Rage Against The Machine release documentary – ‘Killing in Thy Name’
Rage Against The Machine have released a 15-minute documentary about race – Killing in Thy Name.
The documentary is a collaboration with the arts collective The Ummah Chroma and features a teacher educating a group of young students about “the fiction known as whiteness” and also elaborates on the United States history of social oppression and racism.
The teacher talks to students about the centuries of slavery and how it contributed to the society we live in today. He asks the students “Where do you think white people come from?” After the kids answer with various European countries the teacher says, “Actually, there were no ‘white’ people who came from any of those places. When they came from England what do you think they called themselves? The English or British. When they came from France what did they call themselves? French. When they came from Russia what were they? Russians.”
The teacher continues “They didn’t call themselves ‘white,’ so at what point did these people, who had never ever really thought of themselves as one big happy family — in fact, they’d been killing each other for years — when did they decide that they were ‘white?’
Rage Against The Machine – 60’s election tee – Front Print Vintage Print/Vintage Wash
This Rage Against The Machine T-Shirt features a 1960s election design
Red and black on white
White
Short Sleeve
In an interview in the film Zack de la Rocha says “Living in the States, you’re living in one of the most brutal societies in the history of the world,”
Zack continues “The country who inherited the genocide of the Native American people. A country which participated in slavery. Any society or any government or any system that is set up solely to profit a wealthy class while the majority of the people toil and suffer and sell their labor power, so long as that system’s only true motive is profit interest and not the maintenance and the betterment of the population, to meeting human needs, then that society should not stand. It should be challenged and questioned and overthrown.”
The documentary closes with quotes from the members of Rage Against The Machine and a live performance of their classic song ‘Killing in Thy Name’ a track that seems to fit in the time we’re living in. ‘Some of those that work forces, Are the same that burn crosses’.
Cue the clueless fan of RATM who comments about the documentary on their page “Just stick to your music”.
