‘Burn a Bush’? Michelle Obama invites rapper Common to a poetry reading

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/09/burn-a-bush-michelle-obama-invites-rapper-common-to-a-poetry-reading/#ixzz1LzBPvT2y


Here’s an opportunity to relive your high-school poetry classes.

First Lady Michelle Obama has scheduled a poetry evening for Wednesday, and she’s invited several poets, including a successful Chicago poet and rapper, Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr., AKA “Common.” However, Lynn is quite controversial, in part because his poetry includes threats to shoot police and at least one passage calling for the “burn[ing]” of then-President George W. Bush.

Back in 2003, First Lady Laura Bush held a poetry evening, and she invited several poets to reprise the work of Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman. Although none of those poets had urged violence against a president, Bush canceled the event after left-of-center poets protested and threatened to disrupt the event.

Here’s a sample of Dickinson’s work that could have been presented at Bush’s event:

I’m nobody! Who are you?

I’m nobody! Who are you?

Are you nobody, too?

Then there’s a pair of us — don’t tell!

They’d banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!

How public, like a frog

To tell your name the livelong day

To an admiring bog!

Here’s a sample of Common’s work, transcribed from a 2007 video with 837,613 viewers on YouTube. Students, please compare and contrast the two poems. You’ll get extra credit for counting the death threats. There is no extra credit for identifying spelling errors. By the way, ‘Uzi’ is slang for a compact machine gun:

A Letter to the Law

Dem boy wanna talk… [indistinguishable]

Whatcha gon do if ya got one gun?

I sing a song for the hero unsung

with faces on the mural of the revolution

No looking back cos’ in back is what’s done

Tell the preacher, God got more than one son

Tell the law, my Uzi weighs a ton

I walk like a warrior,

from them I won’t run

On the streets, they try to beat us like a drum

In Cincinnati, another brother hung

A guinea won’t see the sun

with his family stung

They want us to hold justice

but you handed me none

The same they did to Kobe and Michael Jackson

make them the main attraction

Turn around and attack them

Black gem in the rough

You’re rugged enough

Use your mind and nine-power, get the government touch

Them boys chat-chat on how him pop gun

I got the black strap to make the cops run

They watching me, I’m watching them

Them dick boys got a lock of cock in them

My people on the block got a lot of pok* in them

and when we roll together

we be rocking them to sleep

No time for that, because there’s things to be done

Stay true to what I do so the youth dream come

from project building

Seeing a fiend being hung

With that happening, 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

How can we follow a leader when this a corrupt one

The government’s a g-unit and they might buck young black people

Black people In the urban area one

I hold up a peace sign, but I carry a gun.

Peace, ya’ll.”

The First Lady’s office did not return a call from TheDC.

*Commenter notes this may be “Pac,” as in Tupac Shakur

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/09/burn-a-bush-michelle-obama-invites-rapper-common-to-a-poetry-reading/#ixzz1LzBDH8Bz

Common is a long-time member of President Obama’s former church, the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, which was led by controversial preacher the Rev. Jeremiah Wright until 2008.

Common is an idiot and was on the Secret Service's radar not three years ago, now he's a guest of honor at the White House.

i like how black folks are mad at bush for the war, "killin over oil"... but what is the number cause of death for black men today? OTHER BLACK MEN... so killing other people for oil is worse than killing your own kind for money, gangs, drugs and sex....

it's just propaganda, another liberal way of mind control, they subtly talk bad about republicans in a pleasant environment so nobody notices what the real message is...

ummhmmm keeping ya friends close, keepin' y'alls enemies closer I imagine

In 2003 Laura canceled the meeting on the great works of Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman! These are American Legends in Poetry! I love their work! How could Laura cancel the event! She should of hired protection and insisted on continuing the event.

Walt Whitman is considered the "poet of democracy" . You kidding me.

unfortunately because of urban gangs this is true, however, it doesn't mean that a black poet cannot have an opinion regarding war in the middle east

a war we are all getting sick of

and BTW to the OP - 2pac is dead so he didn't say anything unless it was from several yrs ago (that part of ur post was a little confusing)

Who in the flying **** said that might be Tupac?!

Ummmmmmm, 2pac was killed over a decade ago set up by Suge Knight.

Incorrect, all evidence that was gathered by private investigators points to the guy he had a quarrel with in the hotel lobby who was later shot and killed in Compton.

No, the evidence proves that Knight was involved in the whole thing. I am going to bed now, but I will post it all tomorrow morning.

I'll be waiting.

Another example of how the Obama's are out of touch.

Inviting a poet that calls for the shooting of policemen and the death of the previous president.

And this is supposed to unify the country????

Isn't that what they said they were going to do????

And of all times, Michelle invites this rapper that calls for killing cops on National Police Week.

Some of you need to watch these videos. I know some of you won't because it's the Daily Show, but take a few minutes an check them out.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-may-11-2011/tone-def-poetry-jam

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-may-11-2011/tone-def-poetry-jam---lyrics-controversy

Not that I think these videos will change your mind... but laughing at the hypocrisy of Fox is reason enough to watch.

Suge Knight owed artists over $104 million and Shakur was threatening to take his masters and leave Death Row after the last album, The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory.

According to former bodyguards who heard this altercation between Tupac and Suge, they didn't realize at the time what Reggie was planning even when he was demanding that all bodyguards leave their weapons, now reassigning normal Tupac bodyguards elsewhere (leaving Tupac with only Frank) and taking their communication devices, although this is contradicted by bodyguard Frank Alexander’s previous statements that he did have his gun in his car. Bodyguard Michael Moore refused to give up his weapon and said on film that it was Kevin Hackie (former Compton PD) who had his cell that night. However, in Frank’s book Got Your Back, Frank said the bodyguards were told not to have their guns only at Club 662 in fear the authorities may shut the club down, but was told they could have their guns in their hotel rooms or cars. Frank said in an interview with HitEmUp.com in January, 2002, “We were told to either leave them in our room or leave them in our car. And me, knowing I was going to the club, stuck my gun in my car up under the seat 'cause that's where I was gonna go and park my car in the front.”

“I think they removed me [from guarding Tupac] because I wouldn't let them take away my weapon,” Moore said about why on the day of Tupac's murder he was reassigned to Club 662. “I told Tupac…and walked him to his room. I didn't want to leave him (I was the only one with a weapon) and at first I was going to stay, but the club kept calling me. I said, 'its 8 p.m. and I'm not due until 11 p.m. don't call me no more. Then Reggie [head of Wrightway Protective Services] called, so I went.”

In the film, Michael Moore expressed his frustration at the time, saying, “Why would I leave my weapon and I'm guarding the biggest rapper in the world.' I said, 'I'm not taking my weapon away for no one!”

Shortly after bodyguard Moore left Tupac in the Vegas hotel, Tupac got into a car driven by Suge Knight (which they said he never does) and while waiting at a light (boxed in at the left by Trevon Lane, boxed in the back by Frank's car and to the right by the killers car) the killer(s) shot him .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupac:_Assassination

Not to mention Knight's ties to the Bloods, the LAPD's CRASH Unit that got disbanded partly because of the corruption he was involved in with some of the officers and not to mention the case where he was looking at going away for a long time because of a brutal assault he committed on his girlfriend in Las Vegas. Se went missing and is presumed dead, shortly before the trial was to begin.

Although many bodyguards, including Michael Moore, who was Pac's number one body guard, had guarded him for a week straight, 'Pac was then forced to go to Las Vegas, which he refused, and as he was on his way to his plane, he stated to the bodyguard escorting him that he was a dead man walking. Michael Moore(bodyguard) and the rest of the guards were told not to carry their guns anymore, Michael refused and then was placed at club 662 rather than at the protection of Mr. Shakur.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupac:_Assassination

ghetto is ghetto... i'm actually surprised that the presidential limo hasn't been through pimp my ride yet...

S W E E T as you name

I love the Daily Show - thanks for sharing singmesweet.