George Floyd's murder was caught on video In twenty-twenty which created a huge social media outpour. The video shows a white cop sitting on George Floyd's neck while several other cops stood there, and no matter how loud he begged for a breath of air the police officer neglected him and killed George. The song “Other side of America” by a black rapper named meek mill came out a week later. I think the song represents the anger people had at that moment because the concept of racism and racial inequalities is very prevalent to us today. This song also gives a lot of background regarding how black people grow up in these environments that were socially constructed for people of color to maintain this cycle of low graduation rates, violence, high incarceration rates, high pregnancy rates, and other things that are seen in low-income communities.

Other side of America interprets the social culture issues that have been constructed for people of color, after the murder of George Floyd we have yet to see any change. Historically we are able to see how black communities are being targeted by the police and government for decades up to now. “Other side of America” came out on June fifth of twenty-twenty and illustrates the Social-cultural issues including racial inequality, police brutality, and criminal justice reform. The first source I will be using is a video, which contains clips of protests from all around America after the death of George Floyd and the song “Other side of America” playing in the background. The second source I will be using is an interview of Meek Mill on CNN about Criminal Justice Reform.

The video titled “Meek Mill - Otherside of America” posted by “frog the god” is meant to be a visual for Meek Mill's song “Other side of America”. The video shows a lot of different clips of people interviewing other people during these Black Lives Matter protests from all over the US. There are clips of many peaceful protests after George Floyd's murder and still, police officers would gather and force people to go home and physically remove them from public areas by using pepper spray, tear gas, and rubber bullets. There are video clips of people going into stores, flipping cars and fires on random things, buildings, and cars. Also, there are clips of seniors being treated horribly by cops who physically assaulted them for being part of peaceful protests. These clips are powerful by themselves and this song is perfect as it helps illustrate the point of view of the song's powerful way of bringing awareness. The message of the song is the portrayal of why the Black Lives Matter movement started in the first place and that black lives do matter and have always mattered. Something needs to change, innocent black men and women are dying and it seems like nothing is being done about it. In these particular clips, you can see people are angry at the fact that police officers are still targeting black people and keeping the stereotype alive. The stereotype that black men are dangerous and violent, we have to acknowledge that police thrive on putting “bad” people away but the only problem is that the darker your complexion the more dangerous you are perceived. Unfortunately, the way you are seen determines whether you live or die.

“What do you have to lose?, You're living in poverty, Your schools are no good, You have no jobs, 58% of your youth is unemployed, What the hell do you have to lose?'' These lyrics at the beginning of the song are from a speech given by former President Donald Trump at one of his rallies. This is such a sad part of history because in the background you can hear all the people cheering. Cheering for a person who is openly saying black people aren't Americans. He specifically says “you’re living in poverty, Your schools are no good” he is purposely distancing himself from these “other” people that are not Americans and don't make America great. As he continues his speech he continues to distance himself from the black community and says “You have no jobs, 58% of your youth is unemployed, What the hell do you have to lose?” This shows the reality of the hatred against people of color and how it’s embedded into various aspects of our social, political, and even religious lives. The song includes several lyrics about the hardship many people of color have to face while growing up in low-income communities surrounded by violence and pushed by your society to continue the same stereotypical cycle of violence and early pregnancy. The song says. “Ooh, we was starvin' for a thousand nights' '. in this lyric you can sense the harsh reality of growing up with no money, and very few opportunities to pursue good money careers.

The second source I’m using is an interview on CNN between the interviewer and Meek mill in two thousand and eighteen where he talks about criminal justice reform. This interview was a way to use his voice and to talk more about criminal reform and how he has been to jail three times but two of those instances were falsely convicted. He says that it was hard to come back and be on probation, but it was harder to accept that I was expected to fail and end up back in jail which did happen. I believe that he didn’t need another couple of months or years in jail but rather be admitted into a rehab facility that provided him with the proper resources he needed. This system is designed to incarcerate people of color rather than provide real long-term help. Later he goes on to say when a young black person gets out of jail or living in this environment he says, “their beds are already made up” and it's a failure. The reason I want to use this as a source is that he used one of the clips of him in the interview as the outro for the song. and it says, “I always dreamed to being like, on like CNN and being able to express myself, and speak for like the voiceless young men of America (do it) The first step, I would say, I grew up in America, in a ruthless neighborhood where we were not protected by police, uh We grew up in ruthless environments, we grew up around murder, You see murder, you see seven people die a week, I think you would probably carry a gun yourself, Would you?, Uh, yeah, I probably would,” I think it’s simply a powerful quote to add at the end because it shows the devastating reality they're surrounded by and how black people are treated on a daily basis in America. People are so used to living on the other side of America where it’s the suburbs with new books in the school, multiple activities in the community center, college application help, and great sidewalks with lots of trees and we can't forget being treated fairly by everyone in your community including the police and government.

Some social culture themes that were mentioned are police brutality and how they never help instead they kill, he said, “I grew up in America, in a ruthless neighborhood where we were not protected by police ''. It’s happening way too often that it’s hard to comprehend and believe, sometimes it doesn't even make sense, for example, Breonna​​ Taylor was killed in her apartment sleeping. This has happened way too many times and is still happening now and the justice system is doing little to nothing about it and cops are just fired when someone loses their life, rather than face real accountability and counting on the law to provide justice. Instead, they free the actual killers like Kyle Rittenhouse (white man) who killed a black man in public with an illegal firearm. Some other issues that I would like to investigate more are the quality of certain environments and how that contributes to success in the future.

This song gives us his point of view of a young black man growing up in America and getting convicted of crimes he didn’t do just like many others who are in jail and serving years. Growing up I listened to so many different genres of music from salsa to classic jazz and many others. But something, I think was lacking was listening to songs that gave powerful messages not about love or anything else but about the injustices that people of color resisted and continue to resist. These ideologies that are seen of people of color are disgusting and need to for once there should be some change for this generation and for the many to come.