I nearly covered Common’s breezy Us Weekly “25 things” list last week, which is a much more lighthearted topic than this story. Common recently visited The Daily Show to promote his role in Run All Night. The topic of conversation shifted towards current events involving race. Common — who recently won an Oscar (along with John Legend) for the song “Glory” from the Selma soundtrack — delivered some surprising suggestions on how to end racism in the United States:

“We all know there’s been some bad history in our country. We know that racism exists. I’m … extending a hand. And I think a lot of generations and different cultures are saying ‘Hey, we want to get past this. We’ve been bullied and we’ve been beat down, but we don’t want it anymore. We’re not extending a fist and saying, ‘Hey, you did us wrong.’ It’s more like ‘Hey, I’m extending my hand in love. Let’s forget about the past as much as we can, and let’s move from where we are now. How can we help each other? Can you try to help us because we’re going to help ourselves, too.’ That’s really where we are right now. Me as a black man, I’m not sitting there like, ‘White people — y’all did us wrong. I mean we know that that existed. I don’t even have to keep bringing that up. It’s like being in a relationship and continuing to bring up the person’s issues.”

[From The Daily Show on YouTube]

Well. It can be exhausting to discuss a heavy subject like racism, but awareness of the atrocities that happened (and continue to happen) key. Forgetting the past won’t solve what’s currently going on in Ferguson and many other areas. It wouldn’t have stopped what happened in Mississippi yesterday. It won’t stop racist fraternity boys from chanting terribly racist songs. Racism won’t be solved in a simple manner as Common suggests. As expected, the #Common Twitter tag isn’t a happy discussion. A columnist (Stereo Williams) at The Daily Beast also wrote a detailed analysis that’s well worth reading.

Here’s a clip of Common’s appearance on The Daily Show.

The Daily Show
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Common posted this photo to his Twitter page.

Let Love Rule pic.twitter.com/oKlM2Ad7od

— COMMON (@common) March 19, 2015

Photos courtesy of Common on Twitter & WENN