Black Ties, White Noise - David Bowie

"Black Ties, White Noise"

"Black Tie, White Noise" is a song produced by David Bowie in 1993 in a society fresh from the wounds of the Rodney King Riot as both an illumination of the evolution of racism in the past and present and a warning to change how we deal with race and identity in the future. The song is a cry from David Bowie to his listeners, many of whom during this time are white, privileged and have heard single sided stories about the chaos in Los Angeles, to understand the riots from the perspective of the black man in Los Angeles. As a white popular artist, Bowie's music is more likely to reach a more uninformed audience. He begs them to ask the question, "what was the purpose behind the revolution in L.A.?" This is how he introduces his song in the intro. In this song, he identifies the law's "possessive investment in whiteness" highlighting the cycle of mass incarceration, the major form that racism has taken in the current society, that literally keeps generations of Black Americans in chains: "They'll show us how to break the rules; But never how to make the rules; Reduce us down to witless punks; Fascist cries both black and white, who's got the blood, who's got the gun." Police have the law, the strength in arms and weaponry on their side yet they have to resort to beating and killing the people who they swore to protect in order to "better society" revealing again that the priorities of the police are to protect capital not citizens of America.

The problem with most of those who are ignorant of the race issues in today's society is that they are uneducated on the history of how racism adapts to exist in society within the social constructs allowed and therefore are unaware that it is even an issue. Even before slavery, there was indentured servitude and after the outlawing of slavery came Jim Crow. Many people still believe the abolition of Jim Crow laws was the end to slavery in America but the truth, which Bowie too came to realize, is that racism, both direct and indirect, again took different forms that was more subtle as it evolved into redlining, mass incarceration of Black Americans, police targeting and brutality and many strategies to marginalize the Black population. As a society, we must decipher these patterns to completely expunge racist agendas, and if we cannot cause change through the government, we must follow David Bowie's example and use all other forms of expression.