Whoopi Goldberg joined her “The View” cohost Sunny Hostin in attacking Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town,” only she didn’t even take issue with the message and call it racist, like Hostin. Rather, Whoopi decided to defend the rioters featured in the song’s music video as people who were “just taking care of each other.”
As background, Aldean noted that the scenes of riots seen in the music video are real footage, writing on Twitter that “There is not a single lyric in the song that references race or points to it- and there isn’t a single video clip that isn’t real news footage -and while I can try and respect others to have their own interpretation of a song with music- this one goes too far.”
Watch her here:
Whoopi Goldberg says the rioters depicted in the video for Jason Aldean’s song ‘Try That In a Small Town’ were simply “taking care of each other.”
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) July 21, 2023
As you can hear in the above clip, Whoopi defended the rioters as having been just trying to help each other out after first introducing the issue and noting that South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem had defended him. Whoopi began by saying, “So country star Jason Aldean is getting backlash for the video of his song “not in a small town,” which critics are saying is racist. Got lyrics racist lyrics and images. Aldean says the song iss about unity. Here’s South Dakota’s Christie neam, Noem, defending him. Here’s the clip.”
In the video referenced by Whoopi and played by “The View,” Governor Noem said, “I am shocked by what I’m seeing in this country with people attempting to cancel this song and cancel Jason and his belief. Him and Brittany are outspoken about their love for law and order and for their love of this country and I’m just grateful for them.”
Continuing, she added, “I think a lot of times people who go out and fight every day on these important issues and have an opinion and remember the freedom and liberty that this country was founded on get persecuted for it and we’re seeing that right now with the Aldean’s and the songwriters that worked so hard on this.”
After playing the Noem clip, which ended with the governor welcoming Aldean to play anywhere in the state, Whoopi launched into her diatribe.
Beginning, she first mocked Noem for welcoming Aldean and described the imagery of the song, saying, “You let them play anywhere? You own South Dakota now? Now. Listen, I listen, you know, there are lyrics in the song. And I think, you know, he talks about life in a small town. And it’s different, you know, and he shows these images. He’s got folks from the Black Lives Matter movement. And he’s talking about people taking care of each other.”
That’s when she got to the bit about the rioters just helping each other, saying, “And I find it so interesting that it never occurred to Jason or the writers, that that’s what these folks were doing. They were taking care of the people in their town, because they didn’t like what they saw, just like you talk about people taking care of each other in small towns.”
Ending, she accused Aldean of being racist and continued to defend the rioters, saying, “We do the same thing in big towns, you just have to realize that when you make it about Black Lives Matter, people kind of say, Well, are you are you talking about black people here? What are you talking about here? We’re talking about Americans taking care of each other, then it shouldn’t be about black lives matter. You should be able to show all the different things that have gone on in our country where people stood up and said no more. We do the same thing that small towns do. That’s my two cents to that.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
