ABC legal analyst Sunny Hostin told her co-hosts Thursday on ABC’s “The View” that she believed country musician Jason Aldean’s song “Try That in a Small Town” intentionally “embraces” racist imagery.
Hostin said, “I’m actually not going to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
She continued, “As a lawyer, when I put my legal hat on I don’t believe in censorship however he is from Macon, Georgia. My father is form Augusta, Georgia and Macon, Georgia. I spent many summers there. It is one of the most racist places in this country. So don’t tell me that he knew nothing about what that imagery meant. So, I don’t give him the benefit of the doubt.”
She added, “The other thing is that what was evoked for me which was, you’re not going to get out of this town, are those sundown areas.”
Co-host Whoopi Goldberg said, “Yeah, don’t let the sun go down on your ass here.”
Hostin continued, “There were times when black people, my mother is in the audience today, thank you, for coming. And my mother and father, because they were an interracial couple were run out of South Carolina by the KKK. And my father is still scarred from that experience and you are still scarred from that experience.”
Goldberg said, “We’re all still scarred from that experience.”
Hostin said, “So don’t tell me not only was he aware of what he was doing by using that imagery, he embraces that imagery. Unfortunately this became the number one song on U.S. iTunes. We have a problem in this country about race and the biggest problem is, we refuse to admit that it exists.”
Goldberg said, “It does go too far. You’ve gone too far.”
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