Some people can call me a redneck and it doesn't bother me very much, just like some people can call me a junkie and it doesn't bother me very much. They're words that are designed to put people in a place and hold them there. Taneytown is about intolerance, but I intentionally didn't set that song in the South. Taneytown is in Maryland. And if you carry it further than that, the most racially polarized place I've ever been is Boston, Massachusetts.
Racism is alive and well.
It doesn't have anything to do with the South. What we did in my country, where we dropped the ball, is we decided that racism is something that exists in Mississippi. And forgot about our own front yard. The point is that we always remember that the South lost, so in the North nobody had to change the way they were doing anything. Well, Woody Guthrie was first and foremost an entertainer, and if you've ever read anything about him he would have been the first to tell you that.