Country star Morgan Wallen is one of the most recent victims of the politically correct, bullying mob. After his neighbor’s Ring camera captured a video of him using a racial slur outside his home and leaked it to TMZ, his career has essentially been completely destroyed. His record label and agent dropped him, all major radio stations stopped playing his music, Spotify, Pandora, and Apple Music removed his songs from their playlists, CMT and the County Music Association removed his appearances from their channels, and the Academy of Country Music disqualified him from eligibility for awards.
While using a racial slur isn’t the greatest thing to do, society’s punishment of Wallen is excessive and unjust, and yet another example of the warped priorities of cancel culture. The actions of Wallen’s neighbor, who violated his privacy by recording a video of him on his own property and leaking the video to TMZ, are more disturbing and worthy of punishment than Wallen’s actions, yet have gone completely unexamined, uncriticized, and unquestioned. More significantly, hundreds of people across the nation have destroyed irreplaceable works of art in the name of the Black Lives Matter movement – actions that are far more reprehensible than merely saying a word – yet have escaped punishment completely.
Making matters worse, the media, instead of so much as mentioning the possibility that Wallen’s punishment may have been too harsh, are almost exclusively focusing on the viewpoint that he is not being punished harshly enough and even that country music in its entirety is racist. For example, the LA Times published an article called, “Nashville has punished Morgan Wallen. But country music’s reckoning with racism awaits.”
This article and others like it are problematic for several reasons. First of all, the article is racist, criticizing the “formula of white men in denim — Luke Bryan to Luke Combs to, now, Morgan Wallen — singing about small-town life, a formula that leaves out Black artists, women and even left of center musicians like Tyler Childers.” Although racial and gender diversity are always welcome, there is nothing inherently bad about white men in denim, and it is discriminatory to imply that people who fit this description are somehow worse than people of other genders, races, and clothing choices. This point also ignores the discrimination in favor of women, non-white people, and especially “left of center” people that exists in much of our society, and the fact that the country music industry is one of the few spaces in which conservative and non-political people have been allowed to exist and be themselves. The article also quotes singer Vanessa Carlton, who alleges that “the white men who have been in charge of these radio stations and labels for a long, long time… protect the cancer because they are the cancer.” It shouldn’t even need to be stated that to call a group of people “cancer” because of their race and gender is blatantly sexist and racist.
The article also makes the false contention that Wallen’s punishment has been lenient compared to those of other country artists for various missteps. “Non-male artists, and non-white ones, are rarely offered the grace Wallen has received in his short career,” the article says. Singer-songwriter Kalie Shorr alleges in the article that “careers have been lit on fire for much less.” In addition to the fact that being completely exiled from radio and TV and suspended by one’s record label and agent can hardly be characterized as “grace,” neither Shorr nor the author of the article provides any convincing examples to support their claims. The article mentions LeAnn Rimes, who was allegedly “pushed out of the genre” for cheating on her husband, the Dixie Chicks, who sparked controversy when they insulted President Bush, and Rissi Palmer, who “lost her label for failing to sell the same number of records as white artists who walk in with a massive advantage.” But none of these artists have been punished anywhere near as severely as Wallen has. The music of Rimes and the Dixie Chicks is still played on the radio all the time. As for Palmer, it seems that the article considers it a punishment that she was held to the same standards that a white artist would be. But isn’t this exactly the way things should work in a just and non-discriminatory society? For someone to be held to lower standards because they are black is just as racist as excluding someone because they are black.
Finally, the article makes the disturbing implication that it is somehow wrong for the country music industry and/or its members to be politically neutral. It quotes author Charles Hughes, who says, “The claim that we all just need to come together and get along, or that country artists shouldn’t be political, just isn’t good enough.” Unless my interpretation is completely wrong, Hughes is saying not only that it is bad for people to oppose the ideology of political correctness, but that it is also bad for people to be neutral on this matter; in other words that the only acceptable option is to actively support the ideology. There are numerous legitimate reasons to oppose the political correctness ideology, which I have explained many times in previous blog posts. Any person would be completely within his or her rights – and in my opinion would be acting courageously, correctly, and honorably – to speak out against this ideology, and it is intolerant and deeply wrong to suggest otherwise. But to suggest that people don’t even have a right to stay neutral is beyond intolerant and wrong. Even worse, the article quotes country program director Christal Blue, who claims that “if a programmer quietly pulls Morgan Wallen today but makes no public statement about their station not tolerating the behavior, they remain complicit.” In other words, not even exiling Wallen from the airwaves is sufficient for the politically correct bullies; he also must be verbally condemned at every opportunity.
Today I ordered Wallen’s latest album, as well as his earlier one (they are still available for sale, at least for now). Not only do I like a lot of his songs, but this is one small way of fighting back against the politically correct mob and their toxic ideology of intolerance in the name of tolerance and conformity in the name of diversity.
