First, a little Jon Stewart:
Yeah, I'd ignore the rap. It was the worst part of an otherwise legendary segment.
Next, we move on to Lawrence on the Last Word (with clips of the actual White House Performance!):
Let me say that I'm a bit of a rarity among black people. I'm a black man who doesn't listen to a lot of Hip-Hop (I'm more of an R&B man). Despite that, I was offended by this crap coming out of Fox News yesterday. I was particularly offended by Hannity and Rove. Common is about the most positive of Rappers out here. (Hell, I don't listen to Hip-Hop, and I knew that!) Dr. Harris-Perry's made a particularly sharp point in the Last Word: How is it that Teabaggers coming to Presidential appearances armed with automatic weapons is just fine and dandy as far as political speech goes, yet a Rapper rapping about automatic weapons is out of bounds.
Conservatives would say its all about the sanctity of the White House, but it's really about race, and appealing to the lizard brains of the Obama-is-never-legitmate portion of the Republican electorate.
Ta-Neishi Coates had a great catch yesterday, from one of the commenters on his blog:
You know, normally something this stupid wouldn't bother me, but this story really gets under my skin. If they can try to paint Common as a 'dangerous black man,' what black man is immune? If they think Common is vile, then I know they have no use for my black ass. Common is beyond the pale, Michelle Obama hates whitey, Eric Holder is protecting the New Black Panther Party, Shirley Sherrod is discriminating against white farmers, Barack Obama is giving reparations to black people? Conservatives, do you realize how stupid this sounds to black people? (and I know that black people aren't the audience for that kind of talk, there's no need to point that out to me.) Seriously, you can't find less-threatening black people.
And fundamentally, I doubt if they even think Common's that bad. He's a convenient target for a bit of demagoguing, which is even more repugnant. At least when Lee Atwater used the "Let's dredge up the 'dangerous black man' feelings for a cheap political hit" ploy, he'd choose an actually dangerous black man.
I mean, look, politically, I'm pretty liberal, so it's not like I'd ever be a regular Republican voter anyway. But shit like this is what prevents me from even getting to the point where I'd give their policies a fair hearing. And I know there are some Republicans and conservatives here, and I say that you have no chance of getting any kind of support from black voters as long as the leaders of your party are pulling these kinds of stunts.
So once again, Conservatives, keep in mind that a lot of what you're saying is being talked about in the Black Community, and we will remember.
The whole performance video is right here:
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