Current Events > Country Luke Combs says he is sorry for using confederate flag........

(+) Yeah! (+)

http://www.justjared.com/2021/02/18/luke-combs-apologizes-for-previously-using-confederate-flag-imagery/

There is no excuse for those images. I think, as a younger man, that was an image that I associated to mean something else. And as Ive grown in my time as an artist, and as the world has changed drastically in the last five to seven years [when the images were created], I am now aware how painful that image can be to someone elseI would never want to be associated with something that brings so much hurt to someone else, he said.

Im here to learn. I feel like Im at this highly successful moment of my career, and I couldnt just sit back and not do anything. I couldnt not say, Hey, I want people to know that we, as a genre, care about this issue.

Recently another country star got in trouble for using a racial slur:

http://www.justjared.com/2021/02/03/morgan-wallen-apologizes-after-video-surfaces-of-him-using-racial-slur/

Morgan Wallen is coming under fire after a video surfaced of him using the N-word.

In a video obtained by TMZ, the 27-year-old country music singer uses the N-word to describe one of his drunk friends after they arrive back at his Nashville house after a night out. The video was reportedly captured by a neighbors doorbell camera over the weekend.

After the video surfaced, Morgan issued an apology for using the racial slur.

Im embarrassed and sorry, Morgan said in a statement obtained by People. I used an unacceptable and inappropriate racial slur that I wish I could take back. There are no excuses to use this type of language, ever. I want to sincerely apologize for using the word. I promise to do better.

Does CE like country music? I could never get into it.

There are a few country songs I like but it's not a genre I listen to, for the most part.

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ZannoL posted...

Does CE like country music? I could never get into it.

I like Folk, not really country.

I wonder how many zeros were gonna be taken off

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I don't like a lot of the new country songs. Sound more like pop songs than country.

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Good on him for disowning the confederate flag. It's nice to see people separate themselves from the nostalgia of what the confederacy was supposed to have meant.

I think, as a younger man, that was an image that I associated to mean something else. And as Ive grown in my time as an artist, and as the world has changed drastically in the last five to seven years

A very lame excuse. Still a quantum of credit to the guy for speaking up before he himself got into trouble, even if he just trying to steer away from a storm.

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Mr_Karate_II posted...

I don't like a lot of the new country songs. Sound more like pop songs than country.

Everyone says this. Everyone. Yet someone is listening to the "new" country. One of life's great mysteries.

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AldousIsDead posted...

A very lame excuse. Still a quantum of credit to the guy for speaking up before he himself got into trouble, even if he just trying to steer away from a storm.

It's actually valid when you consider where he came from and what his upbringing might've been in contrast to yours. I don't want to go as far as to use terms like indoctrination, but I'm guessing he's from a place where they believed in the sappy revisionist story of how the confederacy just wanted to be free and the evil union government wouldn't let them.

In the absence of Black friends or acquaintances, and the presence of people around him trying to pretend the confederate flag was more than just a hate symbol, it's very easy to believe that it could mean something more.

I only know him slightly for being on Saturday Night Live last year. Credit to the guy for understanding what the flag means to other people.

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Country music is hot trash, so I'm not surprised that it's made by trashy people.

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30 is a plausible age for having seen lots of Dukes of Hazard reruns.

FortuneCookie posted...

It's actually valid when you consider where he came from and what his upbringing might've been in contrast to yours. I don't want to go as far as to use terms like indoctrination, but I'm guessing he's from a place where they believed in the sappy revisionist story of how the confederacy just wanted to be free and the evil union government wouldn't let them.

In the absence of Black friends or acquaintances, and the presence of people around him trying to pretend the confederate flag was more than just a hate symbol, it's very easy to believe that it could mean something more.

You sound far more charitable than I. And let's be clear I'm not interested in being charitable on this. Upbringing be damned, even if it were a valid excuse, and I don't think it is, he still spent years trying to profit from using the iconography.

Again good on the guy for saying the right things and getting away from it, but he was still using it in the first place.

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Very good for both of these dudes for growing as people and acknowledging it.

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Questionmarktarius posted...

30 is a plausible age for having seen lots of Dukes of Hazard reruns.

What's wrong with Dukes of Hazard?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvYIF7pNTlk

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He's right that certain attitudes have changed drastically in the last five to seven years, but the flag was considered racist long before that. Tom Petty said similar things about it in the 80s.

Other than that, at least he understands it now.

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I've never heard the stories of the confederate flag or its meaning, I just remember reading about slavery when I was a kid and how they taught it in school. I'm from the South and my sisters' dad and his cousins and all of them were way too openly racist and didn't hide behind a flag or something.

Which is why I'm a bleeding fucking liberal, I guess.

These guys are not country

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The confederate battle flag purge is just a distraction on par with "Pearl Milling Company". It's not about erasing or undoing past bullshittery, but instead hiding it better.

AldousIsDead posted...

You sound far more charitable than I. And let's be clear I'm not interested in being charitable on this. Upbringing be damned, even if it were a valid excuse, and I don't think it is, he still spent years trying to profit from using the iconography.

Again good on the guy for saying the right things and getting away from it, but he was still using it in the first place.

Upbringing is literally what makes you who you are. All that nature does is determine your potential for happiness, sorrow, aggression, etc. There isn't a "goodness" gene that instinctively recognizes objective truth. If there were, it would be impossible to lie to good people. And good people are the easiest ones to lie to because they're the least suspecting of human nature.

AldousIsDead posted...

A very lame excuse. Still a quantum of credit to the guy for speaking up before he himself got into trouble, even if he just trying to steer away from a storm.

So while it is less and less likely in our increasingly more connected times, there are absolutely people who grew up in the South where they see the Confederate flag as part of classic Southern iconography, functionally divorced from the war itself and the reasons behind it. I mean obviously they know the origin of the flag, but when they see the flag they just think of "The South" rather than the Confederate flag from the Civil War. Because for decades the flag just popped up on everything in the South.

The best wide-consumed media version of this is the Dukes of Hazzard. The car had the Confederate Flag front and center, it was even called the General Lee, but the show itself and the characters were entirely apolitical. There was no pro-Confederacy statement being made. The Duke's were not waiting for the South to rise again or harping on states rights. The flag's origin was sanitized and completely divorced from any greater meaning besides "The South". The Dukes of Hazzard is just one well-known instance. "Apolitical" Confederate flag imagery has been everywhere in the South for decades. So it is very possible that a person could develop a fondness for the flag without ascribing to any of the things it originally stood for. And without more voices in their lives that don't have the luxury to see the flag as a generic symbol of Southern pride, people won't have their viewpoint expanded to see how the flag does cause pain/emotional distress/feelings of discomfort.

That isn't to say that any of this excuses continued use of the flag. It still is the flag of traitors who were willing to leave a country so they could continue to have the "state's right" to allow the ownership of human beings. But it does provide some context on why someone people are coming to the Confederate Flag = Bad party later than others.


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Despite having never seen the show, I'd kinda like to do a film remake of the Dukes of Hazzard set in the 1970s.

One of the Dukes would become romantically involved with a Black activist. He wouldn't disown the confederate flag in a hokey Hollywood manner -- "Hey, did you know that flag is bad?" "Aww, gee, I never thought about it. I'm a different person now that you've called it to my attention." (I hate such oversimplifications.) But gradually he'd come to accept, against his better judgement, that there is no logical or moral defense for it.

His decision to rebrand the General Lee meets with opposition from his brother who thinks he's lost his head over a woman. (Daisy is in sympathy with the newly anti-confederate brother.) In the end, the General Lee gets its roof torn in half during some climactic action sequence in which the pro-confederate brother rushes to save his siblings and his brother's girlfriend. The final shot would be of the two brothers together in the reconstructed vehicle, unnamed but presumably no longer known as the General Lee, driving down the road with a reconstructed roof and no confederate flag on top.

I hate when people remake things they're not interested in for the sake of being progressive. *cough*Ghostbusters*cough* But I think this one is necessary. The Dukes of Hazzard still exist whether or not reruns are shown. There are people in their 50s and older who remember the Dukes of Hazzard and still cling to their nostalgia for them and the General Lee. The anti-nostalgia take, "Hey, look, your heroes disowned the confederate flag," would do more to damage for them the image of the cherished symbol of the Old South than what would simply letting the Dukes fade into obscurity.

Again, I'm not inclined to be charitable about this. Confederate Flag = Bad as you put it is not a difficult conclusion to reach. If someone is just getting to it now it's because they've been holding their fingers in their ears going lalalalacan'thearyou about it. Or, if you'd permit me to be cynical for a moment, they're seeing which way the wind is blowing and don't want to lose their livelihood.

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FortuneCookie posted...

Despite having never seen the show, I'd kinda like to do a film remake of the Dukes of Hazzard set in the 1970s.

The 2005 movie made a point of pointing out reactions to the flag on the roof.

ZannoL posted...

Does CE like country music? I could never get into it.

I liked it for a year in the 90s.

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FortuneCookie posted...

Despite having never seen the show, I'd kinda like to do a film remake of the Dukes of Hazzard set in the 1970s.

One of the Dukes would become romantically involved with a Black activist. He wouldn't disown the confederate flag in a hokey

Oh god no. This is why we cant have nice things, CE.

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Ah, a wispy neckbeard. It's like all these guys were starved for testosterone during puberty.

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BeyondWalls posted...

Oh god no. This is why we cant have nice things, CE.

I hear Daisy Duke likes BBC.

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BeyondWalls posted...

Oh god no. This is why we cant have nice things, CE.

A gritty socially-aware Dukes of Hazard would just be Moonrunners all over again.

The only country music I hear is its current usually sounds autotuned to death so on top of not caring about most country music now it even sounds worse.

I do dig some classic stuff like Kenny Rogers.

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DoubleDare posted...

I do dig some classic stuff like Kenny Rogers.

Kenny Rogers was better at freaky hippie music anyway.

Questionmarktarius posted...

The 2005 movie made a point of pointing out reactions to the flag on the roof.

Yeah, but that film was set in 2005. It's a lot different from 1975 when someone could fly the flag with less opposition. That's why I'd want a remake that was a period piece set when the original series took place. I'd want to get through to the good ol' Duke boys that they were sending the wrong message back then.

Questionmarktarius posted...

A gritty socially-aware Dukes of Hazard would just be Moonrunners all over again.

Who said anything about it being gritty?

FortuneCookie posted...

Who said anything about it being gritty?

Reboots have to be gritty origin stories nowadays. It's like a law or something.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Reboots have to be gritty origin stories nowadays. It's like a law or something.

I'd like to believe we're getting away from that. I can't think of too many gritty reboots in the past five years or so. Robin Hood?

Flying a Confederate flag is like flying a Nazi flag and no one can convince me otherwise.

"B-b-but the American troops committed war crimes too! We dropped a nuclear bomb!"

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hockeybub89 posted...

Flying a Confederate flag is like flying a Nazi flag and no one can convince me otherwise.

In Germany, it literally is the modern Nazi flag. Neo Nazis use it as a stand-in since German laws prevent the use of Nazi iconography.

AldousIsDead posted...

Mr_Karate_II posted...

I don't like a lot of the new country songs. Sound more like pop songs than country.

Everyone says this. Everyone. Yet someone is listening to the "new" country. One of life's great mysteries.

You see in TN we really like to bitch about things and then make no actual effort to fix it.

We talk about how much we hate Walmart and how it's killing mom and pop businesses
Yet we continue to keep giving them our money.

So many people in this state are on Medicaid and Food stamps, and complain about their benefits getting reduced, but every election cycle they vote for the people that are reducing them.

We bitch how much we hate new country, but we continue to fill up the stadium for every concert, and spend bokoos on the merchandise of artist that we say we're not fans of.

We talk about Jesus Sunday morning then turn around and do the exact opposite of what the sermon was about.

It's called the Volunteer state, but really it should be called the hypocrisy state.
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Good post.