Yesterday morning, a fellow named Justin McGowan asked his local country station to play a song from Beyoncé's new album. The New York Times tells us what happened next:
The station manager, Roger Harris, emailed Mr. McGowan back with a concise rejection: “We do not play Beyoncé at KYKC as we are a country music station.”
Mr. McGowan put a screenshot of the rejection on social media, tagging a Beyoncé fan group in a post that drew 3.4 million views on X and sparked conversations on Reddit and TikTok. “This is absolutely ridiculous and racist,” Mr. McGowan wrote, urging people to email the station and request the song.
Why do so many people lunge for the r-word as a first resort? Beyoncé isn't a country singer and Harris was unaware that she had dropped two country tracks on Sunday. His response was perfectly reasonable, and he reversed course when he found out that Beyoncé is, in fact, a country singer, at least for the moment.
Not everything involving Black people is automatically racist. Let's save the word for when it really applies, OK?
Bey-Hive only slightly more unhinged than Swifties and significantly saner than K-Hive.
Is this sarcasm, that he assumed a black person wouldn't have country tracks?
That he assumed that famed pop star Beyoncé didn’t have country music, because until several days before, she didn’t?
If you run a country station and you don't know that Beyonce has produced a country song, it might be racism, but it's definitely incompetence. The man has one job, for chrissakes.
And that job is to stick to the playlist, and the playlist is modern country.
He might have the same response to someone who asked for Jimmie Rodgers or Patsy Cline. All those singers I grew up with are now deemed 'too country'.
Yes, most stations have playlists based on particular genres or charts and listener surveys. The genre "country" is too broad to apply to all country stations.
I haven't heard the Beyonce tracks, but how "country" are they? Did they make the country charts?
A lot of recent country sounds to me like warmed over rock music sung with a hick accent. Should the rock stations play that? No, since rock stations normally stick to a very defined playlist and genre - alternative rock, classic rock, easy rock, etc.
This is a great point. As station manager, one should be expected to know all about new releases by the biggest stars. I had no idea Beyonce planned a foray outside of her usual genre--but that's not my job.
Ever actually run a country station? Didn't think so.
Not entirely true; Beyoncé has recorded country -tracks- before ("Daddy Lessons," on Lemonade), just not an entire country album. While racism isn't the only possible reason - and knee-jerk reactions are rarely advisable - it is among the many possible explanations, which might include ignorance and just a general dislike of Beyoncé. (Addendum: The station is now playing the single.) Also, that Twitter poster - Justin - is just a Regular Joe, like me, except he has more followers (491). Is one of his tweets REALLY worth a Kevin Drum post, or is Kevin especially cranky today?
Crossover artists are hard for stations with defined playlists to categorize. The old principle of "what you don't play won't hurt you" applies more than ever. These stations are going for a very defined advertiser base that expects to hear a limited number of hit songs and artists. (I hate this myself but that's how it works for them economically. It's why I rarely listen to commercial radio.)
Take Willie Nelson, for example. I think of his music as basically country, but I don't think he gets much airplay on the commercial country stations since he is considered more of a crossover rather than a pure country artist. .
Clearly this was reverse racism
I blame DEI.
Sometimes Kevin falls prey to that fragility people keep talking about.
Because yeah, racism is not just about shouting slurs.
It’s like you didn’t even read the post.
I read the post. I also wasn't born last week. Some of you folks have the hardest fucking time seeing your own blind spots.
But that surely isn't true of you, right?
With you chewey
Funny, I called up my local hip-hop radio station a few weeks ago asking for something from Taylor Swift's new album.
"We do not play Taylor Swift at here as we are a hip-hop music station."
You...called a radio station and spoke to a human and talked about their playlist? Totally legit thing that happened.
You mean one can't do that anymore? I used to do it all the time in the seventies.
I hear "Bad Blood" on hip-hop stations all the time. Perhaps you should have asked to speak to a manager.
Well, that's what I get for a smart aleck comment (when I never listen to hip-hop or country).
I'd certainly be willing to accept ignorance as an explanation. I had no idea either that she did anything country. And if he owned up to that, no harm done.
I'll give no ground on "harmless jokes" or for-sure-totally-understandable "fear of young Black men," but ignorance of a particular pop-superstar's recent oeuvre, meh.
Seems like this caller was looking to be offended and grand stand about it. Why not just explain to the radio station about her new foray into Country, rather than go straight to social media?
Because then they wouldn’t get the attention.
++
That was my thought as well. The guy was grandstanding so he could get clicks of outrage from people eager to cry “racism.” If the guy had requested that the station play a Charlie Pride song, they would probably have been happy to do so. Most country music fans don’t think of Beyoncé when they think of country music. She has been doing country music for about two weeks.
That's the thing, IMHO. People are looking to be angry. So many people are just itching to make war over everything.
Taking on the tough issues, eh, Kevin?
The fact that he wasn't aware is proof enough for me. Cancel him. CANCEL HIM!
Sure, we could have a civilized conversation if white folks could just take a break from nurturing their perpetual persecution complex.
That may all well be true, but I'm certain her crossover style incorporating elements of black folk music is going to ruffle a bunch of turkey feathers down south.
She should sing country wearing white-face.
I kind of hate to wade in on this one, but... a little context is in order. Beyonce's new album is in fact a country album. Yes, it's a departure for her, but she released two songs during the Super Bowl, wearing a big white cowboy hat. Also, relatedly I think, Lil Naz X had a country-ish song a few years back that riled up many in the country music world for not being authentically country enough.
At the very least we can state the obvious: black people are outsiders in country music. Is this racism? That's debatable, but I do think McGowan's reaction above is not just from out of the blue.
Billy Ray Cyrus recorded an updated version with him singing the chorus and suddenly country stations agreed to play it.
But I'm sure that had nothing to do with race.
Is that how one identifies a country song sung by a country singer?
I would think that it to be the song itself , otherwise to sample from a prior infamous quote, it would be all hat, no country.
At this point in time, I have to wonder how Kevin (or anyone else) could possibly ask this question seriously:
"Why do so many people lunge for the r-word as a first resort?"
Where exactly have you been? The new religion of anti-racism has been sweeping through academia, media, entertainment, business, advocacy, and significant segments of the wider culture since at least the 2020 summer of George Floyd protests.
And the prophet of this new religion, Ibram Kendi, declares that “there is no such thing as a not-racist idea.”
He also sets forth a simple catechism for the faithful to recite during their anti-racist observances:
"If discrimination is creating equity, then it is antiracist. If discrimination is creating inequity, then it is racist. . . . The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination."
So the issue involving Beyonce was racist because the Kendi faith only allows for two possibilities in any situation where supposed discrimination is taking place: it's either racist or anti-racist. The "not racist" option does not exist.
And, by refusing to play a Beyonce song, the station manager, Roger Harris, was apparently contributing to a lack of racial equity among the artists he played on his station. Nothing else matters. There is no context. The fact that we're talking about a country music station is inconsequential.
We're in the midst of a 21st century "Great Awakening" in which all people are racist unless and until they embrace the anti-racist faith and fervently promote "equity." And the incident with Beyoncé and a country music station is exactly what you can expect as a result.
America is not always racist. And the race does not always go to the swiftest. And the battle does not always go to the strong.
But that's the way to bet.
Also, I think the problem is that everything is indeed tinged with racism in America. It's baked into the cake. We need to have more, smarter conversations about it. But "racism" is a nasty word that nobody wants to be associated with. Hence we keep doing thoughtless, racist things to each other while being confident that none of us has a "racist bone in my body." Like a lot of things right now, we don't know how to talk to each other about it. Which is I would guess where Kevin and I agree?
Racism is a form of tribalism. We are a tribal species.
Andrew Young once said you should never trust anyone who says they aren't racist. You should say "I'm working on my racism."
Gotta agree with Kevin on this one. Or at the least, say I don't have enough data, at which point my default assumption would be that this wasn't an incident involving racism.
@ScentOfViolets:
This position puts you deeply at odds with the modern Leftism that you may think you are a part of:
"I don't have enough data, at which point my default assumption would be that this wasn't an incident involving racism."
As I describe above, the default position of modern Leftists is to assume racism, not to assume its absence.
If you're not assuming the presence of racism and opposing it with the anti-racist advocacy of equity, you are very likely to find yourself unemployable in academia, newsrooms, publishing houses, progressive advocacy organizations (including the ACLU), the entertainment industry, and any other area where Leftism is predominant.
Welcome to the modern struggle with ideological and ostensibly secular fundamentalism.
"If you're not assuming the presence of racism and opposing it with the anti-racist advocacy of equity, you are very likely to find yourself unemployable in academia, newsrooms, publishing houses, progressive advocacy organizations (including the ACLU), the entertainment industry, and any other area where Leftism is predominant."
I've worked in academia for 43 years (not counting college and grad school). I'm currently a full professor. This comment is deeply silly.
Climb down off that cross, son. We need the wood.
Haven't been paying attention to the changes in the world in which you live for the past 43 years?
Yep, that's an academic!
LOL! Haven't been paying attention to the academic world because you lacked the mental firepower?
Yep, that's a troll!
@ Joel:
I made this comment above: "If you're not assuming the presence of racism and opposing it with the anti-racist advocacy of equity, you are very likely to find yourself unemployable in academia, newsrooms, publishing houses, progressive advocacy organizations (including the ACLU), the entertainment industry, and any other area where Leftism is predominant."
And you replied: "I've worked in academia for 43 years (not counting college and grad school). I'm currently a full professor. This comment is deeply silly."
So, here is the job description for an English teacher taken just now from the San Mateo County (of California) Community College website:
"We value the ability to serve students from a broad range of cultural heritages, socioeconomic backgrounds, genders, abilities and orientations. Therefore, we prioritize applicants who demonstrate they understand the benefits diversity brings to a professional educational community. The successful candidate will be an equity-minded individual committed to collaborating with faculty, classified staff, administration, students and community partners who are also committed to closing equity gaps. An equity-minded individual is a person who already does or has demonstrated the desire to:
(1) Understand the importance of holding ourselves accountable as educators for closing equity gaps and engaging in equitable practices;
(2) Reframe inequities as a problem of practice and view the elimination of inequities as an individual and collective responsibility;
(3) Encourage positive race-consciousness and embrace human difference;
(4) Reflect on institutional and teaching practices and aim to make them more culturally responsive; and
(5) Strategically build buy-in and participation among colleagues for equity-related initiatives."
My comment above is an exact description of reality. If you do not adopt modern anti-racism and promote race-consciousness, if you are not committed to equal racial outcomes in the form of so-called equity, then you cannot get a job in any industry where Leftism is now predominant.
And if you believe in MLK Jr's vision for our society, you can no longer work as a teacher. If you agree with MLK Jr that we should live in a country where our children will be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin then, ironically enough, the only people who will still hire you are Republicans and Conservatives.
Coleman Hughes provides an updated description of what the Civil Rights movement fought for: "The principle of color blindness does not mean that we pretend we don’t recognize race. The definition I espouse is that we should treat people without regard to race, both in our public policy and in our private lives."
But the modern Left doesn't just disagree with this approach, it condemns this perspective as evil and tries to remove its proponents from any role in society. Hughes himself experienced significant censorship for expressing his ideas in a Ted Talk. And he recently stated on the Bill Maher show that most media outlets wouldn't even talk to him about his new book.
So, I don't know where exactly you've been for 43 years. But all I can say is that at some point in time you got very much out of touch.
Poor Angry Leo knows better than everyone else. After all, he can copy/paste something he found on the internet and go off on a wild rant about it.
You dont know what reality is like, not like the guy who can copy/paste from his basement! Your life experiences dont capture reality like he can with his copy+paste+unhinged rant!
Poor guy.
Funny how you jump straight to what you think "modern Leftism" is.
You need to remove conservative propaganda from your news diet.
He doesn't seem to realize I'm an Eisenhower Republican; I tend to ignore other people's business because it's goddamn none of mine.
Whereas your standard issue Republican seems to be a born-again white nationalisit Miss Grundy.
The default position of leftists is to accuse racists of racism when leftists observe racism.
+1
This might be as good a place as any to make a plea for revival of the term "prejudice." While its use has been declining in recent years (if Google is to be believed), it seems highly unlikely that the thing itself has been declining in prevalence.
Prejudice (even when applied specifically to "racial" distinctions) is not the same as racism--although the two can of course overlap. Prejudice is literally praejudicium--judgment in advance. As when, say, one assumes that a universally-known black pop star could not have any songs in her catalog that might fit a genre format generally associated with white folks. (And, yes, this would be *very* mild example of "prejudice." Others are far more extreme.)
Racism is a theory (however vulgar its specific expressions) about the absolute and unalterably hierarchical separation between groups of human beings based on a handful of phenotypical distinctions, that was developed no earlier than the early 17th century, chiefly in Europe's New World colonies, to justify a new form of inheritable chattel slavery, that could not be justified using pre-existing religious categories, and that has been spreading and metastasizing, ever since.
Racists are people who declare, or demonstrate, in word and/or deed, that they are not willing to share to world with members of another "race," on anything like equal terms.
The reason to reserve the word "racist" for such people--and "racism" for their creed (again, however vulgarly held & expressed)--is that such people still make up a significant percentage of the population.
In the US they are, at a guess, somewhere between 1/5 and 1/3 of the "white" population. They are in other words numerous enough to form the core of a winning electoral coalition. And they will never be stopped by being convinced to shed their views. They will be stopped by being defeated, politically, as often as possible, in their effort to build & sustain such a coalition, which must of necessity include non-racist fellow travelers.The way to do this is to drive wedges between them and their would-be coalition partners.
"In the US they are, at a guess, somewhere between 1/5 and 1/3 of the "white" population."
And 90% of those racists are in your imagination.
Thanks for the historical refresher, and revitalizing "prejudice" as a word! I like the concept, evidently now obsolete, of words having meanings. Sadly, the current trend towards sloppiness and misuse is causing once useful words to literally (by which I mean actually) lose their former meanings and end up meaning little more than "I don't like this."
Thus "racism." " Antisemitism." "Fascism." Once these words referred to actual concepts. Now, they're merely epithets, the adult version of "poopy-head."
Kevin, Google: Beyonce Texas Hold'Em. Listen to the song. If this song was by a white person it would definitely count as a country song. Country may not be the first genre that people associate the Beyonce. But that doesn't mean she can't record a country song. After all Ray Charles recorded Sounds in Country and Western Music.
This is probably the worst post Kevin has ever written.
You are projecting.
Can you even figure out for yourself what it is that you're projecting?
I suggest you revisit the saga of Lil' Nas X.
I can't speak to what's in Mr Harris's head, but if you are running a country music station and you are unaware of the biggest story in country music for several decades (by which I mean, this was on the front page of national newspapers) you may not be very good at your job.
As an un-colored person, I have no right to an opinion.
Also, the "fascist" word has been over-used to the point of meaninglessness. For example, when people call the Defendant a "fascist", they just mean "would-be dictator."
There is a popular song about not trying to request a Beyoncé song in a small town country radio station.
Country music can't be racist because it features banjos and slide guitars. /sarcasm
I have relatives who follow this kind of stuff closely, as if pop zeitgeist were determinative is some way. It isn't. Incarceration rates, arrests, police shootings, pollution in minority neighborhoods -- these are important indications of the racism in our society. Beyonce's single not being played once by one radio station? No. That's a kerfuffle.
Good perspective! Like +10.
Agreed. Whether or not the particular anecdote here is an example of racism, there are probably more important/more meaningful things to address than a potential slight to a megastar and near-billionaire musician, such as the things you list.
As someone with a tween "Swiftie" daughter I'm aware there is a bit of rivalry between the fan-bases.
Taylor can do Country, Pop, Rap and seemingly whatever else she tries. Beyonce is considered less versatile.
So the Beyonce fans really, really want her to succeed at Country music. That and the black entertainment sphere seems to feel the world owes Beyonce (for some reason)
Call it racism if you like, but you're really just getting caught up in middle school celebrity drama.
+1
"Beyonce is considered less versatile."
This is how we know you haven't listened to Beyonce.
No, I don't listen to radio Pop. I have taste.
"Not everything involving Black people is automatically racist." But good Lord so much of it is, again and especially these days. From a mother of a Black teenager. Quite excruciating times, I'll say. I hope every decent-hearted white person is really paying attention and speaks up, takes action, against every trace of the sickness.
1. Kevin, do you think there's any discrimination against black performers in the current country music genre?
2. Even if we all accept that this particular accusation is without merit--that the station is discriminating on the basis of musical genre alone, without taking race into account, and that musical genre itself does not in any way interact with race--I'd like everyone to note this one thing: Across most of human history, someone outraged at not getting what they wanted and desiring to generate outrage toward the person denying them would have been a fool to deploy the word "racist," because racism was not only pervasive but popular.
If we're only looking at American history, one could reasonably claim that it's only in the past 50 years that "racist" has become an accusation one could unfairly sling at another person, and maybe not even that long. George Wallace and other southern politicians were certainly not shy about taking strident political positions that can fairly be characterized as racist, without much fear of harm to their careers. It is only because, recently, being accused of racism actually carries with it some risk of reputational harm, that someone might "lunge for the r-word as a first resort." If we still lived in a time where nobody cared about this accusation, someone determined to launch an unfair outrage attack would have simply used a different word.
Surely it's better to live in a world where being accused of racism is potentially harmful, instead of one where we all accept racism as normal or even preferable? The cost of false accusations is quite simply a consequence of living in that world, but a false accuser can always pick something that will rile people up because they are making a false accusation. Surely it's better to have a workplace which does not tolerate sexual harassment, even if someone might lie and accuse you of sexual harassment, because if sexual harassment were tolerated that person could still lie and accuse you of pedophilia or something else not tolerated.
3. In a different context, someone trying to drum up online outrage against someone in this sort of situation might have tried different language. For example, if the station manager were Black, what are the odds he'd have been at risk in a different context of being an "uppity [n-word]?" Can everyone see that there's a difference between accusing someone of racism--a learned trait that one can change through behavior--and accusing them of racial inferiority? Why might a white person respond so strongly against a false accusation of racism, as though it were equivalent to a false characterization of someone's race?
We should be able to have a society in which being a racist is Not Okay and that is also extremely intolerant of people who use the Race Card anytime social outcomes don't align with their preferences.
There's a lot of social status to reap for calling out a racist, but basically zero cost for falsely doing so. That's the problem.
Nothing unites white people of all political stripes like the calling out of racist behavior.
Ditto; genocide, ethic cleansing, and concentration camp.
Is it possible that Justin McGowan is a publicity intern who earned a full time job by getting national front page for a story that makes white country people look racist because they hadn't got the memo, let everyone know that Bey has a country album out, and activated the Bey-Hive with a new hate target?
Seems rather strategic to me.
Incidentally: the rapper T-Pain also writes country tunes, but recently began asking to have his name removed from the credits for those tunes.
"I wrote a lot of country tunes, but stopped taking credit for it. As cool as it is to see your name in those credits and stuff like that, the racism that comes after it is just like . . . I'll just take the check. Don't put me on that sh*t, I'll just take the check, bro."
I'll give the station manager here the benefit of the doubt here. Seems like it was an honest oversight. OTOH, I do understand how some people jump to certain conclusions given how flamingly racist the country music industry, and esp. mainstream country radio in flyover states, can be. FFS, a song celebrating vigilante justice (aka lynching), was all over the top of the country charts late last year. So yes, an overreaction in hindsight, but not a completely unreasonable one.
Was it racist? It should be easy to tell. Kevin is a fan of statistics, so find out how many artists didn't get their requested songs played because they weren't "country" and then break it down by race. See how many white artists are on that list.
Depends what "Beyonce" means in the statement "We do not play Beyonce as we are a country music station". Substitute R&B, soul, hip hop for Beyonce and it kind of makes sense, in a close-minded way. Substitute as some apparently did black music or black woman for Beyonce and that would be prejudicial, and ignorant, but not necessarily racist.
Or, imagine years ago the same dude emailed "We do not play Lady Gaga as we are a country music station". We would properly call him a dunce for presuming that Lady Gaga only plays club pop or whatever genres she would normally be compartmentalized in by folks who do that kind of thing, because her turn to country included a spectacular Super Bowl halftime performance.
So the guy wasn't aware of Beyonce's days-old turn to country, which is understandable, or he was saying we don't play black music, which is unlikely considering he emailed it, and otherwise a station manager communicating they only play country music is about as inoffensive a statement as you can make, even if foot-in-mouth because the song requested is a country song (was the song specifically pointed out as being country by the requester, given Beyonce is definitely not traditionally known for that?).