The song I'm not racist by Joyner Lucas divided opinion upon release. Many people appreciated the work and some media outlets hailed the video as "the most important video of the year" (2017) while others were rather doubtful. Two men, black and white sit opposite each other and talk.
We are first introduced to a large white man wearing a make America great again cap. The man then goes on to tell a black man how he feels that African Americans are lazy, aimless and shiftless. He even goes on to use the N-word. Watching and listening to this man shout out misconceptions can be rather uncomfortable however according to the artist himself, it is about "suppressed feelings that both parties have but are afraid to express".
Then in the second verse, the young black male gets up and defends himself and other people of his ethnicity. He argues about the generalisations that the white man had just made but also takes a stand to fight against the racism in the police.
Joyner Lucas is using this video to show how divided America actually is and how differently they both view the country. However, after hearing each others views we hear them say "i wish we could trade shoes or we could change lives, so we could understand each other more, but that would take time, i'm not racist, it's like we living in the same building, but splitting the both sides, i'm not racist but there's two sides to every story and now you know mine". Then they have a hug. The fact that they hug and communicate with each other after being so aggressive towards the other person shows that people are misunderstood and that we should take the time to listen and hear other people. I also believe that the use of only Joyner Lucas vocally is important as it shows that we are all just people, the same. This song and video was used as an attempt to shine a light on the racism in America and hopefully make people understand that we are no different from one another, just have different backgrounds.
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