From the Desk of Eddie Griffin
Friday, May 04, 2007
Barbershop Politics:
Some people don’t know what to say, when to say it, and who to say it to. Whether we all agree or not, there is a difference in the “Rules of the Street” and the “Rules of Hip Hop”, says Ice-T in a recent interview with SOHH, a hip-hop online media site.
Ice-T weighed in to the controversial use of the N-word and the “black wall of silence against snitching”. Never before has the issue been so clearly explained to my understanding. The early hip-hop artists, like Ice-T, are gaining some gray-head wisdom in articulating their views. And, he makes sense in not condemning the hip hop generation.
“Instead of banning bad words”, he declared, “we should be banning bad behavior”- and this, from a man who went from the controversial “Cop Killer” rap album to movie star. But the word “nigger” is going to stay in his vocabulary “until the wheels fall off”.
What struck me, and maybe nobody else, was his chastisement of Cam’Ron (whoever that was that was featured on CBS 60 Minutes). Obviously, Cam’Ron was asked how he would respond if a mass murderer lived in his neighborhood: Would he report it?
His answer touched off a firestorm about “snitching”. Ice-T sets him straight on the definition of “snitching”. When public safety is at risk, the police always come first. The value was shared by all black people interviewed by SOHH.
So, how did CBS wound up interviewing a dingbat as representative of the hip-hop community? They do it all the time, purposely, to undermine the credibility of black intelligence. Stupid is what stupid say.
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Exactly. They pick some guy who says something they know law-abiding people don't agree with and interview him. One rapper. Then all of a sudden all Black people are said to believe this. Some of them decided to don't snitch on t-shirts and they got other people to join in. What about all the other non-Black people who know people who have committed crimes and don't report them? Its not like Black people are the only ones who don't snitch. The first time I even heard the word 'snitch' was in the context of Italian gangster movies. Crimminals don't snitch unless it gets thems something. Other people don't snitch because they are afraid. Maybe they should have interviewed the families of witnesses of many different races who have been murdered because the police did not protect them. Maybe they should interview people of many different races who have been threatened by crimminals (but I guess they won't find them because they want to be known).
ReplyDeleteOne dumb guy and a bunch of crimminals are supposed to speak for everyone. It just paints us as immoral and gives the police an excuse to use extreme tactics against us.