I heard Macklemore’s “Same Love” on the radio today for the first time. I confess I didn’t know of it until now – sorry for being so late to the party here.
My initial reaction was that it’s a positive thing that a mainstream music song is saying that it is ok to be gender-queer and that they support marriage equality. Also, I really liked the song (despite rap being one of my least-favourite music genres).
I wanted to know more, and read the lyrics, so googled about it when I got home, and came up with some interesting articles on the subject (linked to at the end of this post)
The articles I’ve linked to below are making the observation that it’s a little odd that a white, straight, cisgender man is telling people in the LGBT community that it’s cool to be how we are. That his opinion isn’t valid because of it, that the song is fake because of it.
However, the comments people have left to the flavorwire article are even more interesting, and there are some good points made there. The overwhelming one being that the fact that a song with a message like this is getting mainstream airplay is a positive thing, and it’s good to get a message like that out to more ears than would usually hear it.
Does one have to be black to be abhorred by racism? Or female to be against sexism and misogyny? Were all the people in favour for the abolition of slavery themselves slaves? In short, does one have to have a direct experience of an injustice, prejudice or equality in order to have the moral opinion that it isn’t right and to stand up and be counted in saying so? I don’t believe so.
So I think I’m sticking with my initial reaction.
Links:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/emma-joslyn/desperately-seeking-music-equality_b_4020086.html