Accidental Racist

The song “Accidental Racist” by Brad Paisley and L.L Cool J was made to be a big deal, first of all, because this song fused two completely different music genres together. According to Chuck Klosterman’s reading, country music is supposed to sort of be stories about the average Joe and simple, everyday life, while Staples’ argument about hip hop states that it is mostly about murder, misogyny and materialism. Clearly these two genres appear as though they wouldn’t mix well, but then again, not all country songs and hip-hop songs are always about these kinds of things.  This means that Klosterman and Staples’ ideas about the two could be considered stereotypical. “Accidental Racist” breaks through the stereotypes of both genres by creating something that is very different and unexpected, but even so, the song is still controversial because the lyrics themselves bring cultural stereotypes into play.

In the song, Brad Paisley describes himself as looking the part of the typical southern cowboy: wearing a white cowboy hat and a confederate flag t-shirt, while L.L Cool J describes himself as wearing a gold chain.  Both these statements are stereotypes of the typical southerner and the typical person of hip-hop culture because not every person categorized in either cultural group dresses the way these two men do. Another reason this song is such a big deal is people reacted very negatively to the fact that it brought up the issue of slavery very bluntly. Some people were angered by the fact that this may have re-opened an argument that was already long forgotten, and some people were just the opposite. L.L Cool Jay states in one of his lines, “If you can forgive my gold chains, I can forget my iron chains.” Some were angered by this statement because they thought it was radical to agree to forget about something so important to our history in exchange for not being judged by the way one dresses. Personally, I thought the song had good intentions within its message, and people shouldn’t be offended by this attempt at guiding two different cultures to better understand each other. As a song, though, I thought “Accidental Racist” sounded bad and the two genres did not fit very well together the way it was created.