paisley, his character in the song, and the young woman in the comment section of a Facebook post claim their identity in racial terms.  It would be nice to live in a world where people are judged by the content of their character, but we have not constructed that world. 

Oddly, the song attempts to understand something that is often lacking in discussions about race relations: an attempt at understanding the "other."  Paisley's character is caught in a judgmental stare.  Rather than trying to "walk in another's skin," the initial move in the song is to defend the character's regional identity.  Here South means "white."  In this simple move, the song's problem becomes clear.  Paisley grabbed a loaded symbol and tried to explain it away in all of his post-release interviews.  The focus has remained there.  Sadly, it also gives the stupid "heritage, not hate" line continued credibility among those believers.  The character in the song, however, moves forward in his thinking, is forced to think about his racism, and his understanding of that racism.  It is in that move that the character asks "Dixieland" to understand why he is asking difficult questions.  But the angry reaction to the song and Paisley's own words miss the attempt to understand another human being's experience because the focus stayed on the coded image.  And the lyrics that push the issue hardest for white southerners are covered by the rap lyrics to let bygones be bygones.  Can't we all just get along, which is always the weakest way to address racial discussions.  The song could have done more, but it did not.  There is nothing accidental about any of this.

Given his discography, Paisley is likely one of the few people who can ask these questions to white southerners listening to country music, even if his critics think they are in a better position to advance racial understanding.  Sorry, folks, but Paisley's audience is never going to hear you because they have been racialized to ignore you.  A better question might be, how can we claim racial identity without letting it define us in simple terms?  I am far more interested in having students who understand their cultural history but who are not limited by that history.  It takes a tough skin to move through that process, including having a good friend point out your racial tendencies.  But to assume that country music artists are the only ones who see the world with racial blinders on might be as bad as the song itself.