Is 'black or white' by Michael Jackson self consciously about race?

Trying to pull everyone together as people, not separate them by color.

Have you actually ever listened to the words? It sounds pretty straightforward to me.

haha I have, I just thought that it was a little ambiguous because there is only one line that explicity says: “I’m not going to spend my life being a color’ which is weird cuz his color was fading over the years

Yeah, but that just means he’s not defining himself by his perceived color.

Race was invented and shouldn’t be a factor for humans that have been here for 200,000 years.

People aren’t born believing certain cultures, and MJ was saying that. We need to get along as humans. I only want nice people to answer.

Yeah & Beat it is about wanking…...go figure.

I always thought this song terribly ironic. If “it don’t matter if you’re black or white”, why did he put so much time and money into making himself white?

@downtide He didn’t. He had a skin disease, Vitiligo.

Anyways, the song seems pretty straight forward enough to me. Not sure how someone could interpret it otherwise.

Yes.

It is about race. It is all about race. I don’t even know what other meaning you could take out of it ha.

It’s pretty obviously about race. I thought everyone knew that. My 11 year old knows that.