i'm confused.
at first, i thought that there'd only be snippets of nas' assertion that everyone in this country now qualifies as the n-word. but i found a video clip!
& yeah, i can more or less see his argument -- particularly in post 9/11 america. the way the government watches us, the way our info is sold & tracked. i totally get that. none of us is safe; each of us is victimized. it may not be fire hoses & dogs, but there's always something.
but yo.
that thing about black peoples' right to vote expiring? last i heard it wasn't true. there's at least one statement from the department of justice that clarifies what the voting rights act is all about. i don't know where that ish comes from, but if it comes from the same places that those damn "pass this on to heal little melanie's eyebrow cancer" emails, then i'm gonna be disappointed in nas as a grown person. grown ppl tend to check facts before they start running off at the mouth about things like that. if someone can find me something to back up what he's talking about, i'll appreciate it. in the meantime, i think it's another bullshit urban legend.
i don't knock the john lennon reference, kelis . . . but i still, for some reason, want you to shut the fuck up. i can't explain it. i used to like kelis a lot. but since her second album went unreleased in the states & her third only had one hit (milkshake, y'all) i feel kinda like she dumbed herself down in the name of making herself 'relevant' to the ppl who'd buy her shit: teenagers. bad move. but that's another post for another time.
4 comments:
the VRA was re-authorized in 2006. the problem is that it's still an act and not a codified permanent right for minorities as i understand it currently. as well, i think nas' issue stems from the fact that certain provisions of the act were scheduled to expire in 2007. whether it has been given more permanency and had those provisions renewed? i dunno. i guess it's all semantics in some respects since those of us interested in going to our polling places will do so en masse in this coming election (black or otherwise), but i believe it still retains relevance in others. more specifically, with regard to the fact that anyone was even still discussing whether it be permanent codified law, past the year 2000. here's a link to the provisions:
http://www.votingrightsact.org/vra_info/infoimages/pdf/vra_background.pdf
i just consider the recent discussion and status of the act being up in the air a little insulting and ultimately useful as a reminder of how screwed up the priorities of our govt. and the voting body's administrators are in the first place. at this point it has far less to do with race in some respects than it does to money and power. but the three are all completely dependent upon each other and intrinsically linked. unfortunately, it's just the culture of where we live.
as for nas' choice of album title and kelis being ridiculous? i can't call it. i'll be checking out the tracks at some point.
um...
sigh.
yeah. that's about it.
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