Touching on Everything and Anything

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Jay Z at the Obama Inauguration

One thing that I notice a lot of during the Obama inauguration was the amount of black pride that took place durring all of the events. This is absolutely appropriate as the first black president is a historic event. It shows that our country is evolving in the right direction and is something that deserves celebration.
Some of the celebration that took place durring the inauguration did more to divide than to unite which is why I have a problem with those aspects of the celebration. An example of the inappropriate celebration was about 1 minute into this video. The exact words of Young Jeezy were "I wanna thank the motherfucker overseas who threw two shoes at George Bush, and I want to thank the motherfuckers who helped them move they shit up out the withe house, get movin bitch, get gone, my president is motherfuckin black"
I have never been a fan of Jeezy so I don't know much about him but this is helping to build up stereotypes, not tear them down. An event like the Obama inauguration is the perfect platform to begin the long process of taking down stupid stereotypes and then at an inauguration event we get this, ARE YOU KIDDING ME. He went on to say later in the video, "I'm so proud to be black right now I dont know what to say". How about something like, "I am glad this country has come so far and hope to see more of it in the near future." Instead he just builds on the stereotype saying nigger this and mother fuck that.
Jay Z is an artist who I do have a good amount of respect for. He still stays in touch with the community where he came from and has a good amount of respect for where hip hop came from. I was disappointed to see Jay Z even on the same stage as Jeezy while he was talking about Obama. I was even more upset when I heard one of the lines in this new remix Jay Z put out, "No more white lies my president is black".
If the roles were reversed and a white artist put out a song where he said something along the lines of (I know this is silly but just an example) "No more blacks in the NBA, white boys got the ball now and they have better style play" he would be destroyed by special interest groups, all black people, and the media always looking for someone to shake a blaming finger at. Why is Jay Z not facing the same kind of criticism that the white artist would be facing?
What Jay Z is saying can be considered borderline racist. He is taking the old white man image of former presidents and calling them liars. Since there is now a black president he is no longer a liar due to the fact that he is of a different race than past presidents, just lunacy. Just because of the color of Obama's skin he is a break from past presidents and will always tell the truth.
If people really want equality than both blacks and whites we need to understand that we cant act like this anymore.

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