The
song They don't really care about us by Michael
Jackson was aired in 1995. It can be seen as a protest song, because
through its lyrics (and also its videoclip), the song denounces some
of the major problems and crisis of the American society, even though
the main themes expressed there can be related to the most of the
countries in this world : violence and indifference of the
government, hate, racism, and intolerance in the society.
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Racism, intolerance and
prejudices
MJ first talks about skinheads,
who are a group of violent, hateful, intolerant, racist, white supremacists , and associates it with death :"Dead head" the next line.
« Don't you black or
white me » means that some persons usually put people in
categories in function of their skin colour which is a form of
racism.
The allusions to racism,
especially against black people (which is still very present in the USA)
are numerous :
« Black Man »
or more simply « Segregation », which is linked to
his wish that Martin Luther King ( one of the main icon of the Civil
Rights movement in the US from 1951 to 1971, which became a symbol of the fight against racism) would still be alive, a few lines before :
"But if Martin Luther
was livin' ; He wouldn't let this be"
The video does also show, among
the men in the prison, a majority of black people : this lets
think that in reality, a lot of colored people are victims of
racism, intolerance, and prejudice in the domain of justice and
are put to jail wrongly
Musically, the effects of rythm of the lyrics (short pieces of information, words repeated, stressed), added to the fact that Michael Jackson does not use poetry at all, but in the contrary uses words (and also pictures in the videoclip) as violent as possible to shock people, increase the violent aspect of the song.
MJ also talks about religious
intolerance : for example, when he says « Jew me »
( which shocked people so much, especially in the Jew community, that
they brought the case to court and that Michael Jackson had to change those
words into « Kick me »), he refeers to some
violences the Jews went through (during World War II probably) and to
antisemitism.
When he says « for
God's sake ; I look to heaven to fulfill its prophecy... »
MJ makes allusion to one of the most fundamental rules in
the Christian religion : « love God with all your heart
and love your neighbour as yourself » which advocates
tolerance, and so the "prophecy" is here logically the reign of peace on earth.
Indifference
and violence of the authorities
When
he says « They don't really care about us »,
Michael Jackson indicates the American government, who shows a lot of
indifference for his citizens, or more generally the society. They
are also others lyrics about the government : « The
government don't wanna see » : here MJ points at the
volontary lack of interest of the government.
Moreover, those lyrics are
inside the chorus, so it is an important thing which is denounced in
this song because it is said several times. The images at the
beginning of the video show it too : we can see two little black
boys abandoned. Others lyrics critizise this indifference :
« Tell me what has become of my rights / Am I invisible
'cause you ignore me? ». Captives are also ignored as their
rights that every citizen or human must have.
« But
it Roosevelt was livin', he wouldn't let this be »
The singer makes a contrast with this actual government who
acts wrong, by comparing to the years when Franklin D. Roosevelt was
president of the United States. His progam New Deal (from 1933 to
1938) helped American citizens find work after the financial crisis
(from 1930 to 1940) .
He
denounces the violence of the police when he says « I'm
a victim of police brutality, now ».
The images showed in the video sustain those lyrics because there
are some people who are beaten up.
« I'm tired of
bein' the victim of hate » significates that those
violences are not new.
« On
the news » : Here Michael Jackson refers to daily
events, like murders, violent demonstrations, terrorist attacks
which are reported on the news, on TV and represents also the
powerlessness of the society : we watch horrible things but we
can't act.
The
themes expressed in They
don't really care about us can
still be related
to today, even if society
and people are becoming more open-minded and tolerant. Nowadays,
the whole world must for
example fight against Islamic state, which
does not tolerate others religions than
islam. We also must fight for freedom of speech, of idea and of
opinion. Songs are an efficient way to be free and share an opinion.
It is the case of books, paintings too for example, and more generally of any kind of committed art .
Link of the videoclip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=97nAvTVeR6o
what is the "tone" of the song?
ReplyDeletewhat is the "mood" of the song?
lmao
ReplyDelete