Are you ready for Alicia Keys’ new video?
May 16, 2010 | Posted by SAH 
While it’s easy to interpret Alicia Keys’ undeniable track “Un-thinkable (I’m Ready) as a tribute to her highly publicized and controversial love affair with current beau, Swizz Beatz, she flips it and takes us on a spin across race and through time in her daring new video.
The talented songstress truly aims to illustrate the title of her fourth album, The Element of Freedom, as she tackles the topic of interracial dating. The Jake Nava directed gem takes a trip through the decades brilliantly showcasing the complications that often surround race and love, in particular a black woman with a white man. Yearning for her love interest, played by the former One Tree Hill actor, Chad Michael Murray, Keys is faced with the challenge of leaping across racial confines and defining her own ending or allowing others to dictate it.
In essence, her having interest in or being with Murray remains “unthinkable” to her friends and family (especially her brother). And while some people believe that with the election of President Obama we live in a post-racial society where love (among other things) is color-blind, this video reminds us that racism is still alive and that acting on love isn’t always simple. Jake Nava had a vision in directing the video, he said, “Alicia is a true artist and I was very pleased that she was brave enough to go with this unusual concept. Together I believe we have done something new and important. I hope people are entertained by this video, but that it also makes them think.” Has his mission been accomplished?
Keys is applauded by many for taking such a leap with her video, but some critics discount the video’s power by arguing that there is nothing “un-thinkable” about the bi-racial beauty pursuing a romantic relationship with a white man. But in this video her being bi-racial takes a back seat to her talent, the message and her sultry voice (at least for me it does). She is a black woman who boldly addresses the stigmas surrounding interracial dating and exemplifies courage. If more black women will follow suit is a different story.
As the video closes Keys is faced with a tough choice – leave her family and walk out the door to be with Murray, who’s waiting outside in his truck, or remain a prisoner to her families perspective and the larger stigmas of society. Of course, she chooses to go.
The video couldn’t have come at a more interesting time as the state of black women and relationships have been prime debate. From Jill Scotts’ Essence article on the “wince,” to the “Nightline Face-Off”: Why Can’t a Successful Black Woman Find a Man? to the Economist’s Sex and the single black woman: How the mass incarceration of black men hurts black women we’re all a bit tired of the topic. But Keys’ video is the “Something New” of today. Check it out!
Categories: SAH Says | 
Tags: Alicia Keys, Chad Michael Murray, Interacial dating, Race, Un-Thinkable (I'm Ready) | 
8 Comments »
I mean interacial relationship is really not a big deal. Alicia is hot, I aint mad at Swizzy
@ Grizz. I would say that perceptions of interracial dating are generally subjective. It’s a big deal to some people, not to others. We have to know that not all people are at a point where they can see/accept/feel/experience love despite race.
Someone could say racial profiling isn’t a big deal because they don’t experience it personally. But the fact that we have organizations dedicated to eradicating it we know it exists. But regardless of where we sit on the interracial dating spectrum lady Keys broke ground with this video. She agreed to do the video because she knew it would resonate with a lot of people, in particular, black women. When have you seen a black woman make a video like this? She’s forward thinking for sure. Bold, no doubt. I commend her for taking a chance and doing so beautifully.
I’m with “Big Grizz” on this one. I do think the video is well done and Alicia looks great in it. But, I don’t see it as such a big deal in the world of “breaking ground.” For black women in the northeast, especially, dating a white guy is not necessaily a taboo. It is often not the PREFERRED alternative, but most black women I know who are well into their 30s have made their racial choice of lover more of “preferred, not required.” I think I might download her album. I’ve gotten out of the habit of following her music and now want to get back in….lol
Love the video…love the concept and love that they left the ending up to our own imaginations. You all hit the nail on the head regarding the fact that interracial dating is completely subjective. For someones family to go as far as to be result to violence to stop it certainly is a problem. For them to say there part and accept whatever decision an individual makes is simply what family does. To each his own I always say!
Nice video. I love music videos as mini-dramas and the divergence from the norm of half-naked dancers (but Akeys doesn’t typically make vids ike that anyways . . .) However,I don’t think it’s particularly groundbreaking or new. It’s a switch of gender of the typical “black man falls in love with white women but her family does not accept the union” storyline. Nice to see it told from the female perspective. . . though truth be told in this decade, I’ve seen MUCH less cultural resistance to a black woman being with a dude of another race. It’s not as common, but it’s certainly not as questioned as the man of color dating a white woman.
I first came aware of the song itself a few weeks back when my own mother (who is rarely impressed with anything) kept telling me there was this song she likes; and she kept telling me every time she would see me. She however did not know who was singing it. By the time I finally sat and watched the video along with her (by that time she told me it was Miss Alicia), I myself had remembered hearing and LIKING IT as well; the song that is.
After viewing the video several times on You-Tube that night ( I told ya’ll my mama sprung on the song), I was more struck by the “comments” on You-Tube of the viewers, than the video itself. So much so that I wondered if I had been missing something. Why wasn’t I as “impressed” as others ?
For starters, I admit to clearly understanding how a song entitled “Un-thinkable” could address the subject matter of inter-racial dating, and people be like whoaaaaaaa. Clearly, the very idea of the once forbidden “taboo” was to say the least, unthinkable. In some quarters today, in particular the Black/white dichotomy, still is. And that very few videos (although video directors frequently present “love interests of different hues” in videos for songs that are not specifically about “the taboo” per se), or songs for that matter, directly address the subject matter, I guess brings an attention to this endeavor that may be warranted. What I don’t understand, particularly after reading the overwhelming amount of supportive You-Tube responses, is the “courageousness” and the social-significance of the video that many contribute to it all.
As an Africana Studies major, I confess to seeing most things through the prism of race in general. That does not mean I contend that all matters of life are rooted in some form of racism and or oppression because of race, but rather an awakening to the fact that no matter how much “progress” in American society has been made, what simultaneously and continuously occurs, is the tearing down of that progress as well.
Furthermore, consider the source; Alicia Keys is a bi-racial woman. I point this out, not that America or even Keys herself doesn’t view herself as a Black woman, but the fact that her own mother is white. To be blunt, this ain’t India Arie, Erykah Badu or Lauryn HIll offering a case-study on race relations through video. This point is significant, not that neither of the 3 (and those were simply the 3 I thought of) have not nor would not have a love interest that wasn’t a Black male in a video ( I have no idea who they have or have not dated exclusively, but I do know they are still “artists”) , but rather considering the prism through which Alicia Keys has lived her life in and seen the world through, as well as her undeniable and to be admired love for her mother, should not make this video the least bit surprising, let alone groundbreaking with her as its’ center.
Just as well, in this “Era of Obama”, considering what unquestionably was real “groundbreaking” news, let me remind you this is 2010, not 1910; or even 1990 for that matter. That is to say, although there are and will always be a segment of the Black community (and other communities) who oppose inter-racial dating if for no other reason, they sincerely believe in a self-preservation ideology (although many I-Love-Everybody-Black-Christians equate that to reverse racism), the majority of Black America (at least publicly) as well as the American general population, tend to say in polls “race doesn’t matter.” So a video with this “theme” considering the times we live in doesn’t come across as much of a “game-changer”, at least in my opinion.
But most importantly in my opinion, is the WHY of the necessity of NOW, and with THIS particular artist, the need to push this image ? I use the word “push” here, just as I have and continue to do whether it’s regarding the “push” for the “Black male playa” theme, the push for the “Highly sexualized Black woman” theme, the push for the “Fascination with gangstas” theme, the push for “The light-skinned, straight-haired girl in the video” theme, the push for the “Non-conscious, self-degrading, materialistic” theme, etc. etc. etc. Truth be told, not even being in the “industry”, someone, some group, some marketing, A&R, video director, whoever and wherever, is “pushing” an agenda, a perception, an image, a mind-set. So the question from a social perspective (along with all the other recent “public debates” the author of this blog SAH mentioned in her set-up), is why ? Why this video ? Why this theme ? Why and more importantly who green-lighted the concept and believed it would be plausible to a community whose women (the Black community I speak of) say to their men daily, we are suffering and we need you. Is this a wake-up call and message to The Black Man ? Is it a collective nod of approval to the Black woman to DO YOU ? If nothing else, is it a “pass” to future video directors to not only continue not using dark-nappy-haired Black women, you don’t have to use her Black male counter part either? Many sistas perpetuate that “Niggas been doin’ it, why can’t I ”
bafoonery mentality; maybe the Music Industry is just falling in line.
Or is it simply just a music video ?….Maybe I should just ask my mama ~
Love the post, SAH. I too applaud Alicia for highlighting that subject matter when she clearly could’ve done an ode to Swizz by making a video about finding love after failing at it so many times before, or literally about dating/wooing a married man. The fact that most of your readers aren’t necessarily impressed with it is a great thing. That shows they’re enlightened and somewhat progressive. We just have to imagine the masses within our own country who may not be; those who gasp at the very thought of the different races getting together. That video is for them. To at least put the thought in their head that they should probably start accepting that “something new” is afoot.
Respect…
Very well written post, do you have an rss feed I can subscribe to?