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9:13am December 20, 2013

That feeling when…

…you listen to country music with someone because you (and your parents) were raised on it, and it means something to you…

…and then the person comes back to you, excited about the country music they’ve found. Which is either horribly, overtly racist (I mean the actual lyrics, not just the industry in general, where that’s very true and everyone holds up a handful of performers of color to make it seem better), or overtly making fun of poor and working-class white Southerners (like your relatives), or both, nothing you or your family would ever listen to. And they want to “listen to it ironically” with you.

Because that’s all this kind of music ever meant to them. A place where the usual rules of common decency don’t apply, and they can let loose and do things they’d never admit to otherwise.

And you don’t know whether to throw up or cry. But you do know you’ll never share your music with them again.