The world consists of many people who are hateful and many people who discriminate. This is all driven by one thing: closed-mindedness. Martin Luther King stated, in The World House, "Equality with whites will not solve the problems of either whites or Negroes if it means equality in a world society stricken by poverty and in a universe doomed to extinction by war (284)." Racial injustice does not just live within the borders of the United States, but rather, everywhere. The world is a hateful place filled with people with poor manners; those people being leaders of the world, influencing society to be pro-war and to hate each other even though we are all brothers. As King said, "When we foolishly minimize the internal of our lives and maximize the external, we sign the warrant for our own day of doom" (287). Society only focuses on their lives externally and all the material things in it while they stop focusing on the internal of their lives and all the things that are morally correct; like the song by The Black Eyed Peas said, where is the love? Both texts argue the same thing and are in conversation with each other, in what is wrong with this world. 

In The World House, Martin Luther King used the analogy of the world -- all ethnicities -- living in a large "world house" in which everyone would have to learn to live amongst each other peacefully. He named three evils of society that had to be fixed; racial injustice, poverty and violence with weapons of mass destruction. King went into great detail on how they are fixable and how everybody actually needs each other to strive as a brotherhood. If the earth was a world house in which everyone lived, it would not be very stable. All members of society cannot live together peacefully because of their differences, that most of society has trouble accepting, and that makes everyone unique. The biggest difference being, color of skin or racial injustice; in 1906 W.E.B. Dubois predicted that "the problem of the twentieth century will be the problem of the color line" (287).

Racism exist in the United States, South Africa, Latin America, and everywhere else. Oppression of one's race existed way before, during the times of Moses in Egypt. Moses' people were being oppressed and with God's help, Moses was able to free them from Pharaoh's rule. King said, "Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever" (285). African Americans started to fight for their right of freedom, they were not going to remain being oppressed forever. King wrote of a great story in his book, the story was of a man named Rip Van Winkle. Rip went up a mountain to sleep and on his way up, a sign had a picture of King George III of England. When he awoken, twenty years later, it was a picture of George Washington, the first president of the United States. King said that, like Rip, people sleep through revolutions: history changing events. In other words, people choose not to change even if the majority of the population is changing. They refuse to give in, and decide to remain in the teaching of their elders/past generations. Those who are "sleeping" through revolutions are the closed-minded people. 

Just as King talks about racism, so do The Black Eyed Peas. In the song, "Where Is the Love?", The Black Eyed Peas sing about people who only have love for their own race. This causes them to only have room in their heart to discriminate. Like Martin Luther King, the song talks about racism causing hate and oppression of one group. The song also says, "Yo'/whatever happened to the values of humanity/whatever happened to the fairness in equality/instead in spreading love we're spreading animosity/lack of understanding/leading lives away from unity" (The Black Eyed Peas). King said that we should love each other, and become united in brotherhood because as of the time that he wrote his book that was not happening, yet The Black Eyed Peas are also singing about the same problem. King wrote his book, in nineteen-sixty-seven, and "Where is the Love?" was written in two-thousand-three; thirty-six years later and the same problem is still around. If the world does not try and change their ways, it is just going to continue to go downhill as time goes by. 

"Racism, it's said, is as old as human society itself. As long as human beings have been around, the argument goes, they have always hated or feared people of a different nation or skin color. In other words, racism is just part of human nature" (Selfa). No matter how much preaching, about how racism should end, is done, best bet is that it will not. The continuance of preaching that racism end, is just an act of trying to better the world, but in reality closed-mindedness will also continue to be around bringing about the bettering of the world to come to a halt. 

Internal and external lives have a lot to do with how people are who they are. If they are worried too much about the materialistic things, and not as much as the spiritual balance they need, then it causes them to do anything they have to, in order to get what they want. Hurting people along the way will not bother them. As long as the external life of man overcomes the internal, man will continue to be misguided. For example, when wealthy nations make trade with nations that practice slave labor, or communism, these are misguided choices because the external (materialistic things) are more important than the internal (doing what is right). Ordinary misguided men, are irrelevant. Misguided men as leaders, now that, that is dangerous. They lead the country, their decisions affect all who live within the country and even those outside of the country. Decisions, that can be history changing. Decisions, that will affect the generations to come. 

The external and internal lives of one have a lot to do with another evil of society: poverty. Poverty also ties in with racism and like racism it exists everywhere. There are people in the United States that have no food, home, or the necessities that every human should have. The country has the money needed to fix this problem, yet chooses not to. A lot more countries, have a higher poverty rate than the United States and they also need the help to survive and strive. King said a great nation is a compassionate nation (290). Giving to those in need should not be done in order to take power over them, but to help. If the moral sense is intact, leaders of the world -- that have the power to do something about it -- would not want to see another "brother" hurt and hungry. They would want to help. They would do everything in their power to fix poverty. All members of society rely on each other. Some examples given in the world house were:

When we rise in the morning, we go into the bathroom where we reach for a sponge which is provided for us by a Pacific islander. We reach for soap that is created for us by a European. Then at the table we drink coffee which is provided for us by a South American, or tea by a Chinese or cocoa by a West African. Before we leave for our jobs we are already beholden to more than half of the world (292). 

Therefore, if a nation is undergoing poverty, and loses workers because of starvation or such, then products that the United States buys will no longer be made. All nations affect each other in one way or another, that is why those nations capable of helping out, should. Poverty can be fixed, because like King alleged, "There is no deficit in human resources; the deficit is in human will" (290).

The deficit in human will is driven by selfishness. While other countries are suffering poverty, the only thing most people are worried about, is money. "Most of us only care about money makin'/selfishness got us following the wrong direction," proves that because people are too worried about the external, they are not worried enough about the internal (The Black Eyed Peas). When people are supposed to help others survive -- because that is what is morally right -- but they are too worried about how much money they have, that is when selfishness has reached its peak. Worrying more about having a lot of something and not worrying about someone having enough to survive, really comes to show how selfish people are. 

The last evil of society that both King and The Black Eyed Peas talk about is wars and the killing of each other with weapons of mass destruction. In the world house, King constantly talks about how leaders of nations speak of peace, yet get ready for war. To actually make a difference and show that peace is what is actually wanted, building the military, and creating more dangerous weapons should come to a stop. It is hypocritical. Many leaders of the past spoke of peace in the world yet went to war and killed for it. Peace should not be approached with the action such as war. John F. Kennedy stated: Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind (294). War is the reason so many innocent die. If the nations continue to persist with the idea of war as a problem solver, then mankind will soon become extinct. If the nations cannot learn to solve their problems in another way, then they will not become a successful brotherhood and strive hand in hand, together. Humanity will fail as a whole. 

A verse that The Black Eyed Peas sing is, "Can you practice what you preach/And would you turn the other cheek" (The Black Eyed Peas). As King was saying, many people of this world preach about world peace, yet do not practice what they are preaching. Instead they use war and weapons of mass destruction to fight for "peace". The Black Eyed Peas sing about war and weapons used against people, even some innocent. The verse says, "Nations droppin' bombs/chemical gases fillin' lungs of little ones" (The Black Eyed Peas). Nobody that suffers the consequence of actions taken upon by world leaders deserve it. All the nations together form a brotherhood that should be treated like one. Instead of dropping bombs, why not forgive? Innocent lives are being taken in the name of "world peace". That is not going to create peace; instead it will generate even more violence, and wars. Martin Luther King's message throughout his story is that the people in the world have lost the love for one another that is crucial in order to become a brotherhood or family. Like King, The Black Eyed Peas are also wondering where the sense of morality has gone. The chorus for the song consists on one question: where is the love?

King made his message public in order to get people to open their eyes to what the real problem is, in society today. It is not the people, whom are named terrorist, overseas, it is not having little money, it is not having little protection, because our military is big enough. The problem starts with us. In the music video of "Where Is the Love," The Black Eyed Peas are running around putting up signs; the sign is a question mark. They are asking everyone to ask themselves where is the love because it seems like there is none in today's society. Media helped both, The Black Eyed Peas and Martin Luther King, get their message across. If the problem is not fixed, it will continue, like closed-mindedness continues. If someone is raised a certain way as child, they will continue to live their life that way, and that is exactly what King wants to change. The Black Eyed Peas said, "Wrong information always shown by the media/Negative images, it's the main criteria/Infecting the young minds faster than bacteria/Kids want to act like what they see in the cinema." Kids grow up wanting to act like what they see and if they are seeing the negativity in the world, the generations to come will continue to decay as a brotherhood. 

Both text also speak of the lord. King holds the lord as a support of his argument, saying that because we were made in God's image, we should act a certain way (298). While, on the other hand, The Black Eyed Peas speak of the lord as a moral support; asking him to help them better themselves as a society, because what the world is now, is not something to be proud of. Both texts are supporting the theme of changing the world, in the same ways. The texts have three of the same strong, main points made; poverty, that can be fixed by becoming selfless as people and as a country, war and people preaching of peace and not putting an action to the words they are saying and lastly racial injustice. These pieces are in conversation together about the same problems therefore, it can be concluded that when the same problem is still being talked about thirty-six years later, something should be fixed, and that would be the three evils of society.

