I love this song and thought it was the catchiest song on the album with a decent, if slightly didactic and incomplete message. The vision of post 9-11 paranoia in the first verse is spot on, although who has really thought much about those anthrax letters since about 2002?
Yes, white Americans have mistreated blacks, Asians, Native-Americans, and Muslims...but Lupe leaves out Mexicans, Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, German-Americans, etc etc etc...
Sure, Italians, Germans, and the Irish have largely assimilated and been absorbed into the majority culture now so they don't provide such a poignant example as blacks or Native-Americans whose mistreatment continues most visibly, but has anyone seen an Asian-American panning gold or building a railroad in most of the last century? It is convenient for his thesis to be "White Americans have mistreated all nonwhites," but the truth of the matter is that white Americans have even mistreated other white Americans at times. I'm not a white supremicist or a Republican or anything that sinister, but a little more historical perspective would make his thesis less one-sided, that is, anti-white. I don't know why he didn't include Mexican-Americans as they are currently in the hot seat as far as newly immigrated unassimilated minorities go; maybe he just couldn't think of anything to rhyme with Mexican.
I enjoyed the theme of KKK members opening their eyes and realizing that they have more in common with financially oppressed minorities that they work so hard to hate. It would be nice if this country stratefied itself along economic lines instead of racial ones for a change!
I love this song and thought it was the catchiest song on the album with a decent, if slightly didactic and incomplete message. The vision of post 9-11 paranoia in the first verse is spot on, although who has really thought much about those anthrax letters since about 2002?
Yes, white Americans have mistreated blacks, Asians, Native-Americans, and Muslims...but Lupe leaves out Mexicans, Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, German-Americans, etc etc etc...
Sure, Italians, Germans, and the Irish have largely assimilated and been absorbed into the majority culture now so they don't provide such a poignant example as blacks or Native-Americans whose mistreatment continues most visibly, but has anyone seen an Asian-American panning gold or building a railroad in most of the last century? It is convenient for his thesis to be "White Americans have mistreated all nonwhites," but the truth of the matter is that white Americans have even mistreated other white Americans at times. I'm not a white supremicist or a Republican or anything that sinister, but a little more historical perspective would make his thesis less one-sided, that is, anti-white. I don't know why he didn't include Mexican-Americans as they are currently in the hot seat as far as newly immigrated unassimilated minorities go; maybe he just couldn't think of anything to rhyme with Mexican.
I enjoyed the theme of KKK members opening their eyes and realizing that they have more in common with financially oppressed minorities that they work so hard to hate. It would be nice if this country stratefied itself along economic lines instead of racial ones for a change!