00:00:00.000class is in session hey everybody welcome to unlearn 16 class is in session you just get me
00:00:09.520today guys just me just me all by myself well you get me and you'll get um ripley who will lie on
00:00:15.500the very large light and then try to push other lights over as i do this podcast but just me and
00:00:22.840I have to address something that's a bit controversial only because it's sort of inundated
00:00:30.080every single place I go. I've tried to avoid it. I've tried to ignore it. I've tried to just put
00:00:37.860it where it belongs, which is maybe in sort of the naive place of a kid writing a couple song
00:00:45.940lyrics, but I can't anymore. And I've had a few people who are much less controversial than I
00:00:52.960read over this song and go, okay, should it be controversial? Shouldn't it be? And the song
00:00:59.880that we're going to talk about, or I'm going to talk about today is Try That in a Small Town
00:01:03.760by what's his face? Jason Aldean. Now, the idea, try that in a small town. The idea doesn't seem
00:01:14.060so horrific, right? The main premise, originally, when I started hearing all of this controversy,
00:01:21.080I'm like, oh, listen, can we just leave it? Is it really that bad? Is it really that
00:01:31.000ill-intended? I mean, that's what my goal is, right? My goal has always been,
00:01:36.100is there hate behind it or is there ignorance behind it? And I don't mean that in a rude way.
00:01:42.280I mean that in a certain people come from certain places in certain environments and the idea of these externalities doesn't, it doesn't really resonate with them. And it's not because they're bad people. It's because they haven't had the experience. Right.
00:02:02.960And so I read this, you know, as I'm listening to it every place it is, and I'm seeing TikToks about it and videos about it and all that kind of stuff. I'm like, I'm just going to go read the lyrics. And I'm going to talk about the lyrics with you guys. And please feel free to put whatever, respectfully, be nice, respectfully in my comments, because I think it's an interesting discussion.
00:02:32.340Go sing whatever you're going to sing.
00:02:34.560There's a lot of songs out here that I'm not necessarily a big fan of.
00:02:39.120Here's the problem for me for this song, because there's a lot of bigotry, there's a lot of
00:02:45.540hate, there's a lot of violence, there's a lot of anger in many different forms of music.
00:02:51.140And you constantly know where they're coming from, for the most part, right?
00:02:56.700A lot of the time, you know exactly where those musicians are coming from, usually from very specific lived experience and sort of a political belief system that they are firmly embedded in.
00:03:13.200Look, just because I disagree doesn't mean I don't get why they're coming from where they're coming from.
00:03:20.540Now, when I looked at this, here's the problem I have with this song.
00:03:24.800And I'm going to talk about a few of the lyrics.
00:03:26.140Actually, I'm going to talk about all the lyrics. I'll put all the lyrics on the table and try to
00:03:30.920have, even if there's no such thing, the most objective. Like, can I look at these lyrics
00:03:37.320and kind of take it from both sides? Because I think I can. Try to find out where this is coming
00:03:43.780from. And I think the primary place this is coming from is this idea, the notion. And I think it's a,
00:03:51.340you know, a fictitional one. It's a stereotypical one. This stereotypical notion
00:03:57.860that a small town is filled with good people who want to take care of each other.
00:04:06.640And the more that you know your neighbor, the more likely you are to take care of them. And
00:04:11.100in a small town, you're more likely to know your neighbor. I don't see the, in that, in that idea,
00:04:18.400I'm of the belief, by the way, that it's not about a small town. It's about the underlying principle, and I believe this to be true, that good people are good people.
00:04:32.400And the majority of us, the vast majority of us, don't want to see harm come to our neighbor, don't want to see harm come to other people, want to stand up against injustice, want to stand up against violence, want to make sure that everybody is okay.
00:04:49.740And in a bigger city, it is much more likely, you're much more capable of not belonging to any community
00:05:03.520Now, was that true back in the day, and was that true today?
00:05:15.380And I mean, let's say all those people that like to say, you know, let's make America like it was again. What day are we talking about here, folks? The 50s? The 60s? The 70s? When do we want to go back to?
00:05:34.100When was that good old small town mentality, healthy, vibrant, and I know I'm going to be in deep in stereotype here, but was everybody safer in that environment or perhaps was everybody safer in that environment that fit that stereotypical traditional expectation?
00:06:04.900that's what i want to know because are we just talking about well that good old small
00:06:11.060town was always good before significant immigration into the region before the lgbtq
00:06:20.580community was able to sort of hold their head up a little bit higher african-american communities0.84
00:06:27.540were able to feel safe within those communities because back in the 40s the 50s the 60s the 70s
00:06:36.820guys guys for those people was a small town safe now i'm not going to argue that a big city was safe
00:06:48.180what I am saying to you is this individual, this country singer, Jason is relying on this
00:06:57.120pretense of safety within small towns that maybe possibly existed for certain kinds of people
00:07:06.740in certain time periods. And maybe today it exists a little bit more. I don't know.
00:07:14.940I don't know, guys. Is a small town less likely to have hate crime? Well, one of the first plays
00:07:25.680I ever watched was the Laramie Project, right? Laramie, Wyoming. What did that small town do?
00:07:35.200Well, in Laramie, Wyoming, they tied a gay kid to the back of their truck and drove him out0.89
00:07:41.700to the middle of a field, tied him like a scarecrow up to a fence post, and left him0.94
00:07:48.460there. Is that the small-town mentality he's talking about? And again, I'm going to say,
00:07:57.300I don't think big cities, and we're free of this as well, I think, though, having this illusion
00:08:07.620of safety, this pretense of safety and a better moral code in a smaller town is just that.
00:08:15.940It's a pretense. And I think I would argue that in light of the onslaught of vitriol
00:08:26.620towards the trans community and Dylan Mulvaney specifically, who had the audacity to drink
00:08:32.340about light. Would she be safe in any of these small towns? Are these small towns standing up
00:08:39.200saying, ah, ah, ah, not on my watch? Because then I really started thinking about protecting people
00:08:46.700in a small town. Are you just protecting them? Are you just standing up for them because they're
00:08:50.260next to you? Or, or is there an underpinning, a moral code, a moral compass that you were
00:09:00.320supposed to adhere to, to make sure people do not face violence, discrimination, hatred,
00:09:09.900harassment. Aren't we all? And if we're all a part of that, I'd just like to know where Jason's song
00:09:18.260is to talk about how half the small towns bought a bunch of Bud Light, got out their very powerful
00:09:28.360semi-automatic weapons, machine gunned it down. Where was the take care of your neighbor then?
00:09:38.000Or are we just saying you should take care of certain neighbors, certain kinds of people?
00:09:45.700Because I don't love it. I don't love what I feel as though it's trying to reflect. So we're going
00:09:52.000to go stanza by stanza. Guys, this is like grade 10 poetry. Please have a seat. Maybe write down
00:09:56.300some jot notes, come up with your own ideas. Here's the first stanza. Sucker punch somebody
00:10:01.220on a sidewalk, carjack an old lady at a red light, pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store.1.00
00:10:07.300You think it's cool? Well, act a fool if you like. First stanza. Now,1.00
00:10:14.440are we saying there's no violence in small towns? Nobody's got sucker punched?
00:12:03.940But what he's going to negate there very, very quickly are the very real, very harmful,
00:12:11.200very consistently provable instances of police brutality and police aggression in some areas
00:12:22.560towards very particular people within the community. And those particular people tend
00:12:28.320to be visible minorities. How long do you get beat? How long do you get arrested? How long
00:12:40.080do you get treated like a second-class citizen before you're ready to fight? How long? How long
00:12:45.700before? No, that's enough. No, thank you. Like, I don't feel afraid when I get pulled over. Well,
00:12:52.960I do only because I think that I've done 17 things wrong, but I'm not afraid because I feel as though
00:12:57.000I'm at a higher risk. I don't know what that's like, but to deny it, to deny its existence,
00:13:05.020to deny the truth about driving a car while black is ridiculous and offensive and incredibly0.98
00:13:18.520damaging to everybody's sense of reality and how to fix these problems. And then just to0.99
00:13:27.060minimize it like this, I feel as though, you know, this kid hasn't had that kind of running.
00:13:33.860And I'm happy for him. Listen, I don't want anyone to have that kind of run in, but don't, don't degrade it. Don't pretend as though it doesn't exist. Don't sort of push it to the fringes without context and without, you know, the realities of those situations. Stomp on the flag and light it up. Guess what? That's your constitutional right.
00:13:53.520I thought small town kids purporting traditional values agree with the constitution. And constitutionally, the flag as your idea to protest or as your idea to sort of talk about the infrastructure and the government that you have and the decisions you make,
00:14:17.960That is the least violent or hateful thing you could possibly do
00:14:51.760But somehow, these peaceful forms of protest coming from communities that have been historically discriminated against, harassed, violence has been perpetrated upon them, and I'm not, you know, I don't need to go through example after example.
00:15:09.080and their retort is taking a knee? Taking a knee during the national anthem?
00:15:17.220I don't get it. Yeah, you think you're tough. All right, here we go. Next line. Well, try that
00:15:23.120in a small town. See how far you make it down the road. Around here, we take care of our own.
00:15:27.720I don't love that either. Because when you say take care of your own, is that just because you
00:15:32.600live next to them? When you're standing up for your fellow, and this kid's American, your fellow
00:15:39.140Americans, aren't they all deserved the same right? Aren't they all deserve the same protection?
00:15:46.980Shouldn't you be making songs in protection of, in support of everybody's democratic right? Just
00:15:54.680curious. Or is it just the dude that happened and lived next to you? And since they live next to you
00:15:59.700and they know what your face is like, you're supposed to have a higher moral code. And I
00:16:03.600know some of you are going to be like, listen, Joanne, it's tribal, right? You protect your
00:16:07.640tribe. You form these communities. It is who you're in the space with. Part of me understands
00:16:12.740that. Part of me understands that. But let's not pretend as though in small towns, just as in big
00:16:20.420cities, in big cities, there can be a little bit more anonymity. In small towns, there can be very,
00:16:24.360very sort of cliched groups. Secrets kept. Damage that's been done in the house down the street
00:16:32.460that you never talk about it. Why? Well, you like that family. Or you gossip about that family. I
00:16:40.300used to live in a small town, guys. Come on now. That kind of vitriol was consistent. And the biggest
00:16:52.440problem, I'm against crime of all shapes and sizes. You want to address crime, there's bigger
00:16:58.700issues to address. But if you want to address crime at the root, the number one thing you need
00:17:06.660to stop doing is being quiet about the crimes you know who have been committed. I lived in a small
00:17:12.760town. Do you know how many people drove drunk every weekend? Guys, the whole freaking town.
00:22:04.780Was raised upright mean? Because what it should mean is a level of standing up for people, period. Period. Where's the country song supporting the abuse and the battery and the violence perpetrated against minority groups? Where's that? Is it just your town you want to protect?
00:23:10.820Everybody's on edge about the lyrics you use, the stance you take,
00:23:15.660what you say is okay, what you say it isn't.
00:23:18.740And this notion, because I don't think people from small towns
00:23:23.680like to be stereotyped as being, you know, less people.
00:23:30.840either. Meaning sometimes there's stereotypes of people in small towns not being educated enough
00:23:37.380or not being worldly enough or not being accepting enough and all of those things.
00:23:42.700But when you flip it, I don't abide that, by the way. I think people are inherently, let me say
00:23:51.060this, people, no matter where you live, are inherently good. And I think the environment
00:23:56.720in which you live and the place in which you live and your experiences can possibly push us to
00:24:04.600places we don't naturally want to go. But I don't think that's happening in a small or big town
00:24:10.160anymore or any less. I think the numbers are the difference, right? And I do think the level of
00:24:19.280anonymity is interesting. It's kind of the reason sometimes, you know, if you have videotaped
00:24:27.960footage of people, there's a theory, panopticon, I might be saying that wrong. There's this theory
00:24:35.960that if we are on visual display at all times, meaning you are constantly surveilled, and in a
00:24:42.980small town, you kind of are, right? Because everybody knows who you are, everybody sees
00:24:45.940coming and going. Bobby was out till two in the morning. Oh, I saw his daughter. She was out till
00:24:51.240three. I was on my... Look, there's that kind of vibe sometimes in a small town. But it's the same
00:24:57.460kind of idea. It's this idea that we are being surveilled. And in a surveilled state, two things
00:25:04.340tend to happen. We commit less crime or we figure out new ways to get around it. Right?
00:25:13.500And if you're constantly surveilled, it might help. It might help. But if you're constantly surveilled, you're constantly looking about how not to be.
00:25:25.440so I think we're starting to see this divide and what I don't like about this song a lot
00:25:34.800is that it's really really driving yet another wedge driving another wedge between the them and
00:25:43.660us between their problem and our moral high ground and I get it again I'm not a big fan
00:25:52.580of censorship. I'm not pulling anything. And I know a lot of people are like, well, did you hear
00:25:56.820what Nicki Minaj saying about this? Listen. And there's also a big difference. It's not a swear
00:26:05.520word. That's the problem. It's not a harshness with what you say. It's what is your intent to
00:26:15.380say it? What is your goal? And when I get through this whole song and when I try to feel what his
00:26:22.140goal is, I don't like it. I don't like it. And at the bottom line of everything, in my opinion,
00:26:31.140it is the xenophobia. It is the fear of foreigners, the fear of outsiders. It's always
00:26:36.960them. It's them. They did it. We were great until they stepped into our community and then they
00:26:43.960brought with it violence and this and that and whatever. And that kind of mentality, and I don't
00:26:50.820know to go too deep in history, but it's that kind of mentality that is setting us up for rather than
00:26:58.880understanding each other, for separating ourselves from each other, for seeing the evil in each other
00:27:07.300before we ever take to understanding, for living with the stereotype of one another. And as soon
00:27:16.940you have a vigilante kind of justice there's a reason why vigilante justice doesn't you know
00:27:23.660first of all it's legal it's because it's all emotion it's all emotion and if you were to ask
00:27:31.100any individual person what would you do and this is always the big question what would you do if
00:27:35.900it was your son or your daughter your mom or your well we get crazy and we get violent but if we're
00:27:43.580thinking what is best for the community because you can't you can't i couldn't and that's why i
00:27:51.180as a victim of that don't get to perpetrate the punishment because the punishment would probably
00:28:00.780be excessive and the division that this is preying upon is clear is clear who's they
00:28:12.860That's my question. I'd sit him down and I'd say, it's you. And this is what I would love to ask him. It's you and your small town. I love the notion of everybody knowing each other and taking care of each other and caring what goes on in their house and making sure that everybody's protected, even from within the walls of their own house. Is that what's going on? Because I don't think it is. But I would ask, who are they?
00:28:38.200that's the only question i would sit down and ask jason when you start talking about they
00:28:45.580when you start talking about your good old town when you start talking about
00:28:50.060you know you protect your own when you say things like that what you're inferring0.95
00:28:57.840is that there is a they external to that and it's the they who is external who causes all the0.74
00:29:06.040problems, who brings in the violence, who brings in the hate, who brings in the destruction.0.93
00:29:13.360And it's not the case. It's not the case. And I'm going to say one more thing. It actually
00:29:23.640creates the circumstance for which that to become true. Because if you already see them as a threat
00:29:32.460and you treat them, and I use air quotes, heaven help me,
00:29:37.060you treat them as a threat, eventually violence will fall.