httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSurzeGvPrQ
Behold—behear, I guess—“Accidental Racist,” Brad Paisley’s and LL Cool J’s attempt to settle this black/white thing once and for all. Attention white people, particularly those involved in poetry slams: please stop talking about race. There are lots of ways you can do it cogently and inoffensively, but there are also a lot of safe routes through a minefield. Well before LL says “RIP Robert E Lee, but I gotta thank Abraham Lincoln for freeing me,” this song turns into Claymore City. I first became aware of it via Grantland’s Rembert Browne, who argues that the appropriate response is not indignation but smirking disdain. It’s hard to ignore a song from history’s greatest country music singer and today’s hippest rapper, though, which is why Will Shetterly has taken to the New York Times to explain why elitists hate “Accidental Racist.”
