I love The White Stripes. I have loved The White Stripes since I was in middle school. I got into them roughly the same year they broke up, which was tragic and devastating, but I have made up for lost time by obtaining every single album and listening to them almost constantly for the last seven years. My White Stripes tee, purchased at Jack White’s record store in Nashville, has two holes in it from consistent wear and age.
By extension of my loving The White Stripes, I also love Jack White. I love all that he does and is. I love The Raconteurs, I love The Dead Weather, I love his solo work. I have seen him live twice. I make regular pilgrimages to Third Man Records and beg the lovely women who work there to tell me whatever latest juicy story they have about Jack (my favorite of these stories—one salesgirl, on her first day, opened a door and hit Jack with it by mistake, and he apologized to her).
I recently saw him at a show I went to in Nashville, and we made extended eye contact because I was wearing a full cheer uniform and openly gaping at him like a maniac. I almost passed out. I may not be the biggest Jack White fan, but I am definitely as big a fan as my lifestyle will allow. Using fandom terminology, he is a fave and a person I stand for (whatever that means).
Despite my deep and unabiding love for him, I have recently had to come to terms with the fact that he’s a problematic fave.
A lot of my favorite Jack White songs are misogynistic… like, a lot. A particular White Stripes favorite of mine, “Your Southern Can Is Mine,” opens with the following lines:
“Now, looky here, momma, let me explain you this,
You wanna get crooked, I'll even give you my fist.
You might read from Revelation back to Genesis,
You get crooked, your southern can belongs to me.”
While Jack White did not technically write it (it’s a Blind Willie McTell original), he definitely does sing a song about domestic violence.
Of course, there is his recent hit “Three Women” off “Lazaretto”, which is literally a song about his many mistresses. An interesting lyric:
“Well, these women must be getting something
Cause they come and see me every night”
What am I to do with the knowledge that a lot of my favorite songs by one of my favorite musicians are opposed to a lot that I believe? Do I abandon Jack White, burn my White Stripes shirt and put my CDs in a meat grinder? Do I explain it away by saying it’s harkening back to older rock, country and blues songs, even though it carries on a ridiculous double standard in music? I don’t do any of that. It may not be the noble solution, but it’s mine nonetheless: I sing along.
I know that the things he says are sexist, and that’s enough for me. I don’t feel like I have to tell the whole world, I don’t feel like picketing Third Man Records. Jack White is an incredible musician, a fascinating figure in Southern culture and rich beyond my wildest dreams. Yelling at or about him will not change any of that, and I wouldn’t want it to. My understanding that it’s misogynistic is enough for me.
Jack White isn’t oppressing me. The patriarchal systems that allow Jack White’s lyrics to go unnoticed are the same ones that oppress me. As long as I am doing what I can to fight that patriarchy, I don’t have to fight Jack White. Or Kanye West, or Diplo or anyone else, for that matter.
