It’s never fun to be a foreigner in your birth country, I’ve learned. But it wasn’t until I saw the Grand Ole Opry that I discovered the real xenophobe.
Call me an apologist, if that helps you make sense of it all. Yes, you are right—not everything deserves equivalence.
But what if the so-called oppressors were themselves oppressed? Does that change things?
Southern roots, after all, do not a Southern aristocrat make.
Difficulty with melanin production, in other words, is not always a privilege, despite what you might have been led to believe.
Let me back up a step.
Elitists never know the whole story. That, or they willfully ignore it.
I would know—in mindset, if not monetary holdings, I was one.
Since then, I’ve learned it’s not easy being a hillbilly. It never has been.
Even in hillbilly country, ridicule lurks.
This is the nation without hierarchy, we’ve been told.
You can go ahead and believe that—right there with the Santa Claus story.
There’s always been a class of folks to do the aristocrats’ bidding.
Sure, they share the same hues, but you don’t think that makes them the same, do you?
They’ve been called unintelligent.
Unsophisticated.
We’re all created equal, says that big piece of paper.
But that’s not what their music says.
I hear struggle.
I hear pain.
And I hear beauty.
At least that’s what I heard on July 24, 2024, when I finally saw the Grand Ole Opry live.
Of course, I also saw capitalism. For WSM to have the longest-running radio show in US history, the money has had to align.
But without the Nashville-based country music broadcast—first aired in 1925—we might have never heard the voices of the downtrodden.
A century later, many continue to ignore those same voices.
Why do you think the guy who finally didn’t is like God?
Is that the only reason? I’m not naïve, but like I said, I prefer not to feel like a foreigner on birth soil.
That’s how they feel, too.
Because when they tell their stories, people laugh.
Except there is no humor—just, as they say, three chords and the truth.
And on that night at the Grand Ole Opry, while I could still hear simplicity, racism, and fear, I could also hear the truth.
