By Tess GC “Country” is in the air lately – Beyoncé is suddenly releasing a country album, apparently pop star Lana Del Rey is, too. Western and country aesthetics in clothing, like cowboy boots and leather fringe are popular far beyond whatever is considered ‘rural America’ these days. And the country surge is nothing new – it’s always been around, going in and out of mainstream popularity. It’s been on the rise, though, alongside the widening gap between the wealthy and everyone else; the election of Donald Trump, and the culture war that 2020 helped more of the country to notice; and, I think, more and more people’s longing for a time when there was still somewhere to go to try to escape the creep of a surveilled, unaffordable, socially controlled life – to the country, and especially, out West.
Really enjoyed this, thank you. Do you have ideas around deterring gentrification or perhaps allowing for a more positive development of culture when demographics change?
Wow, great question - and a huge one. I'm working on a piece right now that I want to address some of this in. But off the bat, I think things like investing in local tenants rights organizations and unions is crucial. Community land trusts are also a method for maintaining local control of land. I think one of the problems of gentrification is that basically having nice amenities - including a lot of projects that try to make communities more livable for the people already there - means a place is ripe for housing costs being jacked up, and locals being priced out. So basically measures that make it so developers, landlords, and even wealthier people looking to move in are actually unable to buy up areas are what has to happen. Thanks for the question, helped me get started thinking this through. What do you think?
Once again, you put words to a crucial issue that so many of us struggle with, but perhaps haven't found ways to communicate about so clearly yet. Thank you.
Hi! I just have 2 important comments to make on the piece.
1. Reducing Beyoncé's release to the wider discussion on the countryfication of the culture is rather anti-Black & racist when the intention of releasing the album and the content of the album is about recognising and reclaiming country from whiteness as it created by Black people. That was a crucial, missing point that should've been added to the piece especially because you were able to draw upon how the depictions of Yellowstone exclude a lot of the historical context of the West regarding the Indigenous population, the pricing out of people who lived in the town due to gentrificatione, etc.
2. When you spoke about how important it is to have conversations with people who find a show like Yellowstone people, "or even in right wing politicians or Donald Trump", it's important to name who those people are because best believe that Black and Brown people already carry around a lot of trauma due to the racism, white supremacy, etc that that face everyday. It needs to be white people, especially white men. I believe that naming who those people are is important. Kwame Ture used the analogy that if a man had pointed a gun at another man, the white liberal walks around the man with the gun, comes to the victim and says, "Let me help you," rather than to get the gun from the man holding it.
I would've liked the piece more if these 2 points were included.
Hi, thanks for taking the time to engage. First, I'm kicking myself on the Beyonce point - I had this thought in the back of my mind while I was writing, 'is using Beyonce as my hook going to get into bigger problems about the different kinds of country coming out, and who's writing country?' And I thought, nah, it's fine - but your point is true. Even though we're in a sudden moment of country, what Beyonce is doing isn't the same thing as what other artists are doing. To your second point - This topic is something I've thought a lot about, and it comes from my perspective as someone who is trying to figure out how to do broad working class organizing with the people in my community. There are very real issues of bigotry and oppression that are part of working class organizing, here and everywhere else. I'm not trying to say that this is the end of the story by any means - like support donald trump voters and that's it. I'm saying, people are attracted to the right because it's pretending to present solutions to their problems, which the democratic party in particular is not. It's not a pretty picture, but it is the reality here. I wrote this as a pushback to the majority of what I see among liberal and left organizers, which is to write people off without considering this reality - and in particular, I'm talking to people like myself, who want to engage in this kind of thinking and work from places that we come from - that are more rural, or from Trump country - and when a lot of people around them are not social justice-minded progressives, or people who are connecting their exploitation to that of others. It's also true that plenty of people attracted to the right, and even to donald trump, are not white. That conversation, about white supremacy and how it plays into the right wing in the US is an important one, and I'm sorry that not delving into that more made the piece less likeable for you.
Thank you for your wonderful words and taking what I said in stride and I appreciate your engaging with my comments. I'm actually South African 💀 So I'm just super protective of Black and Brown people in the US so I can totally empathise and understand that second point you made. The crux of the piece is important. I do appreciate your work. We share a collective goal of wanting a new, better world outside of white supremacist capitalisml and having these types of conversions and critical, important points amongst those who also share those visions with you is important. So thank you and I will definitely be engaging with your work further! 😊
Really enjoyed this, thank you. Do you have ideas around deterring gentrification or perhaps allowing for a more positive development of culture when demographics change?
Wow, great question - and a huge one. I'm working on a piece right now that I want to address some of this in. But off the bat, I think things like investing in local tenants rights organizations and unions is crucial. Community land trusts are also a method for maintaining local control of land. I think one of the problems of gentrification is that basically having nice amenities - including a lot of projects that try to make communities more livable for the people already there - means a place is ripe for housing costs being jacked up, and locals being priced out. So basically measures that make it so developers, landlords, and even wealthier people looking to move in are actually unable to buy up areas are what has to happen. Thanks for the question, helped me get started thinking this through. What do you think?
Once again, you put words to a crucial issue that so many of us struggle with, but perhaps haven't found ways to communicate about so clearly yet. Thank you.
Thanks Elizabeth! As always, really appreciate you taking the time to read and comment - it means a lot!
Hi! I just have 2 important comments to make on the piece.
1. Reducing Beyoncé's release to the wider discussion on the countryfication of the culture is rather anti-Black & racist when the intention of releasing the album and the content of the album is about recognising and reclaiming country from whiteness as it created by Black people. That was a crucial, missing point that should've been added to the piece especially because you were able to draw upon how the depictions of Yellowstone exclude a lot of the historical context of the West regarding the Indigenous population, the pricing out of people who lived in the town due to gentrificatione, etc.
2. When you spoke about how important it is to have conversations with people who find a show like Yellowstone people, "or even in right wing politicians or Donald Trump", it's important to name who those people are because best believe that Black and Brown people already carry around a lot of trauma due to the racism, white supremacy, etc that that face everyday. It needs to be white people, especially white men. I believe that naming who those people are is important. Kwame Ture used the analogy that if a man had pointed a gun at another man, the white liberal walks around the man with the gun, comes to the victim and says, "Let me help you," rather than to get the gun from the man holding it.
I would've liked the piece more if these 2 points were included.
Hi, thanks for taking the time to engage. First, I'm kicking myself on the Beyonce point - I had this thought in the back of my mind while I was writing, 'is using Beyonce as my hook going to get into bigger problems about the different kinds of country coming out, and who's writing country?' And I thought, nah, it's fine - but your point is true. Even though we're in a sudden moment of country, what Beyonce is doing isn't the same thing as what other artists are doing. To your second point - This topic is something I've thought a lot about, and it comes from my perspective as someone who is trying to figure out how to do broad working class organizing with the people in my community. There are very real issues of bigotry and oppression that are part of working class organizing, here and everywhere else. I'm not trying to say that this is the end of the story by any means - like support donald trump voters and that's it. I'm saying, people are attracted to the right because it's pretending to present solutions to their problems, which the democratic party in particular is not. It's not a pretty picture, but it is the reality here. I wrote this as a pushback to the majority of what I see among liberal and left organizers, which is to write people off without considering this reality - and in particular, I'm talking to people like myself, who want to engage in this kind of thinking and work from places that we come from - that are more rural, or from Trump country - and when a lot of people around them are not social justice-minded progressives, or people who are connecting their exploitation to that of others. It's also true that plenty of people attracted to the right, and even to donald trump, are not white. That conversation, about white supremacy and how it plays into the right wing in the US is an important one, and I'm sorry that not delving into that more made the piece less likeable for you.
Thank you for your wonderful words and taking what I said in stride and I appreciate your engaging with my comments. I'm actually South African 💀 So I'm just super protective of Black and Brown people in the US so I can totally empathise and understand that second point you made. The crux of the piece is important. I do appreciate your work. We share a collective goal of wanting a new, better world outside of white supremacist capitalisml and having these types of conversions and critical, important points amongst those who also share those visions with you is important. So thank you and I will definitely be engaging with your work further! 😊