Spoken word meets Hip-Hop song in one of the most emotive critiques of the colonial project to ever find voice through a beat. Joelistics begins by alluding to Australia’s deeply racist colonial past but quickly expands the scope to include their current immigration policy which is in direct breach on the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. He skillfully turns Australian aphorisms and colloquial language/slang to serve a new end and re-purposes the harsh language of intolerance. He then goes further and addresses the voting public who support such policies and the politicians who exploit casual racism through fear an hatred. Employing rhetorical questions he asks how History will judge their actions as we ask ‘if we did enough’? The song’s realist imagery delivers its message of shame of the past and the present; calling-out the Orwellian reality of de-humanizing victims which Australasian politics has entered. The third verse uses highly emotive language to paint a depressingly hopeless picture of an exchange between a prison guard and detained child in one of Australia’s illegal detention facilities, leaving the listener at a loss for words. This is a fantastic resource for any discussion on injustice, inequality, race, migration, or ‘othering’. The simple yet confrontational nature of its message means it is hard to disregard even for the most jaded of students.
Link to Lyrics: https://genius.com/Joelistics-not-in-my-name-lyrics
Humanity4HipHop 