As a curmudgeonly conservative Republican who’s pushing 60, I have to ‘fess up: I like rap music. Hey, rap music helped kill disco. I feel I owe rap and rappers a debt I can never repay. One of the rappers I like is that guy named Common.
OK, so his parents had the better judgment to name him Lonnie Rashid Lynn Jr. His moniker might ring a bell because Common’s the rapper who was invited to President and first lady Obama’s “An Evening of Poetry” at the White House a couple of weeks back. Common’s invitation caused quite a few conservative noses to get twisted out of joint.
Here was former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s reaction:
“The judgment is just so lacking of class and decency and all that’s good about America with an invite like this. They’re just inviting someone like me or someone else to ask, ‘C’mon Barack Obama, who are you palling around with now?”
Karl Rove, who served as former President George W. Bush’s deputy chief of staff, got in his two cents worth:
“Yes, let’s invite a misogynist to the White House, a guy who’s called for violence against police officers, and called for the killing the former president of the United States George W. Bush. This guy is a thug. And why they are inviting him to poetry night at the White House speaks volumes about President Obama and this White House staff. Who is asleep at the vetting desk?”
Rove is still miffed at Common’s song “Letter to the Law,” which contained these lyrics:
“Why they messing with Saddam? / burn a bush cos’ for peace he no push no button / killing over oil and grease / no weapons of destruction.”
According to ABC News Online, Common performed that rap four years ago on HBO’s Def Poetry. Eleven years ago, Common dedicated a song to Assata Shakur, who was convicted in the 1973 murder of a New Jersey state trooper. So it was perhaps not unexpected that David Jones weighed in on Common’s invitation to the White House “Evening of Poetry.” Jones is the president of the New Jersey State Troopers Fraternal Association.
“We have this man, this mutt, this nitwit,” Jones said in the ABC News story, “this complete fraud, and that’s what he is … this is just an individual who absolutely embraced this mentality of anti-establishment.”
It is, regrettably, at this point I have to offer a few words in Common’s defense.
1. The guy isn’t a thug.
2. Common is not a misogynist. In fact, he’s been praised because the lyrics to his raps have steered clear of misogynistic, “gangsta” language.
3. The business with Assata Shakur is not all that clear-cut.
Shakur was known as Joanne Chesimard when she was a member of the Black Panther Party. She and other Panthers split from the party and formed something called the Black Liberation Army. (Shakur has denied being in the BLA.)
The incident that left the trooper dead was in fact a shootout involving two state cops and purported BLA members. Shakur was one of them. A trooper did die, but so did one of the BLA members. Shakur was wounded. At her trial, the defense brought in expert witnesses who testified her wounds were consistent with those that might have been received if a person receiving them had his or her hands raised in the air.
Maybe the White House should not have invited Common. Perhaps they could have invited Motown legend Smokey Robinson — still alive, still kicking and still, as Bob Dylan called him, “America’s greatest living poet.” But there’s no need for the Right to exaggerate Common’s vices.
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
