Free at Last

I want to end my blog posts with some peaceful ideas and push for a little unity through music. A song that comes to mind is “Does It Really Matter?” It comes from Up With People’s album Face to Face, and it pushes for racial equality. I don’t like some specific parts of this song, for instance it’s title. I don’t like the title of the song, because I think an issue we have across races is the idea that we have to “forget” or “let go” of our cultures and remember that we are all humans just to be equals, but that isn’t true! It’s ok for us to be proud of our ethnic differences and it’s possible to hold on to our races and still be unified, so yes, it does matter. But the magic of the song and it’s call for racial equity is not lost on these small discrepancies. It touches on the fact that our color is not always a full representation of who we are, that we can recognize someone as black or white and then continue to recognize them as their own person. That we have been prisoners of the past and prisoners of race. That the color of people’s skin has shaped our society to make us all “stay in our places.” And most importantly, the song calls for some freedom. It would be so nice to live to see the day that our world is free from racial oppression. We should be free at last. Goodnight world!

"Free at last, we should be free at last

Not prisoners of the past, divided by races.

Kind of strange, though we're all 'bout the same

Somehow these lines remain,

We stay in our places.

And what does the color of the skin

Have to do with the person within