The year of 2017 was a rollercoaster ride from a clown taking office in the White House to a solar eclipse mesmerizing everyone. Oh, and of course, racism still continues to be a hot topic in America. Near the end of the year, rapper Joyner Lucas created a song and video for “I’m Not Racist”. While it was becoming viral, I didn’t pay any mind to it because I didn’t know how Joyner Lucas looked. The thumbnail of the video was an older white male wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat. As a person of color, I refuse to watch any media, purposefully, of white people begging for empathy or trying to explain their plight especially in the form of rap music. I let everyone around me create their opinions and explain why the song and video were amazing and groundbreaking for race relations.
A couple of weeks ago, I finally broke down and decided to give it a chance (after doing my research on who Lucas is and what he represents). As the song played, I heard the perspective of the older white male telling a young African-American male all the things that are wrong with his people. Black men don’t take care of their children, they sell food stamps for liquor and weed, they deserve to die for not picking their pants up, they don’t have any goals or ambition, and most importantly: they don’t have the right to protest (the NFL players taking a knee in protest to police brutality). As you can imagine, I laughed my ass off because all of these things can be found on a Fox 5 News Facebook thread and they’re utterly not true.
It was time for the young African-American male to speak up and rip into this guy for his uneducated and stereotypical claims. As he continued to rap and try to dismantle everything the white male said I became more and more dissatisfied with his remarks. He didn’t bring up the fact that slavery lasted 246 years and it’s older than America itself. He didn’t talk about how basically the government didn’t allow black fathers to be in the household because you can’t apply for welfare if there are two incomes. He didn’t talk about how the modern policing and jailing system was created after the Civil War freed 3.9 million slaves so they were there to protect white people not all people. He mentioned things like systematic racism and how Trump being elected was “whitelashing” but everything he said were things you could pull out of Instagram and Facebook memes.
After being disgruntled for a few minutes it finally hit me… Why the fuck am I listening to a song that has the perspective of an older white male Trump supporter as the beginning? White people literally have every television station and media outlet at their fingertips to discuss any topic they want at any chance to have their voices heard. BET is owned by a white corporation, and even the things that are suppose to represent black people can be censored. Congress is 87 percent white, the House of Representatives is 85 percent white and the Senate is 96 percent white. And I’m listening to a Hip Hop song, a predominately black art forum for the voiceless, tell me how white people feel.
The video has 22 million views on Youtube and collectively more through all social media platforms. I had to ask myself and I ask you as a reader would you listen to a song titled “I’m Not a Rapist” where a rapist raps to his victim about how she/ he deserved it because they wore “tight” clothing? Would you listen to a song titled “I’m Not a Pedophile” where the pedophile raps to a child about how they deserved to be violated in such disgusting ways? Would you listen to a song titled “I’m Not Anti-semitic” where a Neo-Nazi raps about why Jewish people are so terrible and deserve to die and they weren’t around during the Holocaust so they should get over it? No I wouldn’t and you wouldn’t but why is that the case for those people and not black people? Because we view those other categories of people as human and we understand that they are victims. Nothing about this song is progressive or ground breaking to race relations, it’s entirely more harmful because it makes it seem as if both narratives are equal to one another and they should “talk it out”.
Now you may point out “Well what’s the solution? All you did was point out the problems, what are your solutions then since you have all the answers?” My answer is pretty simple. The moment black people are viewed as human is the moment these problems will stop. Black people are literally allowed to be anything on this planet: niggers, thugs, super predators, President of the United States for eight years, but we’re never allowed to be human.
