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 view out our bedroom window of Pusch Ridge and clouds typical of our monsoon season down here.

There are a LOT of things going on in our world today. Some are huge and others less important. We tend to see things so differently, which makes it all tougher when something comes up which some feel reflects not just one time racism but current bigotry.

 

When a music channel bans a song, is that big or little? Well, I don't currently listen to country music; so didn't know Jason Aldean or his music. But it showed up as a link on Facebook; and I listened to the song; saw nothing wrong with it, as to me it was about behavior and what we tolerate. I liked it. 

 

I got another link to it from a YouTuber, who is black and evaluates music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYXIzosITCQ  

 

What he said was he saw the clips all about people, of various races, doing things that were not good. They were interspersed while the singer sang. He also analyzed that it's about community standing together.

 

Here's a link to the song if you also have not heard it. Let me know how you see it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1_RKu-ESCY 

 

One person criticized the lyrics, as they took it to mean it was a small Southern town and not just a small town anywhere. The YouTuber above said he thought it spoke to communities that know each other and gather together for support and control-- anywhere that happens.  

 

I guess the biggest complaint is because of the courthouse behind the singer was where a lynching happened in1927 of a mob killing a young black man, Henry Choate, accused of sexual assault of a white girl. I looked it up for the details. The stories vary a lot for what happened that night, but it was at or near the courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee where Aldean lives and many videos are shot. 

 

For anyone interested in news stories and research as to what happened, it's all out there-- ugly whichever one you read. Mob actions were wrong period, and it's happened to whites too. Was the music video shot there because of that past horror, did the ones putting together the video know about the heinous event, or to them did it represent a pretty backdrop as well as law and order? Did they know and hope it would excite interest, which it has done?

 

The last part of the Small Town music video spoke of farmers putting aside their own work to help another farmer. One man said we help each other. 

 

 

I should add a personal experience given I've lived in rural America most of my life. We had a barn burn in the middle of the night. The local volunteer fire department quickly arrived but it was too late to save the barn or the animals in it. Tragedy for me that I still feel pain from and try not to remember. Except there was another side to it when the community people offered to help us rebuild the barn. 

 

Of course, this kind of support can happen in big cities but lately we have seen a lot of times where it has not. People stand by out of fear or concern they'll be hurt or killed, which can happen (did to a white man in Portland Oregon, who tried to protect two Muslim girls being threatened and was killed for his kindness). 

 

If we want an orderly community, fear can't stop us. It takes us standing together against wrong actions for anything to be done-- can't just count on the police, who often are also attacked. In Oregon, where our farm is, the police are a long way off-- and with reduced budgets often can't come to all calls. That leaves it to us, of all colors, doesn't it?