Kick Rocks, will.i.am

I don't fuck with the Black Eyed Peas.  Not because they suck, or because they have become the apotheosis of "selling out"--whatever that means--but mostly because they shook Kim Hill for a white girl (Fergie) on their way to becoming the soundtrack to the trendy region of corporate America.  And they get on my nerves.  Plus, will.i.am is a friggin' dweeb.  A few of his tweets have circulated around the blogosphere:

Re: the season premiere of the third and final season of The Boondocks [which was epically outstanding, by the way]:

“Boondocks is funny “sayin I’m riding” if I didn’t stand up “we would have mc cain” who else stood up? Now arizona is hating mexicans

Nigga, shut the fuck up.  E'rybody wants to take credit for the rise of Obama.  First Dennis Haysbert, now will.i.am. Plagiarizing then candidate Obama's speeches and phoning in a favor to the celebrity homies to film a Youtube video isn't exactly what I call standing up.  (This all might speak to will's originality.)  Let's be honest, the Obama election was the result of a most perfect cocktail, and will.i.a.m, if anything was the cherry: an unnecessary garnish atop all the essential ingredients needed to get an African-American elected POTUS. 


will.i.am gets even more ridiculous. Re: Arizona's new immigration law:

I’m going to say something controversial but true…Today Latinos are the new “blacks in america” (With no martin luther king) 

I just need people to stop calling whoever they currently view as oppressed as the new blacks.  It's offensive, and it needs to stop.  The assertion is predicated upon the understanding of black people as these pitiful little peons always getting the bozack from the state.  In my reality, black people are resilient survivors who sustained their humanity despite being perpetually disenfranchised and terrorized.  It's reductive--and frankly just not cool, if I may echo my mama and the Ladies Man--to dismiss black people as a sad group who got their rights jacked so one can draw a simile (metaphor?) about the alleged dire social conditions of another group.  Please note: It *really* bothers me when the LGBTQ community does this.

Furthermore, Latinos (a thoroughly U.S. identity designation if there ever was one) don't need a Martin Luther King.  Our brown brothers and sisters have a long line of freedom fighters, immigration activists who have led and will continue to lead the cause. will.i.am probably can't think of the names; and that's a shame, will.i.am being from L.A. (of all places!) and all.  Maybe will.i.am indeed got amnesia--but forgot about more than all that evil.  Fuckin' robot-ass mutha...  (Damn.  All of a sudden I have a taste for a Pepsi.)   To add, invoking MLK and the comparative "the new black" phrase narcissisticly and implicitly centralizes oppression, especially in the United States context, in the province of blackness.  And that needs to stop.

All oppressions are not equal, they are not all the same, but one need not validate or express the gravity of one oppression by filtering it through another.  All oppression is wrong, and if you can't see how wrong this immigration law, or any other form of racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. is without saying "Look!  They're just like black people!" then you're just not working hard enough, and should probably just shut up and think more--or ask somebody who knows.


¡Viva La Raza!