Cop-Killing-Endorsing Poet: Rapper Common’s Invite to White House Poetry Night Causes Growing Controversy (video)
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on May 11, 2011
Rapper Common, real name Lonnie Rashid Lynn Jr., has been invited to the White House poetry fest, which has caused quite a bit of upset
Rapper and poet Common, whose real name is Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr., has been invited to the White House.
Why should anyone be up in arms about Common being honored at the White House poetry evening when his songs contain cop-killing, serial-killing, president-burning lyrics, songs that are racially tinged and loaded with misogynist language?
Silly, overreactive conservatives… FLOTUS thinks he’s a gifted poet, dang it, and Bush and Clinton had controversial artists at the White House. How many of them sang or rapped about cop killers or serial killers or suggested that Bush or another president be burned? I’ve no idea, but I’m sure that with a future Republican president, the leftists will be just fine and dandy down the road when a not-yet-discovered singer or poet should speak or sing or read a composition at the White House against… wait for it… Pres. Barack Obama.
That’s how respectful and tolerant and open-minded those amazing liberals are — and if you don’t believe that, you’re probably a raaaaacist.
Heck, left-wing HuffPo correspondent Keli Goff compares cop-killing songwriter Common to the Pope — see how tolerant and progressive these people are? THE POPE! Dare I say it — how GUTSY they are?
Obama Apologist Compares Cop-Killer Promoting Poet Common to the Pope
From NBC New York, NJ State Police “Outraged” Over Rapper Invite to White House:
The invitation of rapper Common to the White House this week is drawing the ire of the union representing New Jersey state police.
While even casual hip-hop fans wouldn’t characterize him as a controversial rapper, Common found himself under the microscope after First Lady Michelle Obama invited him to the White House for an arts event. In question: the lyrics to “A Song for Assata,” about convicted cop-killer and former Black Panther Assata Shakur.
FOX News and Sarah Palin condemned the decision after the Daily Caller published some of Common’s lyrics, including some that criticize former President George W. Bush.
For New Jersey police, the outrage centers on “A Song for Assata” lyrics like “Your power and pride is beautiful. May God bless your soul.”
Shakur, formerly known as Joanne Chesimard, was convicted for the 1973 slaying of Trooper Werner Foerster on the New Jersey Turnpike. She escaped prison in 1979, and is living in asylum in Cuba.
“The young people who read this stuff, hear this stuff, are getting a very dangerous and deadly message,” said David Jones, president of the State Troopers Fraternal Association union.
[...]
Sal Maggio, a retired troop commander with the state police, said his colleagues still talk about Shakur and the million dollar bounty the FBI has put on her capture.
“Hopefully someday she’ll be caught,” Maggio said in reaction to news of this invitation.
From Daily Caller, ‘Burn a Bush’? Michelle Obama invites rapper Common to a poetry reading:
Here’s an opportunity to relive your high-school poetry classes.
First Lady Michelle Obama has scheduled a poetry evening for Wednesday, and she’s invited several poets, including a successful Chicago poet and rapper, Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr., AKA “Common.” However, Lynn is quite controversial, in part because his poetry includes threats to shoot police and at least one passage calling for the “burn[ing]” of then-President George W. Bush.
Back in 2003, First Lady Laura Bush held a poetry evening, and she invited several poets to reprise the work of Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman. Although none of those poets had urged violence against a president, Bush canceled the event after left-of-center poets protested and threatened to disrupt the event.
Daily Caller provides the lyrics to Common’s “A Letter to the Law”:
Here’s a sample of Common’s work, transcribed from a 2007 video with 837,613 viewers on YouTube. Students, please compare and contrast the two poems. You’ll get extra credit for counting the death threats. There is no extra credit for identifying spelling errors. By the way, ‘Uzi’ is slang for a compact machine gun:
A Letter to the Law
Dem boy wanna talk… [indistinguishable]
Whatcha gon do if ya got one gun?
I sing a song for the hero unsung
with faces on the mural of the revolution
No looking back cos’ in back is what’s done
Tell the preacher, God got more than one son
Tell the law, my Uzi weighs a ton
I walk like a warrior,
from them I won’t run
On the streets, they try to beat us like a drum
In Cincinnati, another brother hung
A guinea won’t see the sun
with his family stung
They want us to hold justice
but you handed me none
The same they did to Kobe and Michael Jackson
make them the main attraction
Turn around and attack them
Black gem in the rough
You’re rugged enough
Use your mind and nine-power, get the government touch
Them boys chat-chat on how him pop gun
I got the black strap to make the cops run
They watching me, I’m watching them
Them dick boys got a lock of cock in them
My people on the block got a lot of pok* in them
and when we roll together
we be rocking them to sleep
No time for that, because there’s things to be done
Stay true to what I do so the youth dream come
from project building
Seeing a fiend being hung
With that happening, why they messing with Saddam?
Burn a Bush cos’ for peace he no push no button
Killing over oil and grease
no weapons of destruction
How can we follow a leader when this a corrupt one
The government’s a g-unit and they might buck young black people
Black people In the urban area one
I hold up a peace sign, but I carry a gun.
Peace, ya’ll.”
The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf tried valiantly to connect the blurry dots between Common being invited to the White House poetry night and Pres. Bush having a song with “dirty” lyrics (it was “My Sharona, btw) downloaded to his iPod. It’s the same thing or something.
From LA Times, Conservatives decry White House invite to rapper Common:
Outrage alert: Some conservatives have a beef with Michelle Obama’s invitation to a rapper who once called for the “burn”-ing of George W. Bush to perform this week at White House event.
Hip-hop artist Lonnie Rashid Lynn Jr., a Chicago native who goes by the name Common, will be part of a poetry program Wednesday night. President Obama is expected to attend.
[...]
Sarah Palin jumped on the bandwagon, tweeting the Daily Caller story with a comment “Oh, lovely White House” — the virtual equivalent of rolling her eyes.
Pajamas Media, another conservative site, says Common supports Mumia Abu Jamal, convicted in the 1981 killing of a Philadelphia police officer, and was a member, along with the Obamas, of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, where Rev. Jeremiah Wright served as pastor. The rapper defended Wright during the 2008 campaign as Obama distanced himself from the controversial minister. The video below shows Wright in the background as Common performs.
From Mediaite, Feud Alert! Sarah Palin, Fox News, Rapper Common And White House Ready To Brawl?:
In the great tradition of rap feuds, this one definitely is not as violent as some past conflicts, but it sure is escalating just as quickly. First Lady Michelle Obama raised some conservative eyebrows by inviting the rapper Common to a poetry event at the White House. And that was enough to trigger a wave of outrage.
First it was the conservative website Daily Caller that recognized Common was a controversial guest to invite, “in part because his poetry includes threats to shoot police and at least one passage calling for the ‘burn[ing]‘ of then-President George W. Bush.” Then the Fox News website Fox Nation reacted with a headline labeling Common to be a “vile rapper.” And Sarah Palin weighed in too, tweeting in reaction to the Daily Caller’s story “Oh lovely, White House…”
Yet CNN commentator Roland Martin notes “not even casual hip hop fans would characterize Common as a controversial rapper.” Additionally, Common has frequently appeared on Def Poetry Jam and has acted in many mainstream films including American Gangster, Wanted and Date Night.
So far the First Lady has remained silent, but Common took to Twitter to respond to all of his new “fans.”
Assata Shakur, former Black Panther Party member and escaped convict who is now hiding out in Cuba, was found guilty of first-degree murder. She has been deemed a domestic terrorist by the FBI and is the topic of one of Common’s songs, “A Song for Assata.” Does that mean Common shouldn’t be a representative poet at the White House?
Consider that thug and former SEIU president Andy Stern has been a guest of the Obama White House more than 20 times.
Nothing is off limits during the Era of Hopenchange.
About the author
This is suppose to enlighten and engage young people. To do what I ask? Leave it to FLOTUS to invite the trash into the WH.
John Stewart did a hilarious segment on this.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/videos/?term=rapper+common&start=0
Let us face a simple truth, in the black community it’s thte rappers that tell the truth about the corrupt police who put their brothers in jail and no amount of facts will change what the racist blind see in their neighborhoods. Obama and his supporters will never see the real truth no matter what the facts are!