Hip-Hop Fridays: The Leftists From Hell by Hans Zeiger

America’s finest advocate for “social justice” and “equality” is none other than Eminem, the popularly revolting rapper whose recent lyrics glorify such things as drugs, murder, rape and other sorts of atrocious pastimes. Eminem is the quintessential homophobe and the quintessential chauvinist, but he is quite celebrated in the corner of the left that had him as the keynote speaker for last weekend’s Detroit Hip-Hop Summit, an effort to register young gangstas to vote.

Eminem himself is not a voter, for he is a convicted felon. But that did not deter the organizer of the Hip-Hop Summit, Russell Simmons. Simmons created the quarter billion dollar Def Jam Records empire, built the rap music industry and helped make it into a depraved culture of its own. In 2001, Simmons founded the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network to harness “the cultural relevance of hip-hop music to serve as a catalyst for education advocacy and other societal concerns fundamental to the well-being of at-risk youth.”

Ironic about the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network is that at-risk youth are at risk precisely because they listen to Eminem’s music and follow the twisted social thinking of Russell Simmons. Of course, at-risk youth have other negative influences, but it certainly doesn’t help things when Eminem is chanting, “B****, I’ma kill you, you don’t wanna f*** with me!”

Other at-risk rappers at the Detroit Hip-Hop Summit included such names as Proof, Swift, Bizarre, Young Buck, Reverend Run, the Ying Yang Twins, Obie Trice, Bizzy Bone, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Green Lantern, Big Pat, Big Herk and Phat Cat. The contents of these rappers’ “songs” tend toward love, peace and goodwill toward men. Just joking. They’re actually the top-40 bards of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Bone Thugs-n-Harmony spews dirges like “Die, Die, Die,” “Mo’ Murda,” and “Hell Sent,” in which the group boasts of being “straight from the burning flames of hell / a place where all assassins dwell.” Another rapper at the Hip-Hop summit was Lil’ Scrappy who hails not from the bottomless pit, but he is “the beast from the East, wit da fangs on my teeth / I’ll murder all of y’all b****es in da middle of da street.”

That’ll rot the souls of America’s at-risk youth.

Then there’s Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, who sits on the Board of Directors of HSAN, a star representative of his genre. P. Diddy is infamous for fleeing New York City police after a 1999 nightclub shooting, and he was also arrested on charges of assaulting a music executive in 2000. HSAN calls its director, “one of the most admired role models for millions of youth across the United States and throughout the world.”

That is not a good fact, but it is a fact. These gangster rappers and hip-hop cons have an almost unparalleled sway over the minds and hearts of young Americans and in particular, young voters.

Since the 2003 Detroit Hip-Hop Summit, HSAN has registered more than 75,000 new voters in the state of Michigan. At a recent Philadelphia Hip-Hop Summit, 11,000 new voters were registered in a single day. Thousands more have registered to vote during summits in New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Washington, Seattle and Dallas. With upcoming summits at Ohio State University, New Orleans Arena, Boston, and six other locations over the summer, HSAN has set a goal of 2 million new registered voters by the November election.

Eminem’s politics, and the politics of HSAN, are leftist, but we’re talking the left side of hell. Eminem’s vile political mission is best summarized in his song “White America”: “I am the derringer aimed at little Erica to attack her character / The ringleader of this circus of worthless pawns / Sent to lead the march right up to the steps of Congress / and piss on the lawns of the White House / To burn the flag and replace it with a Parental Advisory sticker.”

These are the forces of soul destruction gone political. Voting is not meant to be cool for gangster rappers, or hip for the young, or unconscious of its heritage. Voting is a great privilege to be entered into only by citizens who understand the gravity of the issues they hold in their hands. So thank God that Eminem can’t vote, but thank the devil that all of Eminem’s fans are being registered. Though they themselves are quite liberated in the flesh, the hip-hop vote is coercive and totalitarian in nature. In the words of Eminem from the song “F*** off,” “You do what we say and we’ll do what we want to.”


Hans Zeiger is a Seattle Times columnist and conservative activist. He is president of the Scout Honor Coalition and a student at Hillsdale College in Michigan. Contact him at hazeiger@hillsdale.edu


This article appeared at The Arbiter

© 2004 Arbiter Online
Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service

Friday, July 30, 2004