Micheal Jackson released the song Black and White on November 11, 1991, when he was already a world-
renowned singer. The song aimed to get the attention of people of different races worldwide. Black and
White proved to be a huge success with about 500 million viewers from 27 countries. Due to the fact that
racism was still a popular ideology among certain parts of the world, Jackson included many symbols for
the two seemingly contrasting concepts or colors – black and white but eventually demonstrated that the
two colors could mix and fit in the society equally.
The lyrics contained one of the most significant symbols and the rap verse caught my attention. “It’s a turf
war on global scale, I’d rather hear both sides of the tale.” The quote suggests that racism provoke a war
between different races, devastating human relations. Additionally, Jackson may be indicating the realistic
situation where social medias in the United States were leaning towards the White’s voice and were biased
against the black race. He thought that voices (tales) from both sides (black and white) should be
considered, proving that black voices should be equally considered in media and all contribute to the
benefit of the world and society.
The visual rhetoric choices were immediately more direct to the audience. There were two children sitting
side by side, with black and white skin respectively, holding a snow globe together. The position they were
sitting in states a close relationship between two children of different races, while the snow globe may
represent the purity of relationships between the children. That is to say, racism was not inherited but
instead was taught by inappropriate education from adults. Therefore, the racism ideologies were opposed
to nature and could be reduced through the education of equality. He hopes that someday adults can
regain the purity on racial issues like the what the children have.
-Quick Write, by Charles Wang, Co-founder of Youth Torch