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Music and Racism

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Music and Racism
A music player is a media player that can only play audio files. People use it to listen to music for them to feel and think differently. Not only can music influence different ideas in the society, but it can also be used for therapeutic purposes for it can trigger the emotion pool of a person. It also has an ability to manipulate the way a person think. This must be the reason why a lot of people listen to music beside the aspect of creativity, art and the feeling of being related to the songs. A music player and its music has become very influential to humans in creating different views on religion, racial beliefs, gender, principle, and attitude. Music can affect a person in many ways, it can change his views, decisions, beliefs and behavior through the lyrics and the message the song’s trying to convey. For example, when unpleasant messages about discrimination are evident in lyrics of some songs, this could be criticized by the society for discriminating a certain groups of people. These groups of people could be discriminated among gender, race or religion. When these kinds of notion continues, these groups of people will remain to be inferior in the society; thus, widening the division between the people.
Most of the songs would be a form of comparison of two classes. The fact that there is a term used to differentiate the races among each other is, indeed, a concrete sign that someone is superior and of greater power than the other and it is also reflected in the music industry. In the year 2002, a song was released entitled White America, recorded by Eminem. From the title itself, it could be inferred that there is the existence of white empowerment for the term America was associated with the term White. Americans are generally labeled as black people for their physical appearance. Black people are considered as slaves since western societies most especially the United States have this idea of white privilege wherein the rights and benefits



References: Bloch, A., & Solomos, J. (2010). Race and ethnicity in the 21st century. (p. 69). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Blum, L. (2002). "i 'm not a racist, but..": The moral quandary of race. (p. 73). New York: Cornell University Press. Boer, R. (2010). God pain and love in the music of nick cave. Journal of religion and popular culture, 22(3). Fredrickson, G. (2002). Racism: A short history. (pp. 6,9,54, 59-60,99). Princeton University. Duke University. (2002). "Religion and Music". Retrieved from http://sites.duke.edu/rpc/group-websites/religion-and-music/ Lake State Publications (2002). “A Brief History of Western Music”. Retrieved from http://www.lakestatepublications.com/nug1.html Pickham, A. (2002). “Atheism and Music”. Retrieved from http://atheistfoundation.org.au/article/atheism-and-music/

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