Opinion
Beyoncé released two country music songs earlier this month, also announcing that she is working on a country music album that will be released later this year. Since then, she has inevitably faced backlash for attempting to change gender. something every artist has to deal with when she makes this move.
Unfortunately, though, this reaction is now all about race, as country music fans are described as “racist” if they dare say they don’t want Beyoncé to take over their beloved genre.
Backlash against Beyoncé
On Wednesday, Grio published an editorial titled “Beyoncé is making a country album. White people like John Schneider have to get over it. This was partly in response to Schneider of “Dukes Of Hazzard” fame who compared Beyoncé to a dog urinating when asked if she had entered the world of country music.
“Lefties in the entertainment industry won’t leave any industry alone, right?” Schneider was asked, according to the Daily Mail. “They just have to take control of every aspect, right?”
“They have to make their mark, just like a dog in a dog park. You know, every dog has to mark every tree, right? That’s what’s happening here,” Schneider responded.
Full article: ‘Dukes Of Hazzard’ star John Schneider criticizes ‘left-wing’ musicians, compares Beyoncé to a urinating dog
White people are told to “get over it”
In her Grio editorial, author Monique Judge addressed the backlash Beyoncé has received regarding race, arguing that white people have “never wanted us to thrive in areas they consider their own.”
The judge went on to respond directly to Schneider’s comments, openly accusing him of racism.
“We understand that ‘left’ in this case is not a political statement; is a euphemism for a word I can’t write here, but it starts with an ‘N’ and ends with a hard ‘ER,’” he wrote outrageously.
Judge is clearly trying to push the narrative that all country music fans are inherently racist, but that’s simply not the case at all. Just look at black country music star Darius Rucker, who admitted that he was told that fans would “never accept a black country singer.”
“To be honest, I didn’t think I would be very successful. And when I started working for radio stations and stuff like that, people would say to my face, ‘My audience would never accept a black country singer,'” he told ET Canada last summer. “It’s something I thought, ‘Okay, just put the record on, let’s see?’ And then they did it.
Thankfully, country music fans immediately embraced Rucker, with his first single “Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It” debuting at number one on the Hot Country Songs charts.
“I wasn’t worried because I just want to make records, you know?” He said. “I mean, I wasn’t sitting around saying, ‘Oh my God, you know, I’m going to be the black guy in the country.’”
Related: Beyoncé Says We Must ‘Dismantle the Racist and Unequal System’
It’s not a question of race
Despite the judge’s arguments that any backlash Beyoncé receives is racially motivated, the reality is that all musicians face resistance when they try to change genders, regardless of their race. When Taylor Swift initially made the leap from country music to pop, she found herself in a lot of trouble, as the pop world didn’t want her while the country world was angry at her for abandoning them.
Gwen Stefani and Miley Cyrus are two other artists who were criticized when they tried to break out of their respective genres, but fans were not accused of racism for criticizing them.
Ultimately, country music fans have every right to tell Beyoncé that they’re not interested in her taking over their genre, and they shouldn’t be accused of racism simply for expressing their opinions.
What do you think about this? Let us know in the comments section.
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