Slavery is Back in Effect: Rap, Race and Republicans

Slavery is Back in Effect:
Rap, Race and Republicans

TRUTH Minista Paul Scott



"Racism was here but they didn't take it seriously and they said that I was crazy." Final Solution- Sister Souljah


The auditorium was packed with reporters as the Republicans held their recent televised "Hip Hop debate" where they gathered to decide what to do with poor Black and Latino youth. Some of the suggestions were putting African Americans back on plantations and deporting all Latinos to Mexico. It was the most highly rated show of the week but since Niki Minaj was scheduled to make a guest appearance on "Love and Hip Hop" that night, most of the 'hood missed it....

While most of Hip Hop has been focused on the beef between Common and Drake or the birth of Jay and Beyonce's baby girl, the Republican presidential candidates have been waging their traditional war against the poor. Let's keep it real. No matter who wins the 2012 election, Blue Ivy Carter is gonna be good. However, chances are you won't be. There are plans being made to have you back pickin' cotton while rappin' "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot."

Although, the Republicans may go in on each other in debates, what they have in common is their hatred of the 'hood. Recently, news sources have reported on Ron Paul's newsletters that contained articles that dissed Black people. How Rick Santorum, allegedly, said that Black folks were down with OPM (spending Other People's Money.) Not to mention the OG "angy white man" himself, Newt "Gangsta" Gingrich suggesting that poor kids should pick up brooms and become school janitors. (Picture Lil Tyrone and Lakesha walking around the high school gym with a mop and bucket singin' "It's a Hard Knock Life.")

But when you try to put Newt and the boys on blast they start braggin' about how they are the "party of Lincoln" and are really our homies.

Bull.

Because they think that most of us can't read they are able to con the people into believing half truths and straight up lies. But as The DOC said back in the day, "I am not illiterate, no , not even a little bit." So it's time to pull the sheets off of 'em.

In reality, Abraham Lincoln never freed anybody as he only gave lip service to the problem by "freeing" slaves during the Civil War in areas where he had no control. He was also no friend of Black people. According to Lerone Bennet in his work "Forced into Glory , "Lincoln said repeatedly that he was a white supremacist and that he wanted to deny Blacks equal rights because of their race." Not quite the Honest Abe you read about in history books, huh?

Also, it must be noted that it was a Republican that sold Black folks out and ended Reconstruction. The Reconstruction Era ended when, in 1877, President Rutherford B. Hayes made a deal to remove troops from the Southern States so that he could become president (The Hayes-Tildan Compromise.)Thus, unleashing an era of terror on the recently emancipated Black folks.

It is a historical fact that African Americans did not start gravitating towards the Democratic Party until the 1930's, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal" which, according to Dr. John Hope Franklin in "From Slavery to Freedom," "gave many a sense of belonging that they had never experienced before." And even after that, the southern Dixiecrats were notorious for being anti-black. However, the biggest sham the Right Wingers pull off is the play on words. The real enemy of poor and oppressed communities is a "conservative political ideology" (not a specific political party) that has been bounced around between both parties but is now in the hands of the Republicans. Since, according to Webster's dictionary "conservative" means " tending to preserve established institutions" they are trying to keep the balance of power in this country in the hands of old rich, white men who do nothing but play golf all day and tell Negro jokes. They have been determined to conserve power by any means necessary and those means have been ugly, especially in recent history.

According to Cleveland Sellars in "The River of No Return," in 1968, Republican Richard "Tricky Dick" Nixon "ran for the presidency on a barely disguised 'repress n**** and other malcontents platform' and the streets ran red with blood immediately after he took office."

Beginning with the era of Reaganomics, Hip Hop ran head on with the Right Wing. As early as 1984, Melle Mel rapped on "Jesse" that "they want a stronger nation at any cost/even if it means everything will soon be lost." The run-in that Tupac Shakur had with Conservatives in the early 90's is a part of Hip Hop history. What is interesting is that one of the architects of the Right Wing Rap Attack, Bill Bennett was quoted years later suggesting that one way to lower the crime rate would be to "abort every Black baby."

Also, while most of the Hip Hop Nation was focused on the East Coast/West Coast beef during the mid 90's, Newt Gingrich and the Right Wing were staging a Republican Revolution to "take back America."

One of the tools that the Conservatives have successfully used are the scare tactics where they either tried to convince Molly in Iowa that a big, black boogie man was waiting in the bushes to get her (The Willie Horton ads). Or convince 8th grade drop out, Billy Bob in Alabama that the reason he couldn't get a job was because some lazy "minority" took it. (Jesse Helm's "white hands ad")

So, in 2012, we see history repeating itself, Same dirty tricks; different day.

While the feasibility of voting really helping the 'hood is debatable, being ignorant of current events isn't.

Like KRS said on "The Mind" "whether you know it or not you're deep in politics/all inside of it. In fact, you're the issue."

"Don't let this government, diss you."


TRUTH Minista Paul Scott's weekly column is "This Ain't Hip Hop," a column for intelligent Hip Hop Headz. His website is No Warning Shots Fired.com He can be reached at info@nowarningshotsfired.com or (919) 451-8283 Twitter @truthminista

D'Souza's Dumb New Catch Phrase

D'Souza's Dumb New Catch Phase

Paul Scott



Since the 2008, election. President Barack Obama has been called a whole lot of things; Socialist, illegal alien...you name it. However, this week, thanks to an article by Dinesh D'Souza, the right wing has been bestowed with a new catch phrase; "anti-colonialist."

In its September 27th issue, Forbes Magazine is running D'Souza's article, "How Obama Thinks" that alleges the policies of the Obama Administration are influenced by his father's anti-colonialist ideology.

In the article, D'Souza does get one thing right, most Americans don't know jack about anti-colonialism or anything else about Africa that did not come from an old Tarzan movie. This has allowed slicksters like D'Souza to spread their propaganda, unchallenged.

Perhaps more disturbing than the launch of a new smear campaign against Obama, which was immediately parroted by Newt Gingrich and Glenn Beck, is the misrepresentation of African anti-colonialism.

What D'Souza seeks to do is divorce the African struggle against European Imperialism from the struggle for civil rights in America. The attempts to unite the struggle of African people and Africans in America can be traced back to the forerunners of Pan African thought such as Martin Delaney and Marcus Garvey. Also, anyone with even a basic understanding of the works of Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) and Malcolm X would know that the Civil Rights/Black Power Movement benefited from the anti-colonialism struggles in Africa and vice versa. Also, writers such as Walter Rodney and Basil Davidson have done outstanding work on European Imperialism.

But the Tea Baggers have never prided themselves as being the brightest light bulbs on the Christmas tree, have they? Just because one is able to name ever driver on the NASCAR circuit does not make him a Rhodes Scholar.

Trying to separate the African American struggle for equality from the African struggle against European Imperialism would be like trying to separate American Jews from the Holocaust.

But I suppose when ignorance is bliss, anything is possible.


Paul Scott writes for No Warning Shots Fired.com. He can be reached at (919) 451-8283 or info@nowarningshotsfired.com

TRUTH Minsta Paul Scotts Responds to Dinesh D'Souza's September 27 Forbes Magazine article "How Obama Thinks"