Silence is complicity. Or so I’ve been told more times than I can count. As Dr. King once said: “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
I pondered those words after my last piece about the country song Try That in a Small Town. Judging from reactions to the article on other social media platforms, most would have preferred I remain silent. The prevailing opinion was that I was giving the singer free publicity, helping turn a nobody into a household name, putting more money in his pocket.
I have no grounds to protest, to claim a duty to speak up whenever I encounter bigotry, because my essay really wasn’t about the song or the singer. It was about the pigeonholing of small towns and misconceptions about rural life. Judging from reactions on other social media platforms, those points were largely missed. One reader offered this comment, approved of by many: “Try some hillbilly redneck fascist confederate flag carrying shit in a big city…
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