Cree Summer’s Song and Martin Luther King’s Letter

Cree Summer’s song and Martin Luther King’s letter have a lot in common. Both the song and the letter put a strong emphasis on racism and how it’s historically been a part of us, and is even still present in society today. “Racism is a set of beliefs that one’s own racial group is naturally superior to the other groups.” (Benokraitis, 2010) But racism is much more than that. Racism relates greatly to power. It is about having the power or capacity to transform prejudices and attitudes or feelings of superiority into practice, custom, policy or law. That is a great difference between simply saying, I don't like white folks, or, I don't like black folks. I could care less whether someone likes me or not. It becomes very aware though when they have the power to transform that dislike into policies and customs that forbid me to go about a human being in society, and furthermore act in violent ways to pursue those policies and customs. In both the song and letter, Summer’s and King show that African Americans are seen as the minority group. They are treated unequally simply because they have a different skin color. In Summer’s song it is viewed as black women being solely used for sexual relations from white men, and in King’s letter it is viewed as the clergy not sticking up and doing what’s right for black men. Cree’s song has very powerful words that have deep meaning. Some white people would probably say that this song is racist, but they would be wrong. This song shows acts of prejudice. It is giving a negative attitude towards white men. I had to listen to the song a number of times and follow through with the lyrics to really try to understand what point she was trying to get across. It's about racism that is claimed not to be racism. The song is not racist. It's a very bold song about white men who pursue sexual relationships with black women just solely for sex, but have no intention of including them in their lives. That is why she sings,