Arkansas Gets It Right – Replaces Statue Of Racist At Capitol With Johnny Cash

This is a little different. It’s not about the election directly but does in its own way have a bearing on things, in part because music icon Johnny Cash is to an extent a Rorschach Test on working class and poor Americans. Better off ones too. Many MAGAs see Cash and his song Man In Black as an anthem to their beliefs. Many of us see it quite differently and I for one believe his life, his words, his music and his actions indicate Cash would rip the hell out of Trump and his MAGA movement. However this is about Cash being afforded a tremendous honor – having his statue become part of the Statuary Hall collection at the U.S. Capitol. Each state is allowed to designate/donate two statues to the collection and Arkansas had a pair of obscure 19th century racists, attorney Uriah Dubois and former Gov. and Senator James P. Clarke.   As of last Tuesday Johnny Cash now represents the state he hailed from.

As this article from Latin Times explains this all got serious back in 2019. The State of Arkansas voted to have its statues replaced. One has to wonder if that legislation would ever have been passed, much less signed had Sarah Sanders been Governor back then. I rather doubt it. However, even if she didn’t like it things had progressed past her ability to stop it. WHO was chosen has to have caused her racist, screw actual working class, poor people and non-whites fee-fees to go into a Trumpian meltdown. The first new statue was one of Civil Rights leader Daisy Bates who organized the ‘Little Rock Nine’ that famously integrated a school.  Now we have Johnny Cash who many of my white acquaintances are startled to learn was an activist that ran counter to typical country music attitudes back in the 1960s.

When we think of those who got/get played on country music stations we think rednecks and pickup trucks with rebel flags and yes, racism. Just a matter of degree but whether it’s turning one’s head to the ugliness or engaging in active racism it’s been part of that culture since before I was born. Never having been a country fan I wasn’t a big fan of Cash growing up in the 1960s. But it was hard not to know who he was. What I didn’t know was ‘who he actually was’ so to speak.  I’d encourage you to take the time to read his Wikipedia profile. I’ll bet a lot of it will surprise you.

Cash would have been the first to say he’d messed up a lot in his life. However he owned his mistakes and even while making some of them (while abusing drugs and alcohol) he was pushing for rights for Native Americans. For getting the hell out of Vietnam. For everyone, regardless of race or status to get an actual fair shot. He saw how the “Haves” took advantage of the “Have Nots’ and spoke his mind. He caught a lot of sh*t for it from fellow artists and DJs at country stations. His response was to grow some guts and start speaking out against the same injustices HE was speaking out against.

It wound up leading him to write a song that I’ll include at the end of this. It rings just as true today as it did then. For all the trouble Cash caused himself during his life he knew how lucky he was. More importantly he knew how badly the deck has always been stacked against a huge number of Americans.  However as I said different people have seen the song differently, as in who Cash was being critical of.

I recall in the first year after moving to NC reconnecting with an old pal from my hometown. When we started talking on the phone the years melted away and he was talking me into heading down to Fayetteville to head out fishing like the old days. Until the subject of Trump came up. That cooled things down right fast. Still, we stayed in touch a bit and he sent me a link to Man In Black touting it as a theme for Trump people (he’s done quite well for himself in life but at heart is still the small town working class guy he grew up as) and I called him. We both cued it up on our computers and listened to it at at the same time. ‘See? SEE?’ he said.

I replied no, I didn’t ‘see’ and in fact he was interpreting Cash wrong. I brought up that activism I mentioned earlier, something he didn’t know about. All the crap Cash took for it. He was startled but I was just getting going. I pointed out how great the school system we had was with so many great teachers, how someone like me could (after my dad stopped paying because he objected to my chosen field of study) work his way through college. And how public education has declined and who was in charge during that decline. He didn’t like but had to concede my point. I walked him through the transfer of wealth from regular folks to the already super rich that started with Reagan and though he tried to argue he couldn’t deny the statistics I had him call up on his computer.

I flat out asked him how many small business owners like him (he built a small defense supply contracting business) paid their employees a decent wage and benefits instead of milking all they could for themselves. He admitted see lots of greed. Then I hit him with what all that’s meant for the poor and working class – a system rigged for less than one-half of one-percent, that even made things tougher than it should be for people like him who’d done okay in life. Then I really verbally smacked him upside the head – I told him Man In Black was Cash doing an entire country song out of a phrase from a Dylan song I remember my friend liking – “How many times can a man turn his head, and pretend that he just doesn’t see?”

My friend said he’d never thought about it that way before. I suggested he start, which wasn’t the right thing to say in the moment. Still, even though he’s remained a Trump guy I can’t help but wonder if, especially after Jan. 6 he’s reconsidered. No way in hell he will vote for Harris. Of that I’m sure. But I don’t think  he’ll be talking up Man In Black as some MAGA anthem in the wake of the news of Cash being honored. He’s the first Musician to have his statue added to the collection.

Swapping out statues of racists has been too slow a process.  None other than a descendant of one of the guys who’s statue was replaced has signaled strong approval:

The great-great-grandson of James P. Clarke was among Arkansans who called for the change. In the Arkansas Times, Tucker wrote “the time has come for a conversation about who should represent Arkansas…for the time in which we live now.” During his political career, Clarke advocated for the preservation of “white standards of civilization,” an attitude Tucker disavowed “regardless of the time.

I don’t know about you, but I’d say Arkansas got it right with who they chose to put in the Capitol. So I’ll give props where they are due.  However if someone mentions Cash being honored and tries to throw Man In Black at you as meaning Cash would be a Trump supporter I hope I’ve shown you he would be anything but.

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