Kacey Musgraves is facing backlash from some fans after she showed support for immigrant families during a birthday performance.
The Grammy-winning country singer celebrated her 38th birthday on Friday by marking the opening night of her Middle of Nowhere tour in Chicago. At one point during the performance, she paused the show and urged the audience to donate to the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights as her “birthday wish.”
“It’s a wonderful organization, and they help give aid — legal aid — and money to children whose parents have been deported unfairly,” Musgraves said on stage. “It’s not a political thing. It’s just, these kids need help.”
She continued: “They have no guidance and no way to get through this thing without their home base or their parents. So anyway, 50 cents, whatever the hell, I don’t know, whatever you want to do, but that would mean a lot to me. If you don’t want to, that’s totally fine too.”
The plea was met with applause and cheers from her crowd at the United Center. However, once videos of the moment started circulating online, conservative political commentators were quick to unleash their wrath on the “Follow Your Arrow” singer.
"Lost me young lady, no more listening to you,” one former fan wrote to Musgraves on X.
Uh oh, what will she do now?
She has spent her career backing progressive causes, from supporting immigrants to gun control and LGBTQ+ rights.
Nah she’ll be fine
Well I’ll just listen to her twice as hard now!
“Country star”… Kacey Musgraves? Yup, it’s her. Fuck yeah.
Wait. You mean to say when she said something reasonable in real life, people supported it? And when it went online, bad faith actors used it as target practice? Say it ain’t so.
Kacey Musgraves is an amazing artist. She has been beloved by the LGBTQ+ community for a decade now.
If you’re not familiar with her music, I would recommend starting with the song “Follow Your Arrow”, which is about living your life as authentically as possible and very explicitly supports the queer community. Here’s the chorus:
So, make lots of noise (hey)\
Kiss lots of boys (yup)\
Or kiss lots of girls, if that’s something you’re into\
When the straight and narrow gets a little too
straight\
Roll up a joint, or don’t\
Just follow your arrow wherever it points, yeah\
Follow your arrow wherever it points
“Golden Hour”, which is her Grammy-nominated album, is an absolute masterpiece and played a significant role in my first queer relationship. The song “Rainbow” still makes me tear up and look back fondly on my coming out years. I have seen her a few times in concert and she always dedicates it to the LGBTQ+ community.
My spouse was obsessed with Space Cowboy for a while, which is an amazing song. But at some point, I was genuinely worried I was about to get divorced since she’s listening to this saddest song ever about a breakup. Nope, just a super-captivating song, which I realized when I was also listening to it for the 5th time in a day.
Speaking of which…
Liked her before. Like her more now.
Like when the Dixie Chicks roasted their careers criticizing a war that chud got elected by criticizing. We’re among very stupid, thoughtless people. And they vote.
However, once videos of the moment started circulating online
Then the same thing that happens to any moment of attempted human connection and empathy happens in the cesspool of the internet.
How dare she care about children!?
Wait until you hear about Ms Rachel caring about amputee children…
breaking: conservative fans recoil in horror over “basic human decency” and “not being an asshole”
They strongly argue that empathy will be the undoing of society. It’s a pretty common thing in conservative echo chambers. They’re about targeting vulnerable to maintain their status as an in-group, and are totally absorbed in their self-interest, even though most of them will never be part of the Epstein class.
This is FALSE! MANY, if not ALL CONSERVATIVES are ALREADY having Sex With Children!
Empathy is arguably the thing that separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom
I disagree, many animals have way more empathy than these people
One of our kitties comes over any time someone is sad or sick or hurt. I can’t remember the last time she cheered for ICE killing a civilian, so I think this checks out.
That can backfire when the ones that need empathy are them.
It routinely does, and they still don’t learn.
See, it’s not that they don’t learn, it’s that they refuse to. If something challenges their worldview they ignore it.
Nothing terrifies the wealthy like facing the consequences of how shitty they’ve made other people’s lives.
So when your life gets bad enough, they give you someone else to hate.
They think you’re stupid in addition to being exploitable.
“not torturing children”
“It’s mah right.”
“Otherizing” fellow human beings is like a basic tenant of facisim. As soon as you feel that all people deserve basic happiness the right will attack you.
Humans are animals forced to fight for every scrap of dignity from a horde of fellow creatures with the bodies of men and the souls of insects. The idea that you have anything besides flesh and blood in common with the zombie MAGAts overrunning this planet is dangerously naive.
hey hey! insect souls are still warm and nurturing in comparison
The idea that you have anything besides flesh and blood in common with the zombie MAGAts overrunning this planet is dangerously naive.
This is exactly the kind of othering he was just fucking talking about! Like seriously, do you hear yourself? It’s literally dehumanizing language. You can’t fight bigotry by out-bigoting everyone else.
Anyway, I don’t want to see it in my communities, it’s deeply unhelpful.
All human life has value, but people who disagree lose the protection implied by that statement.
Nazis are evil. I will die on this hill.
I’m right there with you. However, even Nazis are human.
In fact, especially Nazis are human; it takes a human to be that evil. But don’t pretend they’re anything less than typical, this is why you have to engage with them, you can’t write them off worthless scum and pretend they don’t exist or matter, there’s too many of them for that. The only way to beat them is to absorb them back into reasonable society. It’s a shitload of work, and you just have to keep at it until their ideologies are once again a fringe subculture.
They’re human, sure, and all humans are animals. Of course, not all humans are people.
This is the definition of dehumanization.
Imo I can hold the tenets that fascists must be met with force as violence is the only thing that will stop them (the Keyser Söse theorem); but that doesn’t stop me from considering them as human beings, who weren’t born this way. It may be tactically correct to consider the reasons someone would turn to naziism and fight those as well.
What part of “Nazis are human” is dehumanizing?
I’m not sure what has to malfunction in the brain or soul of any animal (human or otherwise) to become a Nazi, but it robs them of personhood, which is why they’re dangerous. There are dolphins, elephants, and other animals that I’d consider akin to people, and some humans I wouldn’t.
And it sounds like you’re one of them. But here I am engaging with you. Trying to remind you that you can be better, that you can be the bigger person, that you have a responsibility to be change you want to see.
I am kind to all animals, even small ones. They are not people, or even human, but that doesn’t matter.
Personhood is the instantiation of certain transcendental values. Many (if not most) humans in our 200k year history have not been people capable of understanding important things or acting in moral ways. So what? Bears aren’t people either and it doesn’t stop me from being nice to them. Pretending otherwise out of some misplaced sense of inclusivity doesn’t make me a “better” person, as you said — it makes me wrong.
——
By the way, the argument you’re making is a speciesist one, as if all Homo sapiens share a special trait that other animals don’t and denying this fact is “dehumanizing,” whatever that means.
This is incorrect. All animals, including humans, fall somewhere on a spectrum: for kindness, for intelligence, for their ability to love, etc. Some combination of these traits is called “personhood” and grants you special responsibilities and considerations — for example, my willingness to take your ethical opinions seriously, as I’m doing now, for you.
With “Liberty and Justice for all” sprawled across their back windshield.
Conservatives: we’re Christian and love everyone. Except those fucking immigrants.
…And ‘em damn gays. Coun’ 'em in too.
And everyone and everyTHING else that isn’t a white cishet male Christian fascist.
Are you seriously gonna come in here and pretend that Jesus didn’t say “fuck immigrants”? Cause that’s the message they remember. “In fact,” he said, “anyone you don’t like, too.” It’s right there in the bible. Look it up.
One fan countered in the comments of her latest post: “We love you Kacey! People upset and surprised she would support the Young Centre clearly know nothing about her: she’s always been a progressive, and not quiet about it.”
This is not the first time that Musgraves has upset conservatives. She has spent her career backing progressive causes, from supporting immigrants to gun control and LGBTQ+ rights.
Her pick of charity also does not come out of nowhere: Musgraves has repeatedly championed the Young Center, a national nonprofit that advocates for children separated from their families. Earlier this year, she partnered with Depop to sell pieces from her music videos and her personal wardrobe to raise money for the organization.
Reminds me when fascists / fascist enablers were surprised rage against the machine were left leaning
In my experience white Christians genuinely believe that everyone who looks like them also thinks like them.
That’s because they live insular lives where they get no pushback. Of course they would think that when their entire lives they rarely meet people that shows them otherwise. The fact that in the US people are allowed to homeschool their children and isolate them from their peers means that will continue to be a fact.
If she’s pissing off conservatives, she’s doing the right thing.
Amen.
God bless her. ❤️
…once videos of the moment started circulating online, conservative political commentators were quick to unleash their wrath…
It’s important to remember that some pretty significant fraction of these “commentators” are really shills, robots, and/or other cyber-turfing actors. They’re propagandists, they sow culture war outrage on purpose, they don’t really believe in anything.
Yeah, and social media algorithms promote the outrage. Something that gets a lot of reactions is going to be boosted, making it look far more popular than it actually is.
💯. I really wish people would check video histories of crap they watch.
If someone is just a 24/7 outrage machine, it should be a pretty obvious clue they’re not to be taken seriously, no matter what perspective they’re coming from. It’s just a toxic channel.
I’ve seen lots of game review channels just be “X is the WORST” and “TOTAL GARBAGE” for literally anything. It’s such an obvious ragebait scheme.
The “Protect the children” folk when the children aren’t white:
Sometimes I wonder if the “Protect the children” types even care about children at all, the last year and change has given me the impression they’d do some heinous shit if the right person told them to.
They’ve never been Pro-life, just Pro-Whites.
Even then, they’re only pro-White assholes.
As a Redneck who wishes to make warbanners from the flesh of priests and corporate dogs alike I concur. They really fucken hate me, definitely not disgust in my more Chaotic tendencies.
