The song comments on the impunity with which white police in the United States are free to take black lives, with "a shield, a gun with gloves and hands that gives an alibi." Arguing his success is "the product of the same system that let off Darren Wilson," a police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown, Macklemore raps that, "one thing the American dream fails to mention, is that I was many steps ahead to begin with". The song also samples a line from a woman who dismisses the concept of white privilege, "you're saying that I have an advantage, why? Because I'm white? [scoffs and laughs] What? No."