Resistance and containment as described in the song The Revolution Will Not be Televised - Essay Example

Scott-Heron underlines that a controlled or structured media can never demonstrate the waves of social, political and cultural changes of a nation. The entire song reveals the idea that The Black revolution would be down in the grooves and on the lanes. The whites always regarded the blacks as downtrodden and denied them the necessities of life. Though most of the black leaders had protested against this injustice, they were either silenced by jails or bullets. Blacks used Popular Music as the manifestation of their suppressed feelings and Scott- Heron’s song ‘The Revolution Will Not be Televised’ deserves significance in this respect.

Through this widely accepted song, Scott-Heron could rouse the innate feelings of the blacks and the very first stanza of the song makes this grim reality vivid. Readers get a clear picture of the social set up existed with many ‘don’ts’ at the time of the composition of this song. As the blacks ‘will not be able to’ perform what they desired, they realise the reality that their revolution for attaining racial equality will remain as an oasis. Any one can feel a note of sadness and can experience the dejected state of mind of the blacks in the song; on the other hand, the song has also the power to raise one’s thoughts to a higher level of aesthetic appreciation.

As a spokesman of black community, Scott-Heron, like other black writers, portrays the ill-treatment they suffer at the hands of the dominant white community. The very first line of the song grabs one’s attention as one can see the pathetic state of blacks being denied of their own houses. However, there is a struggle to endure the sufferings and by portraying the endurance of the blacks, Scott-Heron in a way is advocating that liberation is constantly countered by implicit (and explicit) forms of oppression that are not always immediately identifiable (Jackson).

Scott-Heron uses a lot