CHANGES Today’s society is supposedly an equal society. However, in

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CHANGES Today?s society is supposedly an equal society. However, in reality, much racism still exists no matter how hard we try to eradicate it from our lives. There is still a think line between white and black societies and the stereotypes are still strong and well-defined. The emergence on rap music in the early 90?s brought about an even stronger stereotype of the black community. The hardcore gangster image of these rappers on television carried over into the minds of white society and is now considered to be the way of life for all black people. One of the greatest rappers of all time, 2Pac Shakur, recognized the racism in today?s society and realized that things are changing. His song ?Changes,? goes through the hardships of racism in the black community. As 2Pac says in his song, ?Things?ll never be the same. That?s just the way it is.? 2Pac?s song ?Changes? has a very upbeat and fast tempo.

This style allows him to jump from one problem to another to almost make them seem as one. Each individual example of black life eventually relates to a larger problem in their society as a whole. For example, in the first verse, 2Pac focuses on the idea that blacks in the ghetto constantly steal and ?sling rock? in order to make money. He says that by selling drugs and stealing puts ?one less hungry mouth on the welfare.? All these ideas focus around the poor stricken lifestyle of the ghetto. 2Pac even takes it one step farther and says, ?I?m tired of bein? poor and even worse I?m black.? He says this because the discrimination against the blacks makes it hard for them to beat the odds and rise up against white society. I?m not saying that it can?t be done, I?m just saying that most members of the black community have fell into a rut and accepted the notion that all they will ever be is a gangster.

In the second verse of the song, 2Pac deals directly with the idea of discrimination. He pin points the source of discrimination as pure evil. He says, ?Take the evil out the people they?ll be acting right.? Without the presence of evil, both our societies could live together side by side in peace. I believe that 2Pac is not only talking about the black and white communities, but he is talking about the world and it?s fighting nations. He compares the evil of discrimination to that of smoking crack because he believes that in a ?sober? state of mind, people would not discriminate against their own kind. He goes deeper by stating that the only time that ?we? chill together is when we are trying to kill each other. I don?t believe he means this literally. There may be instances where this is literal but in general I think that 2Pac is trying to say that we kill each other with words.

The final verse of this song, 2Pac brings the idea of local discrimination to a bigger level. He tries to convey the idea that their way of life is a result of the government?s lack of support. He says, ?Instead of a war on poverty they got a war on drugs so the police can bother me.? 2Pac is trying to say that if the government would focus on destroying poverty, then the black?s would not have to result to stealing and selling drugs. By making it a war on drugs, the black community does not move any further away from poverty. What results is the discriminative notion that all blacks are drug dealers and they are therefore a natural target for the police. Since there is no progress in bettering the ghetto and erasing racial discrimination, 2Pac goes on to say, ?And as long as I stay black I gotta stay strapped.? At one point in the song, 2Pac breaks into a speech-like tone and states the obvious message of the song; society needs to change its ways. He says, ?We gotta make a change?.It?s time for us as people to start makin? some changes. Let?s change the way we eat, let?s change the way we live and let?s change the way we treat each other. You see the old way wasn?t working so it?s on us to do what we gotta do to survive.? This speech is very powerful and makes you think about how we really do live and how discrimination is still strong in today?s society. Our society must change the way we treat each other. If we treated each other as equals, we would all be better off.

I believe that our world is in desperate need of change and we must learn to look past color and treat each other as equals. 2Pac was right on the money when he wrote this song. He truly believes in what he raps about and is passionate and hopeful that someday changes will be made to help better mankind. I believe that even more meaning was given to this song once 2Pac was killed. His death is a true example of how most blacks live their life; always having to look over their shoulder in fear of being killed. As I once heard in high school, nothing changes if nothing changes. We must change how we live today in order to change how we will live in the future.