âCalm down people, remember Michael Jackson said it donât matter if youâre black or white!â
Now, I donât know if people are using a lyric from an openly anti-white supremacy song to defend casting a white actor as Michael out of naivete, willful ignorance, or what, but âBlack or Whiteâ is not a song about colorblindness, and in fact the full video included a rage-filled one-man protest against racism.
Letâs break it down.
In the beginning, he addresses bigotry against race mixing:
I took my baby on a Saturday bang
âBoy, is that girl with you?â
Yes, weâre one and the same
But he knows they arenât treated that way:
They print my message in the Saturday Sun
I had to tell them I ainât second to none
And I told about equality
And itâs true
Either youâre wrong or youâre right
But if youâre thinkinâ about my baby
It donât matter if youâre black or white
See, he has to fight to be seen as an equal, but when it comes to interpersonal relationships, he doesnât discriminate.
After the chorus, the song breaks down and we get to the meat of it (in the video, the imagery changes from Michael dancing with people from different cultures to Michael dancing in flames, with burning crosses in the background):
I am tired of this devil
I am tired of this stuff
I am tired of this business
So when the going gets rough
I ainât scared of your brother
I ainât scared of no sheets
I ainât scare of nobody
Girl, when the goinâ gets mean
This is specifically calling out white supremacy, even referencing the KKKâs âsheets.â
Next, L.B.T.âs rap:
Protection for gangs, clubs and nations
Causing grief in human relations
Itâs a turf war on a global scale
Iâd rather hear both sides of the tale
See, itâs not about races
Just places
Faces
Where your blood comes from
Is where your space is
Iâve seen the bright get duller
Iâm not going to spend my life being a color
These words are often interpreted as being about colorblindness, especially if you cherrypick the ânot about racesâ lyric. But itâs more about otherization and the white default. And donât overlook the âbright get dullerâ line â by 1991, the hopes of the Civil Rights movement and even Michaelâs own crossing over into the mainstream as a black artist in the â80s seemed to be moving backward.
And then, the line most relevant to this discussion:
Donât tell me you agree with me
When I saw you kicking dirt in my eye
See, Michael believed that all people were equal regardless of race, but he wasnât naive enough to believe that thatâs the way it actually is, because he experienced racism firsthand every day. And people who claimed to believe in racial equality were often the same people who shit on him as a Black man.
Michael despised white supremacy. But, again, that didnât mean he couldnât love white people:
I said if youâre thinkinâ of being my baby
It donât matter if youâre black or white
I said if youâre thinkinâ of being my brother
It donât matter if youâre black or white
Back to the video. For the most part, the part of the video that featured the song (aside from the breakdown with the flaming crosses) was bright, with a message of loving people of all races and cultures. And white people were not excluded, though they were, not accidentally, not more represented than other races.
At the end of the main part of video, the camera pans to a black panther. The panther exits the studio into a dark alleyway, and it morphs into Michael (I donât think I have to explain the symbolism here).
There is no music. Michael stands in the alley and begins to dance aggressively. He doesnât sing, but he yells in rage. He goes to a car covered in racist vandalism, such as swastikas, âGo Home Wet Backs,â etc. He takes a crowbar and smashes the car in rage, then smashes a nearby window that says âKKK Rules.â For a full five minutes, he lets loose, in a protest against racism and white supremacy.
When this aired on Fox TV (after The Simpsons, iirc), people â specifically, white people â were outraged. The message was not lost on them. Michael has a lot of anger toward white oppression. Remember, at the time the Rodney King beating was in the news. The LA riots were near. Public Enemy was getting big, and here was Michael Jackson, one Black artist white people thought was âsafeâ and white-friendly, fucking shit up in a rage over white supremacist society on Prime Time TV. There was outrage. He used the time he had to premiere his video on prime time (and he was the only artist big enough to do that) to rage against them (I mean, not all of them âthe actual song made that clear, but a lot of white people took it personally. What does that say that they were so defensive?).
tl:dr: Black or White is not a song you can use to justify casting a white actor to play Michael.
If you want to see the FULL video for yourself, here it is (unfortunately, the quality is horrible, like really horrible. You can find the song portion on youtube in HQ, but I havenât found the protest part in better quality):


















