Unsettled feelings about Macklemore's "White Privilege II": scattered as an argument but gets across, mostly due to the anger spilling over (righteous anger, to be fair). The vocal samples are doing more for me than Macklemore, in all honesty, and there are a lot of them. Diagramming the song mostly to figure out where my feelings lie:
Part 1.1 (0:00 - 1:44) - Opens with that chilling "no justice, no peace" chorus, which bookends this entire section. Macklemore's recounting a Black Lives Matter rally, and the emotional tenor runs from guilt to anger to confusion, as ambivalent as the snippets that close out the segment. Macklemore raps, "Want to take a stance 'cause we're not free / And then I thought about it / We are not we"; the chorus, on the other hand, invokes "No rest 'till we're free." That feels like the center of the critique I've seen around Macklemore this weekend: what does it mean when a successful white hip-hop artist (very much aware of the racial fault-lines in this country) is invoking the voices of those across the line? Does that qualify as giving space or taking credit? Hell, what does it mean that I shrugged at the rap verse but shivered at the chorus? Which leads into...
Part 1.2 (1:45 - 3:07) - "You're Miley, you're Elvis, you're Iggy Azalea," that's what it means, and if you're not Iggy then you're singing along to Iggy and what's the difference? Felt a pang of identification with this entire verse, not going to lie. Halfway through, the focus turns: "Join the march, protest, scream and shout / Get on Twitter, hashtag, seem like you're down," words likely to be lobbied at limousine liberals as much as they are at, well, Macklemore, I guess. Really clever bit at the end when you get the interlude of protesters screaming "Hands up, don't shoot!" before the track literally slams the door silent because what is privilege if not the privilege to cover your ears, right?
Part 2 (3:08 - 4:32) - Not a coincidence that this section opens with "Pssst": the entire thing has the tone of a bigot whispering in the presence of civil company. Wonder how the suburban moms responsible for buying Macklemore's music are going to feel about him deconstructing their entire belief system, but it works because of the production - the way the piano creeps like a mouse whiskers shy of a trap, the dissonant delay in how Mackle-mom's voice is doubled, the way the chatter in the rooms cuts through the entire monologue before we get to the snippets of Not-Racist White People, the shouts of "Black Lives Matter!" audible beneath them (that motif of protester's voices being silenced, subdued, and otherwise pitted against white voices runs through the entire piece, and I think it's complicated to unpack but it works here).
Part 3.1 (4:33 - 6:33) - Not a lot to unpack here, just some sad piano and a White Privilege 101 verse. This is where it derails a little bit, at least for me; the voice goes back to that same "us" that the first part was willing to deviate from, and neuters what was initially sharp, pointed critique into "a lot of opinions." Ditto for "What if I actually read an article / Actually had a dialogue / Actually looked at myself / Actually got involved?" Good things in isolation; not the be-all end-all of political reform.
My gut reaction is that this verse wasn't meant for me*, the same point that this article makes with much more detail and eloquence. My more thought-out reaction is that, as a Korean American, I occupy a nebulous place in American race relations, not quite black but not quite white either. It is important to be in solidarity with other people of color, yet I still enjoy the privileges of being a native English speaker, of being in most situations secure from police brutality/violence, of having access to educational opportunities and healthcare and many things that black people do not. I reflect on just how little I do sometimes to push myself out of my comfort zone and to connect with Korean Americans (and, yes, with white people) on the need for solidarity. And in a way, aren't we who have access to those in communities outside this important, much-needed movement for black lives tasked with the most responsibility to expand its reach outwards?
On a final note, it is at least an interesting rhetorical move for Macklemore to connect his authenticity as a rapper with his willingness to advocate for political issues (and he's not wrong to note that hip-hop has always been politicized), but the entire move troubles me in a way I can't articulate yet.
Part 3.2 (6:33 - 7:20) - I can't believe that the "All Houses Matter" cartoon has transcended meme culture to take its rightful position in a Macklemore song in 2016. Bless. Otherwise, we get a good snippet on how black liberation is everybody's liberation; another voice on how the best thing white people can do is "talk" about race; a question about what those with privilege are willing to give up in exchange for a just society. Note that we never get a clear idea of whether these speakers are white.
Part 4 (7:21 - 8:42) - Last bit gets handed off to Jamila Woods, which I appreciate. I think this is where the strands of the song, the "I"s and the "we"s and the "us"es, come together:
Your silence is a luxury, hip-hop is not a luxury
What I got for me, it is for me
What we made, we made to set us free
So in the first line, we're getting the "you" as those outside the black community but also you as listener, you as Lady Macbeth unable to wash America's legacy out of her hands; second line is the reclamation of the art and the political awareness black people have held onto throughout centuries of violence and discrimination; third line is ambiguous, I think by design, where the "we" can be read both as the Black Lives Matter movement (and, by extension, the legacy of black protest it fits into historically) and as a call to solidarity. That's the read I'm getting on it, but I'm open to hearing others' interpretations and thoughts.
No comments:
Post a Comment