The hosts of “The View” are good for at least one ridiculously bad opinion every episode, and this time the winner of the horrendous take award is Sunny Hostin. Hostin, as is typical given the schtick that she used to land her spot on the show, decided to take aim at Jason Aldean following his anti-rioting hit song “Try That In A Small Town” was released.
Aldean há received constant backlash from the left since the song’s release but has also found himself being praised by many conservative stars and politicians for his willingness to speak up in the face of constant cancellation threats. Hostin was on the side of the leftists of course, and took her opinion of the music video to the absolute extreme.
On “The View,” Alyssa Farah Griffin began the discussion by offering a fairly reasonable take on the matter. She said that although the song and music video may leave a sour taste in some people’s mouths if they are inclined to look for racism in everything they see, she believes it’s unlikely that Aldean meant any harm. She said, “I’m gonna give him the benefit of the doubt that his intention was not to stoke division, glorify violence or racism.”
She added that “I think if people of good faith can see both sides, they can see there is an issue with this song because of what it means to a lot of communities, but there is an issue of violence, of looting, or rioting.”
Whoopi Goldberg began interjecting at this point, asking, “Yes, but why are you linking it to Black people?” Griffin agreed to that sentiment, noting that the imagery in the music video is what causes a problem for her.
Hostin, however, was not okay with just leaving it as a simple case of misunderstanding that left her so terrified by Aldean’s song. She said, “I’m actually not gonna give him the benefit of the doubt.” She continued, speaking about the location of the video, shot at a location where an early 1900s lynching took place, saying, “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.”
Hostin next uses the popularity of the song as an indictment of the entire state of the country today, saying, “This became the No. 1 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.” Of course, the ladies of “The View” found a way to turn this song into a racial issue.
Aldean’s point in the video was clearly that he believes that riots are wrong and that, as is evident in small towns across America, these kinds of violent protests do not take place in areas with a tightly-knit community. Apparently, even that message is too much for the fragile ears of the women on “The View.”
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