Black or White, It Ain’t Matter

by Niloofar Seraj

“I said if you are thinking of being my brother… It doesn’t matter if you’re black or white.” (AZLyrics.com) The Artist of Millennium, the king of pop, Michael Jackson expresses such beautiful sentences in his famous song “Black or White” to show his opposition against racism. The notions of Black and White have been amongst the most controversial concepts in Human’s history. Michael Jackson, raising his voice against this false concept, in his over famous song “Black or White”, shows the falsity of the idea of “black or white”. This video song was written by Michael Jackson, and produced and composed by Bill Brotrell. The song was directed by John Landise. “Black or white” was first broadcast on 14th November 1994. The song was watched in 27 different countries and hit in number one song all around the world (WikiAnswers) .

The song’s style is Rock; although, it includes a short scene of Rap nearly to the end of the song. The same as all Rock songs, the instruments which were used in this song are, electric and base guitars, drum and even keyboard. The song viewers were more than 500 million, which is the largest viewer ever for a music video. (Redmond) “Black or White” along with its aim of opposing the idea of “Black or White” and racism, is a fantastic video clip for its warm and smooth lyrics, ebullient rock melody, spectacular and creative video and scenography, and of course, Michael Jackson’s unique and brilliant dancing.

One of the common problems, which affect all human beings, is the idea of racism. The lyrics of this song describes Michael’s opinion about racism. He tries to tell his viewers that there is no difference for him weather somebody is “black” or “white”. At the beginning of the song he says: “But If you’re thinking about my baby it don’t matter If you’re black or white”, which clearly indicates that judgment of people according to their races should stop. Walking through visual effects of fire in one part of the song, Michael Jackson wants to tell his viewers that he is tired of the idea of racism, which he describes it as devil – “I am tired of this devil, I am tired of this stuff, and I am tired of this business, Sew when the going gets rough.” (AZLyrics.com) In the rap scene Michael Jackson mentions gangs, clubs and nations -”Hitler Lives and swastika”, “KKK Rules” and so on (Wikipedia)- as examples of causes of misery among human relations. In the song he says “that I am not going to spend my life being A color”, through which he tries to tell his viewers that he does not want to be labeled as belonging to one and only race. In the last versus of the song he says, “I said if you are thinking of being my brother, It doesn’t matter if you are black or white” which means that Michael was a very broad minded person and was able to establish relationships with many people, it does not matter if those people are black or white or from a race other than his.

One of the major impacts on the viewers in the song “Black or White” is its beautiful rhythm of the song. Michael Jackson’s amazing vocal styles gives the song an energetic mood. In this song, Michael Jackson uses the technique of “Vocal Hiccup” which makes the song more attractive and beautiful. He often uses the sound of interjection “ooh” which makes the song unique and marvelous. In one of his interviews Michael said that “he owed this technique from the singer Diana Ross. An expert Nelsen George of all times concisely describe Michael’s vocal as “The grace, the aggression, the growling, the natural boyishness, the falsetto and the smoothness of all these elements mark Jackson as a major vocalist.” (Wikipedia) The tempo of the song is a fast one that catches its viewers’ attention and makes them stand and dance along with the song. The song style is Rock. As it is clear, the main instruments for Rock style music are electric and base guitars, set of drums, electric piano, sometimes organ and so forth. The sound of guitar and drum of the music gives you the energy and stimulates you to sing and dance with the song.

“Black or White” has a spectacular video. The song touches your soul too much that you even imagine yourself in the song as acting or singing. The video begins with the sound of loud guitar and drum. Then it shows a ten-year-old kid “Macaulay Culkin” who is dancing in rock music in his bedroom. The loud sound of the music grabs his father attention (George Wendt). He angrily orders his son to stop playing the music and go to bed, but his father’s act makes him crazy and he thinks about a trick. Kids usually like this part of the song. Then he set up the loud speakers behind his father’s chair. He puts on his leather gloves and wears his sunglasses, and then he plays the loudest power chord on electronic guitar. The music sound was extremely loud that it smashes all the widows and sends his father along with his chair to half away around the world. This part of the song was funny and makes the viewer –especially kids- laugh. Then the actual video begins.

After being sent to Africa, Wendt sees Michael Jackson singing the song “Black or White” with African dancers, then the scenes change. One of the techniques which really amaze the watchers is the technique of flowing one seen at the moment of its ending to the coming one. This song is organized in a way that every scene starts as a part of the previous scene and the scenes as opposed to most other songs are not separated by black flashes. At the end of the song, another specialty of the song appears which is called the morphing style. You can see the heads of people who belong to different parts of the world with different skin colors and races come one after another in a morphing way. In this part, the video of the song clearly depicts that the people regardless of their skin color should be considered as one species. “Michael Jackson transformed the music video into an art form and promotional tool through complex storylines, dance routines, especial effects and cameo appearance,” says Steve Huey, expert in the field of video songs.

The other artistic feature of the song, “Black or White”, is its choreography, which persuades the viewers to watch different kinds of dance techniques. These music videos depict different places in the world with their different dance styles. First, it shows the African hunters using the moves of West African dance and Michael Jackson follows their moves. Then, Michael dances with traditional Thai dancers, Native Americans, a woman from India and a group of Russian dancers. It gives the massage of equality among different people and their cultures all around the world. Michael Jackson is a very unique dancer with a special and unique way of dancing. Michael Jackson is the one who innovated a new and amazing way of dancing. Among his dancing techniques we can demonstrate to Moonwalk, Slide Circle, Antigravity Lean, Toe standing, by which he raptures his watchers. In last four minutes of the song, Michael Jackson uses his some most incredible and complicated dance techniques which are the most popular among his fans.

This song has many artistic abilities. It gives us a strong massage of antiracism and opposition to discrimination. It tells us not to judge other people based upon to their skin color or regarding their ethnicities and all the people are equally created. The song tells us to spread the message of love, friendship and peace. The amazing techniques of the song can motivate us to watch the song repeatedly. Meanwhile, it is to be mentioned that Michael Jackson has recorded another song by the same name as “Black or White”. In this song he exhibits the Panther dance (his famous dance involving all his dancing moves). The same as the first part of the song, he again shows his anger and contradiction toward the idea of racism and discrimination through the Panther dance. After around two decades from the production of “Black or White”, many people around the world because of its touching lyrics, outstanding video, extraordinary choreography and fantastic music still watch this song.

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Niloofar Seraj is freshman student of political sciences at American University of Afghanistan.