Ric Wilson - What If I Was White | Sofar Chicago

Ric Wilson performing "What If I Was White" at Sofar Chicago on April 21st, 2017
Sofar Sounds connects artists and music-lovers around the world through intimate shows in unique venues.

Find us on Facebook and Twitter for more information -

Artist: Ric Wilson

Filmed by: Chris Owsiany, Max Williams & Dakota Johnston

Edited by: Chris Owsiany

Audio by: Lianna Squillace

[barbaragarden]

Good ...just read about your work in the red eye ...What if we were HUMAN interesting

[mrmustard-mpij]

This poetry (and song; I don't know which came first) is deep, but bro, humanity has to start with you. The fact that you can cogitate shit like this means you are already on a higher level of thinking than many others, and the changes are poised to begin within those like you and I.

I feel you on the racism. I felt it all throughout my childhood and young adulthood until my I grew up and moved somewhere where there were many other people of my color and culture. Prior to that, I would be pre-judged, bullied, embarrassed, ostracized, and yes, assaulted a few times because I was different. My own father physically hid me from his new family after he separated from my mom (as a child of perhaps nine years old, I was carried out of the house under his arm and "hidden" down the street) because of my color and culture. So, yeah, I feel you, deeply. But, I judge each new social interaction on its own merits (or lack thereof). I don't carry the pain of racism from my past to my dealings with new, unknown people here in the present.

Friend, you cannot wait for "the other guy" to get on your level. You have to take the knowledge you have and run with it. If all of us that have the knowledge wait for others to get on our level, we will never change as a people. We know on the inside we are the same; we need to behave like this though. Preaching equality does shit. You need to live equality for things to change.

That means no more "I got pulled over because I was black." Even in the lyrics, you say you got pulled over three times for shit hanging from the rear view. That's why you got pulled over; shit hanging from the rear view. I've been pulled over for shit hanging from the rear view (and other dumb shit over the years), and I am not black. I've been patronized by cops, talked down to and made to feel stupid by cops (for simple infractions, traffic, whatnot). And then, I've had interactions with the cops where they were completely cool.

Maybe you didn't get the job because you weren't the best man for the job. Maybe the brothers you saw or know that got shot by the cops weren't complying. Were you actually there, standing next to the cop, or did you hear about it from someone else? If we are all going to be human instead of one color or another, then the next time a white cop kills a black man, we are all going to need to see "Cop kills man", not "White kills black." Are you ready for that, even if the colors are reported in the news?

Are you ready to drop the cultural belief that "only black people can say n---a"? If we are all human and stop seeing color, then everyone will need to be judged based on tone, intent, inflection and actual pronunciation of the word to interpret the feelings of the speaker. Ending in '-a' will be considered magnanimous, and ending in "-er" will be considered a slur; skin color will not matter, because skin color =/= culture.

In fact, if we are all considered human as we should be, there cannot be a single word, activity or cultural practice that (insert color) people cannot do because "reasons".

Look, I think that you speak some amazing, profound philosophy in this song. It just struck me as sad because you seem to contradict yourself in that, you see yourself as human and beyond color, but you still hang on to color as a reason why you are trespassed against. You obviously have the power to carry your beliefs forward, but the next time you feel held back or slighted, you should look at all the reasons why that may have happened, and not blame it on skin color off the bat.

The major point being, if it honestly and truly does come down to skin color (and it very well might; as I opened with, this kind of thinking is on another level so distant it isn't even comprehensible by some), you're going to need to look past it, even if the other guy does not. If you don't (and the perpetrator certainly isn't), then who is to bring your dream to light?