Macklemore raps about White Privilege – while reaping its rewards

Macklemore, who in a memorable, achingly awkward display of white privilege publicly patronised Kendrick Lamar after his 2014 Grammy win for Best Album, has released a new song. It’s called White Privilege II. In the nine-minute number, Macklemore raps: “Want people to like you, want to be accepted/That’s probably why you are out here protesting/Don’t think for a second you don’t have incentive/Is this about you, well, then what’s your intention?/What’s the intention?”

The obvious reconnoiter to this is, what in fact is your intention? In the tune, Macklemore can criticise the cultural appropriation by his industry peers – “You’re Miley, you’re Elvis, you’re Iggy Azalea/ Fake and so plastic, you’ve heisted the magic” – but then turn around and “book a whole tour and sell out tickets” by doing essentially the same thing. What if his tour targeted predominantly black cities, and the concerts were free? See who shows up and then meditate on that on your next record.

Macklemore’s release falls on the heels of a couple other public come to Jesus moments. Immediately after Stephen Colbert acknowledged his white privilege in a guest segment with Black Lives Matter and civil rights activist Deray McKesson this week, the media went wild and white people everywhere felt disburdened of their own personal ignorance.

A few of my white Facebook friends posted without comment online stories about Colbert’s “radical vulnerability” as if his admission of whiteness and the power therein warranted no further explanation – not to the world, not to any black people, and certainly not any they would offer themselves: “Free! We are free at last! Free from this unwanton, wrongly assigned punishment of not being able to own and articulate our white privilege!”

Similarly, following the announcement of the Oscar nominations and the media attention surrounding the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag, Jada Pinkett Smith, and subsequently a handful of other black actors, announced she would be boycotting the ceremony. Then it was reported that in an interview with the BBC, Mark Ruffalo, nominated for his turn in Spotlight, suggested that he would also boycott the Oscars: “I’m weighing it, yes. That’s where I’m at right now,” Ruffalo said. “I woke up in the morning thinking, ‘What is the right way to do this?’ Because if you look at Martin Luther King’s legacy, what he was saying was, the good people who don’t act are much worse than the people, the wrongdoers, who are purposely not acting and don’t know the right way.”

Twitter was pleased, and Ruffalo was suddenly anointed one of the most “woke white actors” in the industry. But then he quickly tweeted a statement to “clear up any confusion” – he’s going to the Oscars after all.

“I will be going to the Oscars in support of the victims of clergy Sexual Abuse and good journalism. #Spotlight”, he tweeted. That seems less like “weighing it” and more like choosing to play it safe.

While supporting victims of clergy sexual abuse and good journalism are good, worthy things to support, they are also likely about 10 times more appealing as cause celebres than fighting against the white privilege racism that feeds your family and pays your bills.

Macklemore, Colbert and Ruffalo’s deeds are all legitimate first-step efforts – and, as the saying (which now goes almost hand in hand with white liberal microaggression racism) goes, well-intentioned. Alas, it’s still white liberal microaggression racism, vis-a-vis an extreme lack of racial conversancy – a language that reflects white privilege as culturally inherent, not novel discovery that warrants praise and a membership card to the Down White People Club.

Racism is about power. It is a social construct that relies entirely on white people actively living in the legacy of their perceived (or made-up) notions of white supremacy. And so, Stephen Colbert, the way to turn this around is not by living deeper in that legacy by giving your host seat to a black guest for five minutes in front of three million viewers, but by establishing a recurring segment in which you talk with all of your guests about white privilege and how it is perpetuating systemic racism nationwide - in our economy, in our neighborhoods, and in our everyday lives.

I recognise and applaud the endeavor of white male celebrities to “get it” – but I also maintain that their path to get there is, by definition, preceded by their privilege.