Lupe Fiasco Bashes Obama, Gets FOX Gig

Lupe Fiasco

We live in cynical times. Many black people have realized the best way to get publicity it to say something negative about President Barack Obama. FOX News loves this stuff and this has been proven accurate by the recent news that conscious rapper Lupe Fiasco has recently been invited to debate Bill O'Reilly on "The O'Reilly Factor."

Now you would wonder why O'Reilly, a noted hip hop hater, would have a mildly famous rapper on his show. FOX tends to view any rapper (and black person) as a thug, as seen in it recent trashing of Common, a rapper famous for writing love songs and being a vegetarian. However Lupe Fiasco recently called Obama a terrorist, for his support of the American war machine and in particular his support of Israel.

Lupe Fiasco is considered to be one of the more deeper thinkers in the rap community -- but even that isn't saying much. Hip hop's golden era of Public Enemy is long gone. Most of today's hip hop is knee-deep in materialism, violence and sex -- all messages approved by Corporate America.

I tend to think that entertainers should stick to entertaining and people shouldn't turn to them for political guidance. Political comic Bill Maher said he deliberately changed the format of his show "Real Time," to limit the celebrity segment, because so many of the entertainers could not string together an intelligent sentence.

Fiasco has written some intelligent songs criticizing conflict diamonds and has supported worldwide clean water iniatives, but you wonder how deep his knowledge is? Some of his comments on Global Grind, show he is all over the place. He said "admires some of the things that Glenn Beck does," and questions why Obama is raising funds for his campaign, but doesn't give "$100 million to the people of Detroit." Even more damning in his initial interview, where he called Obama a terrorist, was his admission that he doesn't vote.

Lupe Fiasco simply does not understand how the political system works. I remember reading an Vibe magazine interview with Jessie Jackson about 10 years ago. Jackson said he once encountered an young man who was angry at the economic situation. After listening to the man rant for several minutes, Jackson asked him if he voted, the young man said no. Jackson then said that he was outside the political system, and the only way to effect change is from inside the system.

The political system runs on money, and in this society money equals power. Lupe Fiasco is a man of means, I bet he could raise $1M. He could use that to create a Political Action Committee (PAC), called say LupePAC, and donate $1M. That PAC could hire a dozen lobbyists who could badger politicians until they affect the political change that Lupe Fiasco wants. A PAC could also hire a PR company to make sure the airwaves are flooded with issues that LupePAC supports. They could also make sure armies of volunteers are kept informed with e-mails and phone calls urging them to contact their elected representatives. That is how you get things done, son.

And this has actually happened. Hip hop veteran Russell Simmons has created political action groups to lobby politicians to reduce mandatory drug sentencing laws, which have been responsible for sending many black and Latino men away for long sentences.

Maybe Lupe Fiasco, like a lot of people on the far left, simply do not have a realistic understanding of the political system. The system is horribly tarnished by money, and it moves at snail's pace. More pointedly, the Supreme Court's Citizen's United ruling allows unlimited amounts of money to be dumped into the political process. If liberals want real change, they need to reelect Obama so he can appoint more progressive voices to the Supreme Court. They also need to elect more progressive representatives and senators, and make sure they stick to their campaign promises. But this is like the chicken and the egg problem, in a political system ruled by money, progressive voices have a hard time getting elected because they get outspent in the fundraising arms race.

As Jesse Jackson said, if you want to effect change you have to work within the system. Choosing not to vote is like opting out of the system. And those who choose to opt out of the system have no room to complain when things get worse. Just look at what Republican governors like Rick Scott and Scott Walker have done in their short terms. This is what happens when people on the left stay home.

An Open Letter to African American Herman Cain

Herman Cain

Dear Herman,

You don't know me, and until recently I didn't know you, but because I am a political junkie, I have been forced to learn about you. And boy, where do we start?

Firstly, I have figured out your game. I know you are not really running for president, you are running for a position on FOX News. You see, running for president is a great branding tool, because it raises your profile and the press writes about everything you say and do. No one knew who you were a few months ago, and now you are household name. And after you lose, you can go back to your media career and sell some more books.

There is a long history of no hopers running for president -- talk to Donald Trump. Cybill Shepherd, Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson also said they were running for president at one point, and look where they are now?

But this letter is not about your political views, and it's not about the fact that business skills do not necessarily make a great president. We all remember how well the last "CEO president" turned out. But this is about your apparent self loathing of black people and Africa.

I was particularly disturbed by your recent comment stating, "I don't use African-American, because I'm American, I'm black and I'm conservative. I don't like people trying to label me. African-American is socially acceptable for some people, but I am not some people."

Herman, this sounds dangerously like self hatred. Malcolm X said, "You can't hate the roots of a tree and not hate the tree. You can't hate Africa and not hate yourself." If you are black man living in America, how did you get here? How were the original black Americans brought to America, and where did they come from? And why is a black man trying to deny his link to Africa? I can't imagine that an Irish American would ever deny his cultural ties to his ancestral home.

Herman, I can understand how you may feel that you have nothing in common with Africa. Your view of Africa is probably formed from the America media, which shows nothing but starvation and warfare. But you can't run from your roots. You are the descendant of Africans, and there is no hiding it.

If you ever did a DNA test, you would discover what ethnic group you are descended from. And if you actually visited Africa, you would see people who look just like you. You might actually learn that it looks nothing like the images you see on FOX and CNN.

Herman, in my 40 odd years on the planet, I have learned that you can't run from who you are. You have to embrace it -- both the good parts and bad parts. Let me tell you my story, I come from an African family who also lived in the Diaspora. When I was younger, I was embarrassed by my African name and wanted to be like other Africans in the Diaspora, who had Westernized names.

I even lived in Africa and was turned off by the chaos and poverty I experienced over there. It has been a long journey, but over the years I have learned to embrace my African heritage, I have studied and learned of the contributions African have made to the world civilization. And I have learned that Africa had empires, language, art and religion long before Europeans arrived. I am a black man, my parents come from Africa, and I have an African name. Herman, this is your background too. Running from it would be like trying to run from your shadow.

Yes, there are some cultural differences between Black Americans and Africans, but we have a shared heritage. Maybe we are not brothers, but were definitely cousins.

So do us all a favor and just accept who you are. This is really getting embarrassing. Odabo, brother. (That means goodbye in Yoruba!)

Photo by Gage Skidmore

FOX News, Right-Wing Media Propagate Racism 2.0

Roger Ailes, president FOX News

Many people on the right like to think that with a black president in the White House, racism is dead. They even have prominent spokespeople like Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, who beat their chest and say, "How can America be racist if a black person is the Tea Party's leading candidate for president?"

Racism exists in 2011, but in a different form from the racism that existed in the 1960s. Back then racism was blatant -- whites only lunch counters, segregated drinking fountains, and black people completely barred from high-level jobs.

However, because racism was out in the open, it was much easier to challenge by direct action such as protests, boycotts and marching. Forty years later we have made a lot of progress, but there are still many racial disparities. Structural racism exists, but in a more subtle and amorphous form.

Right wingers fail to see these disparities. So I ask them, if you think America doesn't have racial problems, let's look at this from a scatological approach. Let's analyze America by its by products.

And what do we have? An ineffective criminal justice system that is predominately black and brown, black unemployment at twice the unemployment rate of white people and consistent evidence of police brutality and extra judicial killings mainly focused on black people.

What we are dealing with in the 21st century is what I would call Racism 2.0. Racism 2.0 is much more difficult to analyze and fight. At times it is like boxing a ghost, an enemy you can't see or lay a finger on.

With Racism 2.0 we do not have blatantly segregated neighborhoods, but we have redlining, where black home buyers are steered into black neighborhoods, or given loans with higher interest rates than whites. There are also incidents where white homeowners refuse to sell their homes to people of color to make sure the neighborhood's complexion doesn't change.

Racism 2.0 is seen in white flight, where wealthy and middle-class whites move to the suburbs, ostensibly for better schools, but also to get away from the colored folks. It is also seen in public education where wealthier whites take their kids out of the state-funded school system and enroll them in private Christian academies. Then these same people refuse to vote for funding increases to public schools, because they claim they don't have children in the system.

And most importantly it's seen in the right-wing media, which is full of race-baiting stories. Last year, the White Right, as activist Tim Wise likes to call them, spent hours of air time running stories about the New Black Panther Party and alleged voter intimidation.

After months of hype, the story was eventually debunked when a Bush appointee said that the right-wing's accusations about the Justice Department's failure to look into incidents of vote intimidation against white people were false.

The main culprit of Racism 2.0 is FOX News. The brain child of Roger Alies, who cut his teeth running dirty tricks for Richard Nixon, FOX News is a primary distributor of neo-racist propaganda. With Barack Obama, a black man with a Muslim name, in the White House, FOX News has made its viewers feel they are under siege. FOX realizes that is audience is about 90 percent white (figures backed by Nielsen), and they make sure they fine tune their message to fit the tastes of their audience, who are scared about the nation's changing demographics.

But in 2011, it is politically incorrect to say that you don't like black people and even FOX realizes this. So instead they use a series of code words to imply animosity. These phrases include implying Obama is a Muslim, using his middle name, Hussein, and implying he has foreign values, as mentioned by Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee.

And then there are phrases that skate as close to outright racism as you can get. FOX commentator Eric Bolling recently said Obama should have been dealing with the tornado victims instead of "drinking 40s." (He was actually drinking Guinness while he was in Ireland.)

Now anyone familiar with urban media realizes that 40-ounce malt liquor is associated with inner city black people and was heavily marketed towards this group. It has also been embraced by the hip hop community.

And not surprisingly FOX News tried to turn rapper Common's appearance at a White House poetry reading into an example of Obama associating with a gangster and thug. By the way, Common is an intelligent rapper, who is also a vegetarian and has campaigned for gay rights and animals rights. He has also appeared on Sesame Street and in Gap ads. Yeah, real dangerous.

As the great comedian Dave Chappelle once said, "I am a connoisseur of racism." And I think that applies to black people in general, we know it when we see it, even it comes in version 2.0.

Herman Cain is a Placebo for White Racism

Herman Cain

After watching Tea Party favorite and GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain's new campaign video, I finally came to a realization. I had long wondered what was the attraction was for the only African American Republican presidential candidate. But then I realized that Cain is running as an apologist for white racism. And that is why the Tea Party loves him.

Cain, with his rags to riches story of rising from the son of a chauffeur to a CEO, fits in perfectly with people who want to believe America does not still have issues with race. Republicans can vote for Cain and say, "Well, we aren't racist, we voted for a black man." I guess they have forgotten about all those signs they had at the health care rallies a few years ago, depicting President Barack Obama as everything from a witch doctor to a monkey.

I have several problems with Cain, apart from his apologetic tour. He has no political experience. His only other political campaign was losing a GOP primary in Georgia, and while some may see that as an advantage, it isn't. The last time a non politician was elected to the White House was Dwight Eisenhower, who lead Allied forces in World War II. And if you want to know how well non politicians do in office, just ask California how Arnold Schwarzenegger worked out.

Cain's main selling point is his business experience. But after the Wall Street excesses that nearly crashed the world economy, why do Americans keep screaming for government to be run more like a business? Do they really want government run like Lehman Brothers and Enron?

Corporate chiefs don't have the temperament for the political world, as can be seen in the disastrous reign of Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who is fast-gaining a reputation as the worse governor in the country. Scott, a former health care executive who was fired after his company received the largest fine in American history for Medicare fraud, is facing animosity from the left and the right.

Scott has barely been in office six months and Floridians are already talking about a recall. Cain has already flubbed questions about the complex Israeli-Palestinian conflict, so who knows how worse he will do under even more scrutiny?

But the really troubling thing about Cain, is how he is so willing to pander to racial politics. He bandies about phrases like, "leaving the Democratic plantation," and being a "Son of the South."

Cain is appealing to Nascar Dads, which is ironic because many of these people also expressed some of the most virulent hatred towards Obama because he was "Muslim," or "foreign." And at his lowest point Cain, pandered to bigots by bragging that he would not name a Muslim person to his cabinet. (He later tried to backtrack on this.)

Republicans like to say that Cain's popularity shows that the GOP has embraced diversity, but I suspect that if he was made the Republican presidential candidate, he would split the party. Some of the ex Dixiecrats, who were seduced by Nixon's Southern Strategy, would split off and join a party that expressed more radical racial views.

But even if Cain was white, he would still be like Sarah Palin, a joke of a candidate, who has no chance of getting elected. He is just lapping up the media attention in his "I'm Trying to Get Paid" tour." The campaign has done wonders for his name recognition. And if he has to become the latest conservative black minstrel, he seems wiling to pay that price. He has plenty of company alongside Alan Keyes, Juan Williams and Jessie Lee Peterson in FOX News' Brotherhood of Self-Loathing Brothers.