Run the Jewels Talks About Gun Rights, Government Surveillance, and the Political Power of Big Beats

janklow

going to go ahead and quote Killer Mike on the gun rights issue:
Run the Jewels Talks About Gun Rights, Government Surveillance, and the Political Power of Big Beats

The families at the center of national controversies like that typically get dehumanized and simply become convenient vessels for outsiders to advance their particular politics. Mike, you made the point that our first duty is to empathize with their suffering, to see them as people.

Mike: We all have to kind of take off our prejudice and bigotries. You have to do that to even enter the part of the conversation I'm talking about. You have to have the human capacity to look past whatever class, color, creed, whatever prejudices that we all harbor. You have to say, "This is a human child that is on the ground, bleeding."

And I do worry about my gun being taken. I do worry about these roadblocks that are popping up for DUIs illegally, these checkpoints in my community. I worry about that.

We're promised not to be treated like that domestically. We're promised that our police cannot act like the military does. But we have allowed not only military machines but military tactics. We're funding local municipalities with drug raids.

Why aren't the people who belong to the organization I belong to, the NRA, why aren't they there when the first tank is rolled out to say: You know what, some of our members might not agree with how that community votes on gun policy. But we shouldn't allow their child to be shot down and then tanks to be marched down in their community, if we really are the guys who preach vehemently against that.

I saw in the 5th Ward of Houston, Texas, a group of white gun owners were going to march down the street holding their guns out through a black neighborhood. Now some people would've just said, "Hey, they want to strike terror in the neighborhood." Later the Black Panthers came into the fold and they said they would also be out there with their guns, almost in an adversarial way.

And I'm thinking: That's the wrong way to handle this. What you should've done is called and said, "We're going to march with you too, because we strongly agree with gun rights."

It's rarely noted that gun rights played an essential role in the black liberation movement. It's about being able to defend yourself against government incursions.

Mike: Absolutely. There's no other minority population in the world that if given the ability would not arm themselves. And the fact that I'm asked by leaders in my community not to is absurd. And it keeps me vehemently angry with them and unable to trust them.

You have a safeguard against tyranny, and you wish to give that up. How foolish are you, you know, how foolish are you?

...because gun rights shouldn't be a racial or partisan issue.