Rage Against the Machine's Killing in the Name of (and why 90's Angry White Boys missed the message)
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- Опубліковано 27 лют 2024
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RC, if you are doing a Rage Against the Machine video. Could you please look up that political loser and quote what he likes about the song that is fundamentally against his politics.
"Some of those the burn crosses are the same that hold office" in the live version, got to see them live in 2022 finally and it was incredible.
Son of an angry 90s rap rock fan! Some of us got the message, but it for sure wasn't because of that music! I think the message is dependant on your proximity to the culture, not whether or not you consume media that's culture adjacent
"culture" is a straight up racial slur now, seriously how you are different to the Germans? They government had their back too ... government said "your in the right"
So...what's different...
I was a white teenager in Europe when it came out and knew the context. Admittedly it was mainly because I read the music press and the band were explicit in their explanations in interviews. The British rock press actually did a good job in articles and reviews in giving context and specifically linking the track to the Rodney King killing (which mostly got press coverage here because of the subsequent riots).
@@ricequin name a time you were shamed into feeling bad for white people? Go on ...
@@gtt8428out here arguing with nobody lmfao
@@ShengFink why do you allow this woke racism to stand ?
The second RATM made the message explicit enough for those people to understand it, they'd start whining about how their favorite band "suddenly" got political. You can't win with these people.
"I can't believe that a band that has roots in communist street action would get political!"
I mean, you have songs like Born in the USA where everyone hears the chorus, not listening to the lyrics in between that are about how fucked up America is.
@@danman1950listen to you licking their balls, you would of been in the Germans side back in the day
Denying it won't change reality boy
@@IngeniousGhostsmaybe because they aren't wrecked with self hatered like you ? So they figured these singers didn't either ?
Do you logic wokie
@@IngeniousGhosts Same with "Rockin' In The Free World".
It’s so goddamn strange to hear that a song so explicit in its message was actually not clear enough, despite provable cases that people absolutely did not get the message lol. In all honesty, I didn’t get the message either till I first saw police brutality online
So you are suggesting *only* black people are wronged by the police ...no no no
Stand toe ground be a man, that's what you ust said, wokie
So Arabs are safe from cops ?
The issue with RATM in particular, is that most of the white conservatives who claim to have liked the band (Paul Ryan went as far as to call them his favorite band) only ever heard these songs while wasted at frat parties and never had the presence of mind to listen to what Zack was saying or even register that he was saying anything in particular.
Change white to black and post this hate speech ...see what happens ...when your predjuce isn't government approved ...tough guy
Has kind of reminds me of my stepdad's realization what the recent Todd in the shadows Relax song was about xD
Todd is living proof of why mixed race people are discriminated against, his not Asian, his not Indian, his a white kid in a mixed race body and he hates the world, just like E Rodger did. No kidding...look into it
Rage is subtle as a baseball bat to the head. But still too subtle for some.
I never saw this track as subtle. He's literally screaming the lyrics but they're very easily understood. Not sure how anyone could take away anything but the intended message.
I think it's just hard to tell what they're saying for a bunch of the song without reading the lyrics and knowing beforehand. The title's clear, and so is the outro, but the rest of it you're just rocking out to great music while someone shouts... something in the background. So people think it's just about not doing what you're told because that's how it ends.
"some of those that work forces are the same that burn corpses" is what i hear
I cannot not hear 'those that burn crosses', it's very clear to me, and always has been. Maybe it's just a consequence of growing up in the old south, but it's always been crystal to me that this song was about racism. I don't know if I always got that it was about institutionalized racism, but 'those that burn crosses' evokes a _very_ clear image in my Texan mind.
How? I feel like your brain might be warping it into that because of the expected rhyme, but it’s pretty clearly a different vowel sound imo.
I’ve been hoping for this reaction for years.
You've been hoping his a racist government approved nunastyzi ? Be glad you are safely on the internet.
I was an angry white girl in Europe when it came out and I knew exactly what it was about. Not only was the Rodney King case heavily reported here to give context on racially motivated police brutality, but the band were explicit in their statements in the music press when journalists misunderstood them as just angry at nothing.
I feel like I'm seeing a lot of "this famous political/parody piece wasn't explicit enough" lately, from this to Starship Troopers, my first gut reaction is to attribute it to a shift in how we approach media but idk
The proper thing to blame is a lack of media literacy, but it's much easier to get labels/studios/publishers to spend fewer resources on subtlety than it is to improve society, culture, educational standards, etc.
I was a 90s white boy, but my first exposure to RATM was the "Freedom" video, where the "fuck the fascist US government" message is a lot more explicit. Also, while growing up in 1990s Canadian suburbia I didn't exactly have a lot of exposure to hip-hop or Black culture generally, but there was a lot of latent anti-American sentiment that made it easy to accept all the sins of American empire. (Accepting Canada's sins--at the time not so much--that came later.)
😂 you were surrounded by a cult and at no point did you think
"Maybe they are in the wrong" 🤷♀️
I'm just saying, I'm on disability right now about to link up with the mental health system and they are paying my bills until they can justify slandering white people for the entire 32 years of my life thus far ..
I'm fighting back anyway I can, you just accept the abuse and take it, ...nah I'm going on a holiday until the give me my respect !
I'm over this "it's okay we are allowed to bully you" crap ...
I'm going kayaking wake me up when the leftist live up to their words .. they won't ...spoiler ....
On average, tons of people are going to miss the point of, well, everything really. Look at hip-hop and rap, genres that came into existence literally with the purpose to criticizing the racist system. Even then, many people will get the message, disagree with it, and listen on anyway. I think that Pink Floyd, is an excellent example of this. Their music is very left wing (especially Animals and Dark Side of the Moon), and tons of people got it the message, even lots of right wing people, and simply disregarded it, but they are fans to this day.
And The Wall! Especially don't forget about The Wall! All in all, we're just another brick in the wall...
@@crazyluigi6664 Yeah but The Wall is more about mental health.
@@ice8348 Could have fooled me due to how it reflects so well to the 1980's and the Berlin Wall...
@@crazyluigi6664 To vastly oversimply the plot because it's sort of about a lot of things, it's about the fact that he grew up without his dad because he died in WW2, his mom was overprotective and never let him grow until it was sort of too late, the school system at the time instilled trauma in him, and he didn't give his wife enough attention, so she left him while he was on tour in the USA.
Because of this he "builds a wall" around himself made of "bricks" (or, bad things that have happened to him), so that he never has to engage with society again, because he feels that society is the source of his depression. Depression, isolation, apathy, and a sense of need radicalizes him to a form of fascism until he realizes what he has become and puts himself "on trial" for his actions, and declares that he has to "tear down the wall."
At the end of the album, those who truly love him are there to help him pick up the pieces, but there is a vague sense that this may all just happen again.
Guerilla Radio is pretty explicit in its message, hell, so is the whole of The Battle of Los Angeles. Easily my favorite RATM album
Name a group of black artist who Cape for whitey. ..just one ...
And if they don't ...
What you are doing to white kids like this is abuse...a hate crime ..
My favourite bit about this song is when they ask if we know who Ben Cross is? (It's a bit weird doing a Christmas Special in February but I'll allow it.)
Denzel curry’s cover of bulls on parade is still heat
I miss hear some of those lyrics all the time. It gets me going!!!
Imagine a song about not hating white people because duh government said so
🤪
I understand the overarching theme, but A: the words are hard to make out, and B: I still don't grasp the "killing in the name of" part nor the "now you do what they told you " part. I feel like I'm missing something obvious.
Killing in the name of (justice/law) but also killing in the name of (white superiority/the klan)
Now you (the officers) do what they told you, just like how the nazi soldiers were “just following orders” when they did evil, despicable shit - but also, now you do what they told you (background: and now you’re under control) because you, the demographic being targeted, are forced to either conform out of fear, or fight back and give them the “justified” reason to continue killing.
At least that’s my take
If I remember correctly, the "killing in the name of" part is a criticism of murdering people for causes in general, but I could be wrong about that. I know somebody in the band or affiliated with them has explained that lyric, so it shouldn't be too hard to find out.
The "now you do what they told you" can have more than one meaning, but the easiest ones if you're just reading the lyrics is that the average person, who's likely the listener, is effectively doing what the police and the establishment want you to do without thinking due to propaganda. You follow the paths they want you to take without taking into consideration what other possibilities are out there, whether that be due to fear that the violence of the state will be used against you, peer pressure, or anything else.
I've seen comments thinking that the "I won't do what you tell me" part could be seen as someone standing up to the cops while being arrested or protesting, which logically the "now you do what they told ya" part more about someone following police orders for whatever reason. It's a good visual, but I'm not convinced RATM ever meant that.
@@Saad-A16 thank you so much, that's very helpful!
People just miss the point of songs all the time.
But but black blacky black blkC "we are all one race" but black people though, the black people
🙄
Justiforwhied is my new favorite word.
When I finally read the lyrics when I was younger, I had all the more respect for this song.
You still don't get it my man. The point of leaving "killing in the name of..." blank is Zachs way of showing that he doesn't like any form of killing.
Omg what a righteous whittle do gooder ...why didn't he stand up for his ancestors btw ? His so deep right ? Profound?
@@gtt8428 Zach De La Rocha isn't white.
I always thought that part of the lyric was clothed in white (like a klan uniform). I probably should’ve looked up the lyrics at some point in time.
You would never speak about black people like this, coward
"Those who died are justified - for wearing the badge, they're the chosen whites.
You justify those that died - by wearing the badge, they're the chosen whites."
There's like a dozen other songs on that album with bars upon bars of anti authority lyrics. Wake up in particular
Anti authority is worshipping far left extremist ideology
What 😂😂😂
how could anyone not get the message it was laid out plainly
I was 10 when I heard RATM for the first time, barely spoke any English while living on the other side of the world, and even I got the message. Not saying this to brag, saying this to show how low the bar for understanding the content is.
… is he on something, dude’s bit hyper
RC always is like this. He misses the point of a song and always over explains
Im sure there is a good amount edgelords who missed the message. But everyone I grew up with knew what it was about. They had a Vietnamese monk using self-immolation as a protest for their album cover. You got to be pretty dumb to not get the message.
What what was the message 🤔 hate white people right hate ...hate
Reminds me of another group of people who believed they were in the right .
unfortunately there are some very dumb people out there
How many boosters you guys got ?
idk man kinna hard to miss the point of that song and the whole album ....just look at the cover .....self immolation and all ...
Guitar Hero III created a lot of leftists.
Someone get RC to listen to Clawfinger's most notorious song lmao
90s white boys genuinely didn't get the message on *any* of RATM's tunes lol, they just heard the sick tunes and passion and that's it. Pretty sure they missed the meaning behind Bulls On Parade and/or Wake Up.
As a 90s white boy I personally can't imagine not getting the connections, I kinda class it under the same filing most religious people, they just hear what they want and ignore the rest. Literally cannot imagine the apathy of listening to a political song and not wanting to know what a line I don't get could be about, preferably directly from the artists themselves.
As a 90s white boy I just don't think I was 'aware' of what they were saying at the time. When your age is in the single digits or in the early pre-teens, you're less prone to reading into the deeper meanings of songs half the time (at least that was the case for me lol, which was a shame in hindsight).
Definitely aware of it now, though.
They didn't get how Fight For Your right was satire either.
I'mma call that "the Hey Ya principle" :P
"Y'all don't hear me, you just wanna' dance"
Nor did they get that Fortunate Son was a protest song. Media literacy just wasn't great back then lol
I was like ‘what’s then I saw it was Rapcritic and I had to heard what he has to say.
Now personally, I feel the song is about how religion is used to justify atrocities, mainly genocide.
I really think it’s pointing a finger directly at Israel in this song.
Especially the hook, ‘those who died are justified, warring the badge of the chosen white.’
It is to me a clear reflection of some people’s defense of Zionism.
‘Well we suffered through the holocaust and were gods chosen people in the land given to us by God so we’re justified in our genocide,’ which they been doing for like 500 years now.
I know it came to the public’s attention in the 90s so I reckon it might have to do with that.
But mainly it’s speaking how white supremacist run our military, our government, just with that one line. ‘Those who control forces are the same who burn crosses’
And then the part about killing in the name of is cut off to symbolize that it is truly ambiguous what the white supremacist are killi by people for.
Land? Cultural genocide? God? Zion? What why are they killing?
That’s just my interpretation of it at this current moment because it reflects perfectly on what’s going on in Gaza.
Rage Against the Machine literally explained what the song is about, you don't get to declare the narrative.
@@ZaynahZihoa😂😂😂 don't like when anything but white guilt is on the menu huh ? We have a word for that ...racist ...pick up a dictionary before 2016 and you can see this for yourself
The song has nothing to do with Israel, Palestine, Gaza, or Zionism. Not even a little bit.
You might es well interpret it as a scathing criticism of the Icelandic fishing industry.