An Uneducated Post

A day after the election of the first African-American president in the history of the United States I was perusing XXL's website and came across an article bashing Barack Obama for not embracing hip-hop and its artists. The gist of the article, written by Ron Mexico, states that Obama should not have been the only famous person on the stage. He seemed to believe that Jay-Z, Lebron James and Diddy should have been there (doing what I don't know, maybe two stepping.) (In addition to this he makes an utterly despicable statement by saying he "understood Obama’s need to distance himself from controversial figures–such as actual black people..." I can't even begin to explain how bothered I am by that statement. As if the only real black people are the ones who curse, wear baggy pants and are not eloquent.)

I get that this Ron Mexico individual comes from a completely different reality but, seriously? Can you imagine the fear (not to mention the unprofessional nature of having such individuals on stage) that it would instill in so many McCain supporters if Obama gave his acceptance speech with Jay-Z and Diddy "whoop whooping" through Grant Park on national TV?

Mexico also writes that there is no reason all those famous celebrities shouldn't have been invited to Grant Park and get front row seats. He complains that Jesse Jackson is there despite that Jackson is part of that world. He also dislikes Oprah being the other celebrity of color in audience but he doesn't mention that she gave millions to his campaign and that she is one of the most powerful people in Hollywood.

Luckily, this blog wrote itself because the responses to this article have been angry and full of disagreement with Mexico. Both points I just made were taken from responses by such posts. I'm glad to see the majority of young people of color are paying attention but how someone who we have to assume has followed the race could make such and ignorant post is beyond me.

Even beyond this, the fact that Mexico believes that these celebrities somehow played a huge role in Obama winning the election is laughable. Without Jay-Z's endorsement does McCain take the White House? I think not.