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I'm Not Racist

One song that does a good job of showing two sides of society is "I'm Not Racist" by Joyner Lucas. It does sit slightly on the inappropriate side in terms of language, but the song itself very clearly goes into the problem of racism.

The first half of the song is from the perspective of a white person. One line in particular goes "I see a black man aimin' his gun but I'd rather see a black man claimin' his son'". This displays the stereotype that Black men aren't seen to be around their kids. They get a girl pregnant and they're just out of the picture. It also tags along with the stereotype that Black men are violent. Instead of being the family man, they're out involved with all sorts of criminal activity.


That line is just one part of the first half of the song, but so many more stereotypes are packed in there. Before it transitions to the Black perspective, it has the line "I'm not racist. It's like we're living in the same building but split into two floors. I'm not racist, but there's two sides to every story, I wish I knew yours".


It then gets into the second half of the song where it's a retaliation to lines from the first half. Earlier in the song, it says "talkin' bout slavery like you was around back then". The second half of the song then replies to that line with "and even I wasn't pickin' cotton physically, that don't mean I'm not affected by the history. My grandmomma was a slave"

This just helps put 2 things into account for those that don't understand.

  1. Slavery wasn't that long ago - some people currently alive were slaves

  2. Just because we didn't personally go through slavery, doesn't mean we can't still be affected by what happened. As the song states, it's part of our history

To end the song, one of the last lines goes "I'm not racist, it's like we livin' in the same buildin' but splittin' the both sides. I'm not racist, but there's two sides to every story and now you know mine".


This song itself brings up a lot of stereotypes that are present today in society. The stereotypes are brought up in the first half of the song, then the second half is a response to it, putting into perspective the reality behind them. The language used is very strong (a lot of profanity), but is definitely a good song to listen to to understand more of the struggles.

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