"Macklemore, Whether Intentional Or Not, Decided to Use His Privilege to Cannibalize Whiteness."

The anti-woke train has finally derailed, whoever's still on it deserves to stay asleep at this point.

AUDIO VERSION on Substack

Last year I read yet another brilliant article by Hanif Abdurraqib called The White Rapper Joke, from his collection of essays entitled They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us. The title of this article is a quote from that essay. In the article Hanif says

Original Collage made from personal images and images from “Newsclip” article When Music Becomes Protest of Gaza artist Samir Al-Hassan, Wikipedia, and an article in Raport entitled Skinuli ga sa Sheeranove turneje, Macklemore pokrenuo svoju: Zove se „Free Palestine“

Macklemore is the Great White Artist of Burdens. I love him best when he isn’t taking himself seriously, but I think he is at his most comfortable when he’s taking himself seriously. When he is, at all times, reflecting on the overwhelming feeling of his whiteness and analyzing each corner of guilt that it causes him.

Hanif goes on to say, he just wants him (Macklemore) to make songs where he

Galacticnurseboogz’s Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

…isn’t lecturing me on the world I already understand. It’s a hard market for a white rapper who seems deeply invested and interested in anti-racist work.

Macklemore has aged well in a world where rich white men who overwhelmingly make up our ruling elite, have appeared to feel comfortable doubling down on bigotry, misogyny, violence, rape culture, and genocide. He has lost fans, money, and further notoriety by sticking to his principles. In a world where school teachers and nurses are being labeled as terrorists for asking our government to stop bombing children, and providing healthcare during ICE raids, we need more celebrities to take a pay cut for causes that make the world a better place at the very least and Macklemore has been doing just that.

He recently was kicked off of the Ed Sheeran tour for saying that he supports Palestinian liberation and stands with the Jewish people who continue to stand up against the genocidal extracurriculars of Israel and the United States.

I do not think this is a publicity stunt, nor do I think the other advocacy he has done have been. The people booking him and pulling at his purse strings have a very real ability to destroy his success and have been trying to do so in multiple ways. Do I think he needs extra praise? No, do I think he wants extra praise? No.

He accepted a Grammy that should have gone to Kendrick for sure and his song Same Love, though well intentioned, spoke for a group of people who did not need him to be their spokes person.

Black people, who were initially open to embracing him, turned on him heaviest when he took what many of us saw as Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy award. People in queer communities felt justified frustration at him being the face of their narratives. He was, briefly a white rapper with only an overwhelmingly white audience in love with him. It seemed unheard of, not seen since Vanilla Ice. -Hanif Aburraquib

Kendrick Lamar’s Superbowl performance, although, poignant, missed the mark. You see, Kendrick had an opportunity too. One of his dancers stuck their neck out and ran across the stage with a flag that had the Sudanese and Palestinian flags spliced together and was immediately tackled and arrested. That was not planned or approved by Kendrick. Kendrick had the opportunity to platform and protect that dancer, and instead he used the imagery of the event for his benefit without pushing the issue further into mainstream discussion, or standing with that dancer.

Instead the dancer, Zul Qarnain, was banned from the NFL and may have to face criminal charges. I knew and had danced alongside many of the dancers in that show, and I was grateful that they had such an amazing opportunity, and also Kendrick needs to do more than just posture and pose at this point. I think Kendrick has done incredible things for the visibility of historically marginalized groups, and there is so much more work to do, lest he go the way of Obama or Jay Z.

Although painful, many of us in the black community are beginning to hold up mirrors to ourselves and understand the destructive dynamics of western imperialism that we participate in, just as Macklemore is doing for white folks. People are not falling for the bait that being Pro-Palestinian is somehow anti-black, which has been propped up successfully by the ethno-nationalist messianic supremacist ideology of Zionism. Instead, we are following the lead of the Black Panthers, and others, who have been understanding the anti-colonial importance of Palestine for decades. We are moving away from the other prong of this strategy which is that black capitalism will save us if we just follow Jay Z and Beyonce. We are realizing that Jay Z has bought his whiteness and become the “fixer” for the Epstein Class. If you don’t believe me, check out the quote Epstein had about him in his emails:

You want to know why we are not São Paulo? Watch the TV adds on the Superbowl. It’s all about hip blacks in hip cars with white women. The group that should be in the streets has been bought off by Jay Z.

Recently, Azeez al Shaair, linebacker for the Houston Texans who was fined for wearing the name of Hind Rijab on his eye black, doubled down by putting the name of another little girl killed by the US and Israel on his eye black.

In an act of solidarity, Kairee Irving of the Dallas Mavericks, offered to pay Azeez’s fine. This is the extreme opposite of what Ed Sheeran did to his “friend” of 13 years Macklemore. Sheeran threw his friend under the bus in support of a billionaire named Robert Kraft “owner” of the stadium and who is featured prominently in the Epstein Files. Side note, how do these assholes wind up “owning” the stadiums that are built and subsidized by our tax dollars? Am I missing something here?

Macklemore did something unique which was to turn on his own fans by showing them a mirror. This is not easy and it is not something Kendrick has done. Not that he has to do this, and it is markedly more difficult to do this as a black man who could potentially alienate a community that is already alienated. There is a lot less risk for a white man to turn on other white men, but if the world is going to change to a place that is equitable for all, that is exactly what needs to happen.

Sometime in between 2014 and 2016, Macklemore decided that since he had the attention of white people, he was going to start telling them about themselves. - Hanif Abdurraquib

And this is where it started to get interesting. Instead of apologizing for his whiteness ad nauseum, he started to bring issues into the forefront that were uncomfortable for his all-white liberal audience to wave away with white tears and “I bought this before I knew Elon was crazy” Tesla bumper stickers. This is where Palestine came in.

I’ll let Hanif take it from here…

Macklemore did what I would have hoped he would have done, even if he did it painfully and with a tone of self-congratulation. What no other white rapper was able to do before him. He stopped just appologizing for what he imagined as undeserved fame and instead weaponized it, losing fans in the process…Macklemore, whether intentional or not, decided to use his privilage to cannibalize whiteness. - Hanif Abdurraquib