You don't have to live next to me, just give me my equality.

Subject: You don't have to live next to me just give me my equality.

Music speaks louder than word although if it is a song the words are an integral part of the performance. The pathos of a song or the exuberance of a song depends on the artist finding a motif for the the story. From the backing cords to the timing, from the counter rhythm and synchronisation to the underlying feeling expressed, not only in the lyric but in its intensity and emotion.

Nina Simone possessed all the ingredients to not only make a statement about her race but also about her womanhood. Listening to the song, "4 women" she challenges us to think about the circumstance which produces a stereotype but which underlaying the stereotype is the condition and the circumstance which produces this conditional outcome.

My skin is black.

My arms are long.

My hair is woolly.

My back is strong.

Strong enough to take the pain 

inflicted again and again.

What so they call me 

My name is AUNT SARAH.

In her lyric she depicts three other women. The mixed race girl she calls SAFFRONIA ,

the prostitute she calls MY NAME IS SWEET THING. And finally with anger and emotion breaking in her voice MY NAME IS PEACHES.

It's a depiction of race and the roles women who 'suffer their birth' play, a part often written for them by others.

Simone speaks for her race at a time when no one wanted to know and it was dangerous to do so. He famous ultra critical theme "Mississippi God Damn" hits where it hurts and should make any white person with a modicum of sensitivity feel embarrassed. She launches into this diatribe against race laws in the Deep South with a barely  concealed bitterness. She hammers the piano keys to a crescendo, emphasising  point on point the iniquity of  racial inequality. 

Google the lyrics, You Tube the song. 

"You don't have to live next to me just give me my equality", says it all.