Wounded questions such as “Why are you blaming us for the past?” and “What do you expect us to do?” are among the most common we hear from white people whenever racism is on the agenda. And it is true that on this topic we necessarily focus on what the dominant white majority is doing wrong, such as waiting less than a week, for instance, to “parody” and usurp a song exclusively and importantly about black pain in America.
These defensive questions indicate a widespread fear that white people have no place in any discussion or vision of a discrimination-free society. This is untrue. For decades, white writers and artists have helped pave the way for the difficult and necessary conversations we are now having.
These defensive questions indicate a widespread fear that white people have no place in any discussion or vision of a discrimination-free society. This is untrue. For decades, white writers and artists have helped pave the way for the difficult and necessary conversations we are now having.
In fact, this year marks the 20th anniversary of Dave Matthews Band’s Don’t Drink the Water, one of the most scathingly honest and raw takes on colonialism and white supremacy written from a white man's perspective. One that is especially notable given the band’s mainstream appeal and undeserved reputation as sappy and over-earnest.
Although vastly different in tone and style, the song’s core theme is the same one underpinning Jordan Peele’s biting satire Get Out, which had to be delivered as a horror/comedy to make it bearable for film audiences.
As a white man, singer Dave Matthews can freely display the kind of anger people of colour would be run out of town for. And boy does he. In the unusually structured rock song, Matthews narrates the colonisation of North America by the British, a perspective that is imbued with Matthews’ South African heritage, is equally applicable to Australia, and is currently unfolding before the world’s horrified eyes in Palestine.
Matthews not only assumes the role of the coloniser but he sings in the first person present tense, giving the lyrics an immediacy and urgency that knocks the listener out of the false comfort that these wrongs are safely buried in the distant past.
Spending the bulk of the lyrics directly menacing the Native population – “You must move on, or I will bury you” – Matthews’ usurper threatens his victims; anyone foolish enough to think they have a right to remain on their own land, the place where their “father’s spirit still lives,” will be silenced.
“And as you go, I will spread my wings,” Matthews taunts. But as the music builds towards its bleak and damning conclusion, his desperation starts to show, “Upon these poor souls, I’ll build heaven and call this home. Because you’re all dead now.”
He is left with nothing but his own warped sense of justice, his lack of mercy, his hatred and – in the song’s most startlingly honest admission – his “jealousy.”
This is a rare insight from a white person – that racism, colonialism and the continued failure to reckon with it is, at its core, a story about jealousy. There is a jealous reluctance to admit that western history was built on the contributions of those it replaced. Think also of the scientific and mathematical inventions of the Chinese and Muslim empires, as well as the Arab philosophy and literature that directly influenced the west, such as the story of Persian lovers Majnun Layla, the original star-crossed couple who later inspired Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
It is this primary theme of stubborn jealousy – but told from the perspective of the target – that makes Oscar-winning film Get Out (where white villains take over the bodies of black victims), the powerhouse classic that it is.
Such honest introspection is not often seen in the white population who are the primary beneficiaries of this history, and certainly not in popular music. Midnight Oil sang powerfully about paying the rent on stolen land but they did so from a safe historical distance. Likewise, Australian band Goanna lamented the arrival of the “white man, white law, white gun,” but they did so from the security of the third person.
As the original colonialist, Dave Matthews knows he is the villain in his own story. He owns this truth, and as his arrogance gives way to desperation, he contorts his face and body; trying and failing to convince himself of his own righteousness.
Our history has a lot of poison in it,” Matthews later explained the lyrics. “That you could just erase somebody, you know? Take somebody’s whole universe away…And maybe we can’t reverse things but maybe we can pay a little tribute to it every once in a while.
“Our history has a lot of poison in it,” Matthews later explained the lyrics. “That you could just erase somebody, you know? Take somebody’s whole universe away…And maybe we can’t reverse things but maybe we can pay a little tribute to it every once in a while.”
No, this does not mean all white people must inherit all the blame or spend their lives self-flagellating in atonement. But comparing Dave Matthews‘ tribute to America's history with our own upcoming tribute to Australia's past gives an idea of how far we really have to go.
For all Australia’s talk of forging a shared national identity by moving on from this violent, painful past, the national plans to mark the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook’s landing reveals not only a refusal to move on, but an insistence on celebrating that very violence. Amid the furious howls to “get over it!” what message does this tribute to Captain Cook really send to an Aboriginal population still dealing with the dispossession he set in motion?
The west is not exceptional. The west has committed and continues to commit shocking injustices. Admitting this is essential if any healing is to take place. Indeed, not only is there no shame in acknowledging it but the alternative is far more unsavoury.
“I will live with the notion,” Matthews wails at the end of his opus, “That I don’t need anyone but me.” Words similar to these were uttered 18 years later by white supremacist Richard Spencer, who claimed, “We don’t exploit other groups, we don’t gain anything from their presence. They need us, and not the other way around."
Spencer demands a white ethno-state. But, as Matthews warns, a heaven built on the bones of others cannot be sustained. The foolish notion that humans don't need each other is the very one that has propelled so much of history's greatest atrocities.
The unsung conclusion is clear: when it has run out of victims to devour, white supremacy will consume itself. But like Matthews’ coloniser, not until its final throes will it realise the true cost of the global tragedy it has brought upon us all.
“Don't drink the water,” Matthews repeats to himself when no one else is left to hear him. “There's blood in the water.”
