Try That in a Small Town | Black Rural Consciousness in 2023 and Beyond
Though the headlines have died down, the impact of Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” was not lost on me.
As he croons in front of an eerily lit lynching site and rocks out about vigilante justice, clips of vandalism and Black Lives Matter protests spurt across the screen. The last line swells in a crescendo, “See how far you make it down the road, around here we take care of our own” and conjures images of citizen police performing as judge, jury, and executioner. Footage of burning buildings, barricades, and burglaries fades into the background and a country girl like me can’t help but think- “damn. What small town is this?”
I ignored the song from its release in mid-May of this year until the end of July. Like most following the story, I failed to consider the silent audience. Unfortunately, this is the same pothole pundits hit before the 2016 election and again in 2020. As the 2024 election season looms on the horizon, I implore other analysts to learn from the past and consider rural Black America in their models and strategies.
Here’s How I Did My Research
My dissertation, Dirt Road Democracy: How Political Context Shapes Rural Black Mobilization explains the complexity of rural Black America from a grassroots perspective. My integrated methodology layers quantitative and qualitative findings to represent often overlooked perspectives. I interviewed 30 rural Black Arkansans, analyzed American National Election Study (ANES) data, and recounted my firsthand experience as the Deputy Field Director for a Black gubernatorial candidate against a former Trump staffer in a “red” state.
The 2020 ANES asked respondents two questions about their place identity. One asked them to describe the place they lived. Was it a rural community, a small town, a suburb, or a city? The other asked how they would describe themselves as it relates to that place. Only about 58% of respondents reported the same answer for both questions. My work dug into this trend and determined that a person’s perception of who they are and what their experience has been matters more than where they are when they form their political opinions. This is one explanation for the way the rural/urban divide plays out within states.
Rural Black Americans Have Distinct Paths to Political Power
My concept, Black Rural Consciousness, accounts for the unique perspective of people living in the crawl space between the racial violence and tension of rural America’s history and the modern political landscape. Considering the relevance of historical consequences of Blackness in the rural South brings modern inequities that reinforce the biased social order into sharp relief. These actions either mobilize or demobilize Black political actors.
There are four important parts of the concept; political context, self-identity, local contextual activation, and outcomes.
Political context refers to the time in history and the local environment where an individual’s political actions take place. The political context of a rural county today is different than it was in 1950 and similarly, the context of a rural county and an urban county in 2024 will be different. To understand the process and effects of Black empowerment in rural areas, one must consider the objectives of stakeholders such as county government officials, parties, interest groups, candidates, and elected or appointed officials.
The second part of the concept, personal identity has two elements: rural identity and Black political consciousness. Rural identity is the confirmation that a person believes they are a rural person. Black political consciousness refers to the mindset that collective political action by the group is necessary to make real change.
Personal identity shapes the experience of the local political context.
In the third component, local contextual activation, three dimensions of the political context are activated or deactivated for rural African Americans: economic capital, social capital, and institutional relationships. Each dimension has active and inactive components that correspond to mobilizing and demobilizing political actors.
Active economic contexts are characterized by economic stability and mobility for Black residents. An inactive economic context does not offer opportunities for growth or increase for community members in an equal and accessible way.
Active social capital environments are characterized by political organization and advocacy in rural Black communities. In an active social capital environment, individuals have opportunities to work towards collective goals and strengthen group consciousness. Inactive social capital environments are characterized by disorganized and exclusionary communication networks which serve to weaken community bonds.
Active institutional contexts are characterized by gainfully incorporated community members, leadership networks, and towns with official status. Active institutional contexts have clearly defined entry points for newcomers and those who want to learn more about political processes. Inactive institutional environments are characterized by a limited capacity to realize change.
The final component of the theory is a BRC Outcome. Active Black Rural Consciousness is the result of perceptions of empowerment. It is identified by an individual’s motivation to participate in local politics or political actions like voting, running for office, and engaging in civic organizations. The alternative result is an Inactive Black Rural Consciousness that reinforces the limiting capacity of the lasting legacies of plantation politics for modern rural Black people.
Though I identified two trajectories, active and inactive contexts, individuals are not doomed to remain inactive. The model accounts for the resilient nature of Black Americans by noting the capacity of energizing catalysts like education, travel, or life experiences that mobilize them outside of their home context.
2024 Election Season is Around the Corner
The video and commentary surrounding Aldean’s video are reminiscent of the Rust Belt Diner journalism that focused on the “Real Americans” of middle America who felt left behind in 2016. This narrow narrative limits the political vision of party leaders and activists. My experience and research indicate that the conversation is much wider than what we’re reading through the headlines.
Rural Black Americans are a minority of the rural minority. The USDA reported in 2020 that Blacks made up 7.8% of the rural population, about 1/10th of the population of Whites in rural America. Interestingly, about 1 in 4 Black adults in the South describes where they live as “rural” vs suburban or urban. One respondent in my study shared, “To be Black and rural, for better or worse, means that you’re a lot more on your own”. Left to fend for themselves, rural Black Americans turn inward, oftentimes choosing to conserve their energy rather than expend it on seemingly pointless political endeavors. Their treatment by officials often only reinforces this sentiment. Another respondent, a 29-year-old social worker remarked that even after living her entire life in the county, she has not met a candidate for statewide office, “do they even come here? I’ve never seen one,”.
Somehow, the country believes we’re split in two- either you respect a hard day’s work and the right to shoot to kill or would rather send money to Ukraine than pay their own bills. It’s hard to imagine a middle ground in this environment. In this version of reality, party leaders throw away countless votes because they fail to appropriately fund and train rural organizers. They think it’s useless to fund Democratic campaigns in “red” states. Thinking like this discounts all of the mini-wins that can happen even when a candidate loses an election. Organizers know that the skills necessary for surgical campaigns must be honed and practiced like any other. Well-funded campaigns are the most efficient way to inject political knowledge and leadership into these disparate communities.
Why This Matters
As political analysts and commentators lament daily, we are living in unprecedented political times. One thing has remained constant, the people who you talk to, turn out to vote. Both the Democratic and Republican parties have expressed a desire for the Black vote but neither have truly courted this niche but influential population.
IF the parties are serious about increasing turnout and making democracy equitable, they need to dig into those pockets, shift their perspectives on issues of bodily autonomy, and social education, and actually speak to rural Black Americans. How about we try THAT in a small town?
