Posted on 04/10/2013 3:54:36 PM PDT by drewh
MSNBC host Touré tore into both artists LL Cool J and Brad Paisley over the release of their lighthearted duet “Accidental Racist,” which tackled persistent racial tensions through song. Touré, an experienced music critic as well as an outspoken expert on race relations, found no redeeming value in their song.
RELATED: LL Cool J Defends ‘Accidental Racist,’ Compares Confederate Flag With Pirate Flag
Co-host S.E. Cupp said that she could “appreciate” the effort made by both artists in the effort to cool racial tensions though verse. “I like the effort… maybe,” Cupp said waveringly.
“Okay,” Touré interjected. “No, I’m not giving out any good grades for the effort.”
“I hate it,” he continued. He said Paisley could not tell his audience to ignore the “dominant meaning” behind the Confederate flag. “No, you can’t just re-appropriate the symbol as you wish,” Touré added. “If you wear that out in public, as LL says in his verse, you’re going to make me uncomfortable.”
“It’d be very easy for me to spend the rest of my time beating up on Brad Paisley’s show of white guilt,” Touré pivoted, “but I don’t want to do that straw man – I want to talk to LL who I am extraordinarily disappointed in.”
Touré slammed Cool J over the lyric in his song, “If you forget the gold chains, I’ll forget the iron chains.”
“Completely false choice,” Touré said. “If you don’t judge me because I’m wearing a chain, I’ll forget about slaver? Which continues to have an impact on this country – the racial disparity, the income inequality, the incarceration trends. No, I’m not going to forget.”
“My God, LL Cool J talking about ‘forget the slavery mentality?’” Touré exclaimed. “Mama should knock you out!”
Cool Touré. Glad to hear it. Here’s a quarter, now shine my shoes.
"Now go home and get your shinebox."
I agree, especially with TOURE”.
HOWEVER....
To associate something with people being brutalized 150 years ago would be much less intimidating than associating something with people being brutalized today.
It is just as logical to associate gold chains and baggy drawers with 13 month old babies being shot in the face, rapings, muggings, prison inmates, gangs, thugs, flash mobs, etc.....as it is to associate the stars and bars with slavery.
I think the point of the song is to say, I will let you live your culture if you let me live mine. I won't associate the way you dress with anyone other than you so don't do it to me. I will treat you as if you haven't raped anyone if you treat me as if I have never owned slaves despite our do-rags or Confederate flags.
He’s a militant..he hates whitey and believes that whitey has to give all of their belongings and earnings to blacks for reparations..he’s a perfect fit for the Commie Network known as MSLSD..its pieces of crap like Toure that need to be thrown out of the US, and he can take that other piece of crap Martin Bashir with him..oh and Piers Morgan too
I just CANNOT take seriously a male who has a fake name of one word w/ an accent. Embarassing.
The US had 5% of the world's African slaves, and we had a bloody Civil War to end it.
Funny how you give the other 95% a pass.
I just CANNOT take seriously a male who has a fake name of one word w/ an accent. Embarassing.
I understand that. But this is that “discussion” we always hear about us needing to have. By that they mean, white America must hear this endless wailing and list of grievances.
If there is to be a “discussion” on race, it needs to also address the fact that violent crime is utterly epidemic on the black side, and that whites are not racist for generally avoiding contact, or large gatherings of young blacks. They are being sane and avoiding being attacked.
This is a modern phenomenon, and this violent young uneducated urban culture, has amost nothing in common with black America up until the early 60s.
If the problem cannot be discussed, it cannot be fixed.
Where did the Der Sturhmer drawing go? I wanted to copy it for my family (we are Jewish) and for others who have never seen it before.
Okay I am Black enough to say it, “What do you expect from a two bit goat smelling spook, whose main achievement is life is to be a token for elite rich Progressives on a bottom feeder network?”
I think that covers everything about this living cartoon that in Torue.
How many years since "Ebony and Ivory" came out?
The Left is freaking out over the idea that someone in pop culture is trying to end race baiting.
Well, I am one of those people who generally avoid contact out of fear of crime.
Maybe that makes me racist, I don’t know, but what I do know is that it makes me still alive. I spent 14 years of my life living in New Orleans, and I am no fool when it comes to black crime. If I see people who look suspect to me, I avoid them like the plague, and I do not care if it hurts their feelings. I say if you want to be respected then be respectable.
With regard to listening to their list of grievances, my attitude on that is that I have never done anything to them, ever. I am willing to listen, to an extent, but beyond that, nothing, the past is the past and those people are gone.
I believe that we must find a way to come together, but I do not know if it can be done. I do know that there are other forces who must have us divided, and I hate those forces. I think this song is a valiant effort in the right direction though. It does not anger me.
“Funny how you give the other 95% a pass.”
Indeed. He ought to educate himself on racism in Brazil, which has the largest black population of any country outside Africa and a truly shocking level of racial discrimination. I wonder if that guy simply hates America more than “racism”....
The problem, as I see it, is that they aren’t objecting to the Confederate national flag (the Stars and Bars) but the Confederate Battle Flag, beneath which many men (including some blacks) fought and died gallantly, heroically, and tragically. If we can’t honor courage and conviction, even when it’s misplaced, there’s not much hope we will ever agree on anything.
Ebony and Ivory live together in perfect harmony Side by side on my piano keyboard oh lord why don't we?
Ebony, Ivory living in perfect harmony Ebony, Ivory oh..
We all know that people are the same where ever you go There is good and bad in everyone We learn to live we learn to give each other what we need to survive Together alive
Yeah, but that song was pure liberal fantasy... kind of a 'We Are the World' feel-good chldish idiocy..
Toure’ is a young black man who has lived a privileged life, so he now has to prove he is “blacker” than anybody. It seems to me a lot of middle class blacks do this.
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