Silence While Filming
Back in 2018 we brought back Class 3 alumni Sik Wit under his new project Outrage Culture. The real, hard truths we’re bringing brought to this project & we needed more on it. At the time we we’re recording I can recall pure silence in the room (our audience is usually good but this was a different silence). Typically people are quiet, maybe on their phone for a bit. A side whisper or two. Normal audience things. This time the quiet was thick. The tension was too.
When all was said and done we called the full Red Couch Interview “Probably one of our most controversial pieces of content” as a magazine that likes to push boundaries and lean edgier than some. Why?
Poverty, racism, inequalities in education, finance, & opportunity, white privilege, Nashville’s Venue’s & Rap/Hip-Hop, police, Black Lives Matter movements and more we’re front and center with little time for a “Back N Forth” interview that we’re heavy hitting takes and truth at a time in America when divisive rhetoric was at its peak… or so we thought. For all these topics, at the time there we’re reasons in-and-out of Nashville that made the comments and views expressed in this interview a hard pill to swallow for many and cut deep beyond the facade/top layer many of us get left with about the “greatness” of our society that included all of that. All night people hard heard the normal (well normal for us) interviews talking about music, life in Nashville, upcoming things, weird stories, etc. You know basic music interview stuff. This changed the temperature in the room.
Temperature Check
As someone who can relate to a lot of what he’s saying I’m nodding in agreement having been through or witnessed everything myself in and out of my home (I grew up poor, in predominantly areas of lower class & minorities in the inner city of Cincinnati, in run down housing with a step father from Mexico in the latter parts of my childhood)… a good portion of the room was having a hard time digesting what was now being force fed to them with nowhere to go after (more than likely) years of only being spoon fed the bits and pieces of these things they wanted to nibble on.
To me it seemed either they can’t relate because of varying personal privileges & circles they we’re exposed to (products of their environments) or simply being white (regardless of agreeing or not) being called out for the fact they have privilege simply from skin pigmentation being lighter. “Doesn’t matter if my credit score starts with a 5, 4, or 3, My skin tone starts with a W”. Now, in a closed studio set, they couldn’t avoid it.
The World Vs. A Peer
They couldn’t change the channel, lower the volume, or turn it off. It was there, right in front of them. Right in front of all of us in the studio. Not coming from a political party or a politician looking for a political boost. Not from a sports franchise (looking your way LA Clippers) or a Restaurant Chain (kicking it over to you Papa Johns) that rely on the Black & Minority dollar trying to back their way out of racist owners comments and activities. It wasn’t coming from the “do-gooder fight for every cause” friend from high-school. Hell, it wasn’t even coming from someone of color where they could say “wow, thats so horrible but, well that doesn’t apply to me or my life in anyway because I can’t understand what’s it’s like”.
Part of that is true, just like me and anyone not Black, Brown, or Colored we cannot in fact understand. With that said, people tend to hear the plights coming from those oppressed and because they don’t look or sound like us it somehow now can’t matter or apply to us. Well now, now it was coming from a peer. A (presumed by most even though he’s of Native American decent) White Male (aka the most privileged person in America still to this day) coming from someone in a self-aware position of privilege because of his skin tone.
Telling them essentially Your skin is the reason you and I are in a position to be here. To have doors opened for us and the second you turn your back on your privilege and call out the hypocrisy and identify the White Privilege in the room, all those doors “magically” go away, money stops coming, and you’ll get benched or shut down for speaking the truth (like his social media did almost immediately after starting the project). They couldn’t escape it then, and sad to say, we as a society & as a country haven’t been able to progress forward where we need to be even today. Even after all we’ve seen and endured not only throughout history, but even in just the last few years.
Truth Hurts
For those in that studio that night, when all was said and done. When the studio door opened between interviews, you could see the looks in peoples eyes & feel their energy that filled the room just pour outside like the water overflowing in the Spirited Away scene with the No-Face spirit in the bath. People afterwards were in a state of shock and disbelief at what just happened. Not sure if it was because they weren’t prepared for the truth of what what said or if it boiled down to not being ready for it to happen in that setting.
Either way, I’m sure many of us have felt that way before at one time or another. Recently, we’ve collectively circled back to this interview a couple times to put into perspective some of these feelings of shock at what’s happening. To gain perspective of not only what has changed for the better in-and-outside of Nashville in the last couple years, but also what hasn’t or has become worse with a spotlight on it. What changes we know as a society need to be made to make a better, equal system for us all to thrive in that aren’t there yet.
This is one of the most powerful interviews to date and we shortened the full 13+ minute interview to get straight to the root of the messages being conveyed. So I guess you can say this is the second most controversial piece on content we’ve shared. This may not be easy to watch, but like the say “Sometimes the truth hurts”.
You can watch the full interview HERE!
