M.I.A.'s 'Born Free' Takes on Ethnic, Religious Persecution

If you are squeamish or faint of heart, you may want to reconsider viewing this nine minute video, Born Free, from M.I.A. (Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam). If you can get past the extreme violence in this video and grasp the metaphor presented, then, by all means, give it a watch.

The artist has put forth a thoughtful examination of the discriminatory violence that occurs around the world. For the metaphor, M.I.A. uses redheads or "gingers" as they are referred to in Britain, to illustrate her point. Gingers, those with pale skin, freckles and red hair, are considered by some to be inferior. The group is used as an example of persecuted groups around the world.

In the video, directed by Romain Gacras, gingers are rounded up by a swat team and taken into the desert where they are brutally picked off one by one. It's bleak. It's horrific. But it carries a strong message. As humans, we are unable to end the practice of placing labels on people, categorizing them into groups, assigning traits to them and then applying "treatment" to them based upon these categorizations.

We are short. We are fat. We are white. We are black. We believe in God, We believe in Allah.

But we are all human. We are all the same.