I remember when music had meaning, honesty, pain, and truth. Some musicians used their platform to speak against wickedness and corruption. But today... oh wait, it’s still going on. If you have a platform then use it, and that is exactly what celebrities have been working on the past couple of weeks, months, and years. There was a song that Lauryn Hill did called “Neurotic Society” where she calls out the greedy, self- indulged, and social crime of the society we live in today. This song was releases in 2013 and she was speaking of what was to come back then. There is one line in her song that struck me the most. “Truth is the hate speech” was the line, and it didn’t strike me to a guilty conscience maybe I should be helping to solve a problem. It didn’t strike me to motivation, to maybe create a movement to help spread awareness of what’s to come in the future if something is not acted upon at this moment. I felt the complete opposite, I felt fear, hatred, I felt a grim suspicion that what Lauryn announced was true.
Little did I know that in the next 3 years I would see a harsh manifestation of something that is suppose set people free. I heard someone say once “The truth may hurt me, but it helped me.” Is truth helping this country or is it hurting this country? I’m sure if I was able to ask the billions of people living here on this earth if they enjoy being lied to 100 percent of the world’s human population would answer back “No”. But to be honest with you, I feel lied to because the history that has been held from us about this country has been hidden from us for generations, and now the truth is coming to light and everyone is not pleased.
Recently, for those who never knew the truth behind the "Star Spangled Banner", the original lyrics have been resurfaced and people are becoming more and more aware of the truth. But this would not have been possible if Colin Kaepernick never decided to stand up during the tradition of the singing the National Anthem. Because of his honesty he has received backlash for his freedom of speech. Now this topic on the truth behind our National Anthem has the country in social uproar. It’s a noble and brave thing when a person knows what he/she stands for, but they also know that even though what they might say is true they will receive much hate in return. The truth shall set you free is not a lie to all those who may believe it is a lie. The truth can reveal some nasty things about this world we live in, and about the society we live in. The truth sent Lincoln to his grave. The truth sent Dr. King to his grave. The terror is not in the truth, but the terror is in who hides it because whoever hides it will cause corruption.
