When a white mother stops Macklemore to praise his music, she comments on other hip-hop artists, saying that “All that negative stuff isn’t cool . . . The ‘bitches and the hoes and the gangs and the thugs,’ even the protest outside—so sad, and so dumb. If a cop pulls you over, it’s your fault if you run.”
Macklemore understands these generalizations are a product of white privilege. “White supremacy is our country’s lineage, designed for us to be indifferent,” he later raps in “White Privilege II,” his latest single.
The indifference—a luxury white privilege offers—is choosing to dismiss the “negative stuff”—realities that real people face while profiting from the privileges of a white supremacist system that maintains their conditions.
It is refusing to accept that police brutality against people of colour is deeply rooted in a history of racism, and that systemic oppression keeps marginalized communities in the margins of society to keep national socio-economic structures in place.
“White Privilege II” is about a white man who tries to understand his white privilege and his place in the fight against racism. His reflections bring forth his confusion about when to act, and the awareness of the visibility he gets in social movements because of his race.
Macklemore contrasts interludes with introspective verses to reveal people’s refusal to hear Black voices who cry out against racism, and fight for Black lives.
“So, they feel that the police are discriminating against the Black people? I have an advantage? Why? Cause I’m white? What? No,” says a voice over protesters endlessly chanting “Black Lives Matter.”
Another important point Macklemore addresses is the problematic nature of being a white artist in a predominantly Black culture and art form.
Internet memes, social media marketing techniques, and fashion trends are testimonies to the far-reaching influence of hip-hop on modern culture. But hip-hop is not only a commodity. It is a culture birthed out of the African-American community, and a vibrant response to a world in which they are oppressed because of their race.
Macklemore acknowledges the responsibility he has towards the people of hip-hop culture, and choses to break the luxury of silence because, as Jamila Woods sings, silence is a luxury but hip-hop is not.
“If I’m only in this for my own self-interest, not the culture that gave me a voice to begin with / Then this isn’t authentic, it is just a gimmick . . . One thing the American dream fails to mention / Is I was many steps ahead to begin with,” Macklemore raps.
Despite its well-intentioned message, “White Privilege II” did not move me because it spoke of realities I am already aware of. As a Black woman, the song didn’t offer any new perspectives, but information I know people have ignored in the past.
There are chances Macklemore’s audience may have missed Pusha T’s “Sunshine” or Kendrick Lamar’s “The Blacker the Berry” because of the artists’ “negative” music. Or that they may believe white privilege is fake, and reverse racism is real. “White Privilege II,” and the realities it unpacks, was intended for Macklemore’s often-sheltered audience.
The conversation about white supremacy, white privilege, and racism needs to happen amongst white people. If “White Privilege II” acts as a groundbreaking conversation starter for white people, I guess Macklemore did his part.
