In Defense of Macklemore (Again)
The white rapper should be allowed to stand up for oppressed minorities through his music.
Last week, white rapper Macklemore released a new song titled “White Privilege II,” after a period of relative quiet.
Fans of Macklemore who began listening to his work with Ryan Lewis (released on Grammy-winning album The Heist) will find this song a rather confusing and abrupt departure from the carefree, poppy hooks and lines of radio hits like “Thrift Shop,” “Can’t Hold Us,” and most recently “Downtown.” However, those who followed Macklemore prior to his recent explosion onto popular culture’s consciousness may welcome the sounds of the “old” Mack back — the rapper that did not have the slick producer Lewis in his arsenal and tended to release long-winded musings instead of upbeat anthems that would be more at home at a club in Miami than a coffee shop in Seattle. “White Privilege II” is aware of this; its title alludes to one of Macklemore’s pre-Heist song on cultural appropriation, “White Privilege” (from 2005’s The Language of My World), although it reads more like a current-events infused update than a seamless sequel.
Musically, the song is confusing and truly messy — a 9-minute mix of horns, hi-hats, plinking piano keys, spoken words, and hauntingly strong vocals that, like Mary Lambert’s vocals in “Same Love,” are over much too soon. The only consistent thing through it all is Macklemore’s voice as he brings us into the world of his thoughts. The track is, in a word, introspective; when you first listen, it appears to jump from topic to topic without the slightest consideration for listeners trying to follow along, but upon a closer look there is in fact, a singular thread of thought that runs throughout the entire piece. It brings listeners uncomfortably deep inside of Macklemore’s head and shows us the question that seems to truly plague him: what is the proper role of a straight, white, cisgender male with good intentions — that is, an ally — in our modern civil rights movements?
READ MORE: In Defense of Macklemore
In “White Privilege II,” Macklemore continues the work of “White Privilege” and raps about cultural appropriation, and the role that he plays in that appropriation on a daily basis simply by virtue of being a white hip-hop artist, rapping seemingly to himself “You’ve exploited and stolen/The music, the moment/The magic, the passion/The fashion you toy with.” He then moves from his role in cultural appropriation to his role in modern civil rights movements, focusing on black rights and Black Lives Matter while rapping:
“It’s all stolen anyway, can’t you see that now?
There’s no way for you to even that out
You can join the march, protest, scream and shout
Get on Twitter, hashtag, seem like you’re down
But they see through it all, people believe you now?
You said publicly ‘Rest in Peace Mike Brown’
You speak about equality
But do you really mean it?
Are you marching for freedom?
Or when it’s convenient?”
Clearly, as so many Twitter critics have already pointed out, there is guilt in these words — perhaps even white guilt, symptomatic of the greater “white savior complex,” wherein white people supposedly feel the need to “save” people of color from whatever the demon du jour happens to be while remaining blithely unaware that those demons are of the white person’s own making. Racism, epitomized in the instances of police brutality that much of the Black Lives Matter movement has focused on, is certainly a demon created and perpetuated by the white majority, which Macklemore is most certainly a part of. But, I do not believe that Macklemore’s social identity means that he, and allies like him, have no place in our modern civil rights movements, or more specifically in the black and gay rights movements.
Macklemore has struggled with this question before, albeit not so incredibly bluntly and honestly in his gay-marriage anthem “Same Love.” It seems that Macklemore simply has difficulty in aligning his pro-gay rights, pro-black rights viewpoints with his decidedly straight white maleness. And who wouldn’t, considering that every time he tries to speak out he is at once silenced by “haters” who are against his message, and admonished by those who agree with the message but disagree with the person spreading that message? When upon releasing a song that celebrates universal love and challenges stereotypes about sexuality, he is called inauthentic and fake? When upon releasing a song discussing police brutality, he is immediately accused yet again of trying to speak for a population that he does not belong to?
It may seem that the answer to this issue — that of Macklemore being critiqued for rapping about gay and black rights when he is neither gay nor black — would be for Macklemore to simply not talk about those things, regardless of whether or not they affect him in some way. However, I believe it would be significantly worse for Macklemore to be a white rapper — someone who profits off of the appropriation of black culture simply by virtue of his profession — who actively chooses not to use his position of privilege to further the civil rights of black people. Short of quitting rap, Macklemore has two options here: either rap about black issues, and attempt to raise awareness, or don’t. Either way, he would be criticized — on one hand for being inauthentic, on the other for simply not caring. In this sort of damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenario, I believe it is clear that Macklemore has made the correct decision in choosing to write “White Privilege II”.
If, as Martin Luther King once famously wrote in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, then any person who actively chooses to speak out against injustice is a benefit to civil rights causes. And, in fact, I believe that a person who speaks out against injustice and yet is still outwardly a member of the majority — straight, white, or male (and Macklemore has the trifecta here) — has the potential to be particularly beneficial to these causes, because his outward appearance will allow his voice to be heard when true minority voices are silenced. This, after all, is exactly what white privilege is.
In my view, that’s the thing about allies: as much as someone in the gay rights or black rights movement may not want to be dependent on non-LGBT or white allies, we still need them. And the reason that we need them is precisely because they are not one of us. Members of the majority — straight men, white men, and particularly straight white men — are the ones who make the rules, they are the ones who are most likely to be listened to and they are the ones who are most likely to be able to influence laws, policies, or politics. If you think that’s fucked up, you’re right, but that doesn’t make it any less true. That again, is what white privilege — and heterosexual privilege is.
In a perfect world, our representatives would listen to the thousands of people of color demanding to simply be treated like human beings; instead, they have been consistently reprimanded with condescending hashtags and statements that #AllLivesMatter. In a perfect world, LGBT people who were not allowed to hold the hands of the love of their life while they died simply because they did not possess a piece of paper would be enough to spur on outrage and equal marriage, but it wasn’t. Allies bring these issues into popular consciousness; and it’s not to say that when black or gay people speak that it is not important, it is just to say that when we speak no one seems to hear us, or, more accurately, no one seems to listen.
Macklemore understands this. He understands that when a straight person raps about gay rights, gay marriage is legalized, first in Washington and shortly thereafter in the entire country. He seems to also understand that it is more likely that his white-boy rap about black reality, rather than the widely publicized, on-camera examples of black murder obfuscated by police authority will be what makes people sit up and listen. If you also think that’s fucked up, you’re right again — but Macklemore seems to think it is too. This too, is the “white privilege” that his song alludes to — this implied power of the non-LGBT, non-black ally to speak and have people listen. Our society listens to straight white men; at least Macklemore is doing what he can to ensure that what is being said, and in turn what is being listened to, is of actual import.
Macklemore is the epitome of the dominant social group. But to hate him for speaking up on issues that do not directly affect him, for trying to enact change and playing the system that gives him, and perhaps only him, the power to be the voice of a population he does not belong to or even really understand is counterproductive. Macklemore will make money again and win awards again and will surely monetarily and socially benefit from his songs about gay people and black people. But perhaps he is not the only person who can, and who is meant to benefit from his special brand of “white privilege”.
Ariana Aboulafia is a columnist for Neon Tommy who has never been thrift shoppin’. Read her work here, contact her here, or follow her on Twitter.
