Lost in the whole “Accidental Racist” hoopla was the fact that LL Cool J had a new album coming out. Authentic, LL’s 13th studio album, was released on Tuesday.
He’s been going around, promoting the album. One of his stops was SPIN, where the legendary rapper talked about “Accidental Racist,” his unfortunate collabo with Brad Paisley.
LL is still defending the song, while admitting that the track is flawed. (Very flawed.) Here are some interesting quotes:
“How have you been dealing with the fallout from “Accidental Racist”?
Some people connect the dots and some people don’t, but at the end of the day, love conquers all. You look at the movie 42. It’s no different. You can look at the movie 42 and listen to the record and draw all kinds of parallels. Anybody who doesn’t want to see that we were talking about love, and anybody who takes it literally just because they want to take it literally, misses the point. I can’t begrudge people who feel a lot of pain in their lives over different things that aren’t even related to me. If they lash out, I just have to chalk it up as, “They didn’t get it, maybe they’ll get it later.” Sometimes it takes people a little longer to understand it. I don’t feel any kind of way about it. That’s what art is supposed to do. I’m not gonna get out here and be mad and be lashing out at people that are coming at me. They’re doing what they’re doing because at their current level of understanding, that’s how they see it.
What do you think people are missing?
I think people are missing the point that what I’m saying is “Everybody is not a racist.” Every redneck southerner is not a racist. Every person who’s down South is not a racist. Some people are missing that point. I think that, without going too in-depth, people are missing the point that when I said “do-rag,” I could easily have said “hoodie” and look at what happened with Trayvon Martin, people saying he’s suspicious because he’s a black man with a hoodie. The hoodie has nothing to do with the confederate flag. It doesn’t have the same level to us as the confederate flag in terms of the history and the rapes and the torture. When you look at the lives that have been lost over those do-rags in the city, all of a sudden you can see what I’m saying. And for some reason, you have people who want to catch convenient amnesia and forget that black men get judged on their clothing in this current world. I don’t know why people are acting like they don’t remember that.
When the song came out, people were most upset with the lines where LL compares wearing a du rag to wearing a red confederate flag.
Here’s what LL had to say about that:
“But here’s the problem. When that black man is being killed because of that, it’s not about whether it’s so much more or not so much more. It’s about whether the person is alive. It’s about Trayvon Martin being alive. It’s not about is it right or wrong. It’s about him being alive. What are we gonna do? We have million hoodie marches and now all of a sudden we don’t realize the importance of clothing in the African-American community? We don’t know what clothing means now? We forgot that? What I was saying is, if I could arrange it that people could stop being judged for those reasons and stop being killed for those reasons and stop being arrested and wrongfully imprisoned for that clothing, then that’s something to think about. I would be willing to sacrifice some of those symbols for peace today. People don’t want to give up the anger over the past for peace today. If you think about it, that’s the thing that has the whole entire world in war. It’s very simple. “I’m not gonna give up my anger over the past in order to have peace today.” That’s all it boils down to. When I was writing that letter in that song to that imaginary white man who was talking to me, people missed what I said in the song. I said “I feel like a newfangled Django dodging invisible white hoods.” What black man that’s been out here in the job market cannot relate to that? Invisible white hoods? You don’t get that?
People were definitely latching on to one or two lines…
But they were latching on to lines and taking them literally instead of connecting the dots. When I say, “If you don’t judge my gold chains, I’ll forget the iron chains,” I’m not lessening the weight and severity. I’m not trying to trivialize slavery, that would be horrifying. I might as well be a serial killer. But what I am saying is that, okay, those things happened, but instead of me walking around being bitter about the past, my thing is this: Don’t run up on me about being a crack dealer or pull me over and illegally search me just based on my appearance. Judge me by the content of my character, not the color of my skin. Not my hoodie. Not my do-rag. That’s how we find peace. You’re asking me not to be angry about the past, and I’m saying, I’m willing to not be angry about the past if we can have some sort of equality in the present. And I don’t understand how this is disrespectful. I just don’t see the disrespect in that. It’s almost like some people had such a knee-jerk reaction to what I was saying that they didn’t even take the time to connect the dots. How are we gonna have peace if everybody is angry about the past and everybody is hyper-sensitive about our current symbols? We can’t have any peace, any true peace. That’s all I’m saying. And I’m not saying I have all the solutions, I’m not saying the song is perfect, I was just trying to raise a conversation and raise the idea that maybe forgiveness and love isn’t a bad idea. And I don’t think that a song that’s talking about tolerance, forgiveness, and love is the worst song ever made. I think it’s probably the opposite. You have some people who ridicule. But they just missed the point.”
LL makes some good points. Maybe we shouldn’t trade him after all.
SOURCE: SPIN
