White People, Black People & Macklemore’s New Moment
The newest moment in racial justice is Macklemore’s “White Privilege II”.**
**as declared by a white dude.
- Before you read anything, please listen to the song.
2. It feels deeply unfair that a white person has the power to create a “new moment in racial justice” by saying things that have already been said six million times by black people, but are only heard when a white person says them.
2.5. It feels unfair that a white person has the power to create a “new moment in hip-hop” by saying things that have already been said 60,000 times by black hip-hop artists but are only heard when a white person says them.
If there is one phrase that captures the overall mood and attitude of Saul Williams’ latest album, MartyrLoserKing, it…www.npr.org
3. But all of this is precisely why “White Privilege II” is a “moment”. We are jumping into an exploration of the role white people can play in the Black Lives Matter movement and in the racial justice movement as a whole. The questions surrounding this song are crucial and pithy. “Is Macklemore sincere?”; “Is this appropriation?”; “Is this designed specifically for white people?”; “Is it his story to tell?”…The larger ramifications speak to the role of white people in the racial justice movement: how much space we take up, what sort of role we can play, how we handle ourselves throughout these efforts, whether we should be declaring racial justice “moments” and commenting on them on Medium…
4. Macklemore’s platform to be heard was created by him being talented but also, more importantly, by him being white. His whiteness created the soapbox and also, from atop that box, allows this message to be accepted. It must feel like shit to be an artist of color and have said this stuff more creatively 25 years ago and have been ignored. Some of that is discussed here:
5. Yeahh, Macklemore fucked up pretty bad with the Grammy Text:
Kendrick Lamar has responded to Macklemore’s post-Grammy text message in his latest interview with Billboard. Kendrick…pitchfork.com
5. I got chills listening to “White Privilege II”. I don’t know if that is good or bad.
6. I wouldn’t be surprised, based on 0% personal experience and zero research, if most people of color do not get chills.
7. I am not sure if the song is specifically designed for white people, but I know that one of the only [unambiguous and clear courses of action for white people who are concerned about racial justice] is to work on moving people of our own race in the right direction.
8. Here is one powerful example of leveraging white privilege:
7. Macklemore talked to DeRay for an hour:
If most recent song accomplished anything, it certainly got a lot of people talking. While some were derailed by…www.complex.com
8. Here are the women of color behind the song:
Macklemore and Ryan Lewis have released an eight-minute song featuring Jamila Woods, “White Privilege II,” about white…themuse.jezebel.com
9. Is he donating the profits from this song to a racial justice cause?
10. “White Privilege II” could be seen as simply a “new moment for white people”. That would be fair. But we can think bigger than that. However the dialogue goes, we cannot retreat and create segregated conversations about race. We need people of color to be involved in the discussion of how to best utilize white privilege to fight white supremacy. The recent Bernie Sanders reparations discussion highlights the immediate stakes of such a conversation. We need people of color involved in coalitions to shift power away from the deeply racist concentrations in which it is currently held. And we need to create space for people of color in those coalitions. This is a chance to light that fire.
11. Reflect: