Is cotton considered racist? The War and Treaty express anger after plant found in their music festival dressing room

The War and Treaty performed at the Coca-Cola Sips & Sounds Music Festival in Austin, Texas, held on June 29-30, 2024. Ahead of their performance, the duo found cotton, a symbol of slavery for most Black Americans, in their dressing room.

Cotton, in the context of the Black lived experience, is one of the pre-eminent symbols of slavery. Cotton plantations were one of the biggest users of slave labor before the abolition of slavery in the 1860s following the American Civil War. Thus, in the context of Black lived experience, cotton can be considered to be a symbol of raw terror, subjugation, and racism.

War and Treaty expressed the same sentiment, with Michael Trotter Jr. stating in an exclusive statement to Hollywood Reporter published on July 3, 2024:

"There was a cotton plant. And we all know what that means. We all know what that represents in this country to people that look like us. Anger is what I felt. Disrespect is what I felt. Sadness is what I felt. Sadness not just because of what that plant represents to people that look like me but sadness for myself because I am a son of this country."

The singer continued:

"I served this country honorably in the United States Army 16th Infantry, 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division. I’m wounded for that service. I’m very vocal about my wounds and my scars, and I felt betrayed. It’s not fair. It’s something that white artists don’t have to worry about at all. … It just happens to come through the bowels of this genre..."

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More on The War and Treaty's response to finding cotton in their dressing room

Tanya Trotter, the other half of the War and Treaty duo, elaborated on what she felt seeing cotton in the dressing room of the festival while being the descendent of cotton plantation slaves in the same exclusive statement to Hollywood Reporter, stating:

My grandfather actually bought the plantation that he picked cotton on in New Bern, North Carolina. My family actually still lives there. So when you see these things, you look at it and you’re like -

"-‘Wow, even though my grandfather bought the plantation, there’s still a lot of pain rooted for people that didn’t get an opportunity to change it into economic development for their families.’"

She ended the statement by pointing out that it was a safety issue, comparing it to the racial integration of schools in 1957 following the Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education ruling by the Supreme Court. The measures that were required to make the successful transition to integrated schools in the beginning included the use of the National Guard and the US Army to ensure student safety in an environment where states and schools alike resisted the integration order.

War and Treaty pointed out that the problem went beyond racism and security and into the realm of the human condition in modern society. The representatives of the festival are yet to respond to the incident at the War and Treaty dressing room as of the writing of this article.

Cotton was the single most important crop of the United States from its nascent post-independence days all the way till the end of the 19th century. Driven by the boom in textile industry demand for raw cotton post-Industrial Revolution, the material became the largest export product of the country from 1803 to 1937.

These export figures, 60% on the eve of the Civil War, empowered the American slave trade, enslaving more than four million African-Americans by the mid-1800s, a phenomenon that continued after the Abolition in the form of the Jim Crow laws era.

The War and Treaty's expression of horror at the presence of cotton in their dressing room at the Coca-Cola Sips & Sounds Music Festival is emblematic of the larger social connotations of the material within the Black community.