What did Jason know, and when did he know it

Tweet

I am a fan of Jason Aldean's music. Or I was. In the past, I separated the art from the man. I am definitely not a fan of his latest music video. When the song, "Try That in a Small Town," came out in May, it sounded like just another run-of-the-mill, redneck, we're-so-tough, country song in the mold of Merle Haggard and Hank Jr. Then came the video. The video features footage from the demonstrations and riots that took place after the Michael Brown and George Floyd killings. Conspicuously absent are any shots from the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol. As if the obvious bias in the choice of material weren't enough. Aldean filmed this video in front of the "Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee. This is the site of the 1946 Columbia race riot and the 1927 mob lynching of an 18-year-old Black teenager named Henry Choate." - Choate was killed at the jail, his body dragged through the streets behind a car, and his corpse was hung from the Courthouse. Maury County was also the site of the lynching of Cordie Creak, a 17-year-old African-American by a white mob in 1933. Aldean seems confused as to why his video upset anyone. Can he be that oblivious to the clear racial overtones of nearly every second of footage in it? Did he know at the time it was being filmed that he was literally making a video where two young African-Americans were lynched in the early 20th Century? Can he have been truly ignorant of the message he was sending to the radical right-wing white nationalists that lynching is okay and to the African-American community to stay out of white people's gunsights? The production company claims the history of the courthouse played no role in deciding to film the video there and that Jason had no input in choosing the location. Basically, everyone involved claims to have been completely ignorant of the ramifications of filming a song promoting vigilantism while showing videos of demonstrations and riots spurred by the police killing a black youth (arguably justified) and the police murder of a black man (definitely not justified). Based on his past support for the far right, was Jason oblivious to the idea that the choice of location and background material might set off a firestorm? After all, he's neither from Tennessee nor from a small town. What do you think?