Islam is at the heart of an emerging global anti-hegemonic culture that combines diasporic and local cultural elements, and blends Arab, Islamic, black and Hispanic factors to generate "a revolutionary black, Asian and Hispanic globalization, with its own dynamic counter-modernity constructed in order to fight global imperialism. (say what!)
Just some of my favorites from this great artist who will be missed.
His most famous (and commercialized, and copied, and parodied) piece is:
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
But some less well known pieces are:
Ghetto Code (Dot Dot Dit Dit Dot Dot Dash), an inspired meditation on the United States government's role in the world.
and:
H20-Gate Blues, on the moral aftermath of the Watergate scandal. (I'm not certain if an honest-to-goodness sample was used, but the music and some lines from this piece also inspired KMD on the piece Bananapeel Blues which has nothing to do with Nixon, but is instead a breakdown of Five Percenter theology).
I wouldn't say that I agree with Imam Zaid's ultimate position in the article Why I Oppose the US-led Intervention in Libya but I think he makes some valuable cautionary observations about the U.S.'s latest (mis)adventure in the Muslim world.
Terrorist Attacks on U.S. Soil by Group, From 1980 to 2005, According to FBI database
A couple of interesting links: From Loonwatch: All Terrorists are Muslims... Except the 94% that Aren't summarizes an updated FBI report of terrorist acts on US soil. As you can see for yourself from the above pie graph, among the counter-stereotypical results are: 1) Only 6% of the terrorist acts on US soil in the period covered were committed by Muslims. 2) In fact, slightly more terrorist acts were committed by Jewish groups. And finally, 3) the largest category of groups associated with acts of terrorism in the US is apparently Latino! (although this includes both far-right anti-Castro terrorist groups and left-leaning pro-Puerto Rican independence groups)
I think that some folks have a hard time believing in conspiracy theories because they tend to imagine them only in their most cartoonish versions. As if one morning they had a CIA staff meeting and some guy writes up on a dry-erase board:
Agenda Brainstorm: How to keep the Black man down Idea #1 Introduce drugs into the inner-city Idea #2 Invent AIDS Idea #3 Kill Biggie Idea #4 Kill Tupac (for real this time) Idea #5 Put Jar-Jar Binks in The Phantom Menace
The real conspiracies tend to be a bit more complex than that. Ronald Reagan wanted to fight Communism in Latin America, especially Nicaragua, so he gives support to the Contras. In 1982 the Bolandamendment is passed by the US Congress which makes it illegal to give military aid to the Contras. So if you are a staunch anti-Communist and still want to give funds to the Contras, then that leaves illegal means of support. A quick and effective way to do that (especially if you have the power to tell the drug enforcement bodies to look the other way) is to sell drugs. And if you are a staunch anti-Communist then the benefits of overthrowing the Sandinistas will outweigh the negative blowback (which will mostly blow back onto Blacks anyway). And so it goes...
