Cyrus Langhorne
West Coast rapper Game has come forward to pen an emotional editorial piece on the violence and riots happening in Baltimore, Maryland this week.
In his write-up, Game explained why there is so much frustration and anger amongst oppressed people.
“I’m not there [in Baltimore] to gauge the balance between now and the ’92 riots, but I understand the anger. I understand people wanting to be heard and being tired and fed up. I feel what happened to Freddie Gray was just another reminder of the neglect of the African-American youth in America and us as people. Look at how long we’ve been victims of the world. From slavery, from not being able to vote, up until our children. Young black men in general are targets. People [are] using unlawful force to take our lives. We’ve seen kids shot [and] beaten. We’ve seen everything. At the end of the day, we get fed up.” (Billboard)
Game also discussed mainstream news media singling out Baltimore youth.
“I’ve watched CNN the last few days, and they’ve called those kids “thugs” and “animals.” Everybody’s not a thug, man. We’re calling these young black kids and our youth “animals” and “thugs,” and it makes them more angry. We’re doing that when you’ve got thugs and animals that are police officers, firemen [and] congressmen. In Jeezy’s voice, you’d call that “corporate thuggin’.”” (Billboard)
Speaking at Frederick Douglass High School in Baltimore, alongside Reverend Jamal Bryant, rap star Wale talked about the importance of speaking to youth this week.
“Regardless of what’s happened out here, these are the young leaders of tomorrow and they have to look in the mirror and see something better than what they’re being perceived as on TV,” Wale said. “We need each other. We need our community leaders to come step forward and we need these kids to understand that somebody believes in them. I believe in them, Jamal believes in them and there’s a lot of people in this community that believe in these kids.” (My Fox DC)
Atlanta rapper Waka Flocka Flame applauded buzz about national gangs like the Bloods and Crips coming together to demand justice for slain Maryland man Freddie Gray this week.
https://instagram.com/p/1_j_nQwyPd/?taken-by=wakaflockabsm
Aside from those peacefully protesting, of course they’re thugs. Opportunists taking advantage of a bad situation to loot and riot.
Stop coonin’. Why are you not talking about the people who killed Freddie Gray?? Are they not thugs?
that’s a clown statement son@cameo,,looting isn’t the answer but trust me if all those people were thugs the situation would have been a lot worse,,thugs killed Freddie gray,, clown@cameo