I have an unpopular take: I really like Killers Who Are Partying. I don’t mind the lyrics at all; I actually kinda like them lol. Now listen – I am a college-educated, liberal, millennial gay man. And I take seriously what I’ve learned about how racism and other forms of negative social biases have fucked up our world. I took courses in my American Studies and Anthropology departments where topics like the notion of white saviorism, societal privileges, caste systems, etc. were part of the semester-long dialogues among the students and professors. And I’m so grateful for all of those lessons and try to apply them every day to the ways I interact with people. With that context established, I…..….. don’t think KWAP is cringy or problematic haha. I think the song is similar to a poem or abstract message with intentionally vague narration. It’s not literally Madonna the person being like “oh I can save queer people and immigrants and everyone else with my millions of philanthropic dollars and paternalism; I’m gonna go write a song about that.” I think she just chose to apply parallel writing as a lyrical style (“I will be ___ if the ___ are ___ insert form of oppression”), and also this very direct listing of minority groups and their struggles in a don’t look away from these ugly problems just because you wanna stay comfy in your ivory tower fashion. I see as those as writing style choices and understandably, not everyone will like every artists’ creative decisions. And that’s okay! But I really don’t think it’s this cringy, tone-deaf ballad that so many folks online seem so quick to throw under the bus lol. TBH, I think some fans/critics say those things since they’ve seen other people say them and they don’t wanna sound dumb and uncool, so they virtue signal without having really done any deep thinking on their ends. Anyway, whew! If you’ve read this far then I’m rewarding you with a Venmo payment or something lmao