‘I Never Thought Leopards Would Eat MY Face’ Sobs Man Who Sung Song To Summon Face-Eating Leopards
It’s been a “good” couple of months for music that can only be played on a dog whistle. Hot on the heels of Jason Aldean’s ode to racism “Try That In A Small Town” came Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond.” A sample lyric of the latter: “Well, God, if you’re 5-foot-3 and you’re 300 pounds/Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds.”
Yep, it’s a regular old anti-poor-people song, and not a well-written one at that. Yet it’s been everywhere. It shot to the top of the Billboard Top 100 despite Anthony being a complete newcomer to the music scene. It got over two million views on YouTube. Marjorie Taylor Greene loves it. And now it’s being played, predictably, during Republican debates.
Anthony is not pleased about Republicans using his song. The guy who sang the lyrics “Lord, we got folks in the street, ain’t got nothin’ to eat/And the obese milkin’ welfare” wants everyone to know that—guess what—he’s not political. He posted a video on YouTube a few days ago where he stated, “The one thing that has bothered me is seeing people wrap politics up in this. I’m disappointed to see it. Like, it’s aggravating seeing people on conservative news try to identify with me, like I’m one of them.”
But if you release a song featuring what’s basically a bunch of right-wing talking points strung together—the song also features the lyric “I wish politicians would look out for miners/And not just minors on an island somewhere,” which QAnon types will absolutely only take one way—what do you expect to happen?!
Anthony not seeing this coming indicates that he has a very poor grasp indeed on what life is like for people in America who aren’t similar to him.
The percentages Anthony is focused on
In his video, here’s what Anthony said regarding the “obese milkin’ welfare” line: “That references a news article I read earlier this summer, that adolescent kids in Richmond are missing meals because their parents can’t afford to feed them and they’re not in school to eat cafeteria lunch.” He went on, “And meanwhile, I think like 30% or 40% of the food bought with welfare EBT money is in a classification of like, snack food and soda. I think 10% spent on soda. And I want to say like 20% or 30% spent on junk food.”
In May of this year, ABC4 News posted a fact-check about this issue. Back in 2016, the Department of Agriculture found that 22.6% of SNAP/EBT households’ grocery bill is spent on junk food and candy. But, as the news outlet points out, “The data used for the study captured only transactions completed at a specific set of retail outlets and so is not a complete representation of the whole picture. The study also found that non-SNAP households spend 19.7% of their grocery budget on junk food.”
Furthermore, what’s the connection between one person spending their welfare money on junk food (which is still food, after all) and a child missing a meal? Both should be eating, and the government should be providing them with the means to do so if they can’t. For all his talk about “rich men” Anthony seemingly believes that the true enemy is the “5-foot-3, 300 pounds” poor person whose buying of fudge rounds directly takes a meal out of a child’s mouth. The truth is much more complex than that, but Anthony just wants someone to attack.
Eat their faces, not mine!
That’s probably why the Republicans have adopted Anthony’s song so enthusiastically: It contains no compassion, just a lot of lashing out and finger-pointing. In his YouTube video, after speaking about the percentages of EBT money spent on junk food, Anthony added, “That’s not the fault of those people.” Well, buddy, that certainly doesn’t come across in your song, where you very much indicate that it is their fault, and that your own plight is their fault as well.
And if you blow a dog whistle like that, you’re going to get dogs. Or, in this case (to quote from one of the snappiest political tweets ever crafted) — you’re going to get face-eating leopards. And I’m sorry, Anthony, but trying to distract them with fudge rounds won’t work.
(featured image: screencap, Oliver Anthony)
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