Southerners Deserve Better

The South is a contradiction: great bands and awesome music, but the worst state governments you’ve ever seen.

Photo Credit: Trademark Property

Martin and I both pointed out the ways in which the majority of southern states aren’t really dealing with the coronavirus epidemic consistently or responsibly today.

I’ve spent the past several years living in Tennessee, and as a musician I’ve spent more time than a lot of folks traveling and meeting people below the Mason Dixon line.

Maybe it’s because of the music I play and the audiences my bands have always courted, maybe it’s the nature of being a musician and thus a bohemian, but nearly everyone I know down south is doing the right thing, and well aware that they’re being failed by their state and federal governments, if not their municipalities.

So in the interest of giving a little love to our brothers and sisters living in the old Confederacy and fighting the good fight—and recognizing the hard place they’re in—here’s a great band from Arkansas, deFrance.

Keep rockin’ y’all.

Author: Brendan Skwire

Brendan Skwire is a cultural and media critic. He offers nearly two decades of experience as a journalist, video editor, blogger, and community organizer. Skwire has worked for the Philadelphia Weekly, Scrapple TV, and Raw Story, and is a former member of the News Guild.

4 thoughts on “Southerners Deserve Better”

  2. Thanks, Brendan. Seeing Fort Worth portrayed in a positive light is startling, though the city is now decidedly purple and trending blue. (The burbs are another matter, though they are trending the right direction.)

    Our state government is a disaster on wheels. Our county government isn’t much better. Everywhere we have these pinhead “conservatives” intent on using a pandemic to demonstrate the superiority of their do-nothing ideology. I think they are hastening their own political demise, if not physical. I guess we’ll see.

  4. My state is one of the few in the US w/o some sort of stay in place directive. As Republican Governors go, Asa Hutchinson is far from the worst, and he has a pragmatic streak. He has one hell of a balancing act – the vast majority of the state legislature and far too many of my state’s residents are getting the “news” from Fox and OAN. Take the sort of measures that Newsom and Cuomo have done? Torches and pitchforks. Don’t take those measures? A lot of folks die, then torches and pitchforks – maybe. Or maybe it’ll all somehow be Obama’s fault or some conspiracy hatched by the “deep state”.

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