A couple months ago, everyone I knew wouldn’t stop talking about the man in the huge fur coat rapping with $20 in his pocket. Thriftshop truly did change the face of rap and hiphop today with its innocent lyrics and fun beats that actually aren’t degrading to anyone. The song played over and over on the radio and I eventually got burned out. Not soon after, I was perusing videos on YouTube, something I frequently find myself doing early in the morning. I stumbled upon a video entitled Same Love, also by Macklemore, the man in the huge dur coat, and Ryan Lewis. As I watched the video and listened to the lyrics, I immediately felt tears welling in my eyes. What a powerful song, I was absolutely astonished. As a Gender and Women’s Studies major, I tend to care about extremely progressive issues and a lot it lately has boiled down to marriage equality. This song was all the words I had been wanting to say, to share with my friends and family, and I was so proud to think this pioneer video has been watched over 40,000,000 times on YouTube, and hopefully changed the way so many people think.
The line that stuck out to me the most from the song was,
“I might not be the same, but that’s not important. No freedom til we’re equal, damn right I support it.”
Those words right there are the summation of this movement for equality. You don’t have to fit into neat categories to deserve the rights of any human being. I am fully supportive of marriage equality, the LGBTQ’s NO H8 campaign, and much more but each time I see the Pride flag, it saddens me. I understand the notion of having some bold symbol represent your cause, but the fact that our nation has so isolated a community that the American flag doesn’t incorporate every one of our citizens breaks my heart. Under the Stars and Stripes, EVERYONE should feel patriotism, not the select few who enjoy full privilege and protection under American doctrine.
Watch Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ masterpiece here.
If I do anything in my lifetime, it will be to raise children who are not born into ignorance and trends of injustice deeply-rooted particuarly in my southern conservative family history. Call it progressive, call it liberality. Whatever it is, Macklemore nailed it. Love is love and we, as a nation, need to recognize that.
