David Banner Clarifies Context Of Sharpton Rant

[blackwisdom]

Before I get to the contents of this post I'd like to explain why I posted it here. This is a very critical issue. So-called leaders aren't connected to our (Hip Hop) true culture and lifestyle. This is a real issue, not just a trivial matter. D. Banner is on some real stuff. I want to get some real replies and not just jokes. That's why I posted it here.

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DAVID BANNER CLARIFIES CONTEXT OF SHARPTON RANT: Rapper’s camp releases statement and lengthy open letter.
(August 16, 2007)Email to a friend | Print Friendly avid Banner’s camp has released a statement regarding the public feud between the rapper and Rev. Al Sharpton over the activist’s attempt to clean up rap lyrics.


The statement, e-mailed to EUR yesterday, backtracks on the recent profanity-laced comments Banner made toward Sharpton, saying they were from a “conversation on a DJ conference call,” and not “from a formal interview. …The manner in which it was delivered was not how he would respond in an interview.”


Among other choice words, Banner was quoted on rap site SOHH.com as saying: "The next time you see Al Sharpton, tell him I said f*ck him and he can suck my d*ck. I might change the name of my album from ‘The Greatest Story Never Told’ to ‘F*ck Al Sharpton.’”

Kirsten John-Foy from Sharpton’s National Action Network responded with a statement that referred to Banner by his real name, Levell Crump. It read, in part:


“In keeping with the National Action Network’s Decency Initiative, I am sure Rev. Sharpton would not call Crump the ‘N’ ‘B’ or ‘H’ word. And, despite Crump’s personal request, I am sure Reverend Sharpton would not call him a f-g--t. He would just pray for him. We at NAN are pro civil rights for everyone, even Levell Crump who has not had a banner year since his debut album in 2003.”


The response from Banner’s camp included an open letter from the rapper that is said to have been written before his public comments about Sharpton, yet not released until now.


“Banner’s true feelings and points that he desires to get across can be found in the letter,” the statement explains.

Here it is in its entirety:


Wrote A Letter To The Government The Other Day!

Stop Attacking The Kids


To all the black ‘so called leaders’. Al, Oprah, Jesse, etc, etc, etc… I’m saddened by your current direction and current ‘pet projects’ you guys have taken under your wing at the expense of Young Black America. As an urban professional living in this crazy world, I dare ask, who are you leading? I listen to what you say, I hear you complain about the youth, and about the direction of our lives, the kids, and where Black America is going and yet I still ask – who are you guys leading? And most importantly, where are we going? Do we know the goal we are trying to reach before we get there? Have we identified our end before articulating our means to an end! Who are you REALLY reaching? Why do you feel the need to attack the young generation for the things we are doing? "WHO DID WE LEARN THESE THINGS FROM? We are trying to have fun in the midst of our traumatic circumstances. People are trying to make a living by any means necessary, people are voicing their experiences, people are speaking the truth about situations and honestly the truth hurts and sometimes it’s ugly. If music/hip hop/ rappers are wrong with the language they use, the images they portray in their videos – then come talk to us – I use the term ‘us’ as a collective because I’m defending what I have a passion for so this also involves me. Pull us to the side and say “hey kids, that’s not the way to go” and then we can say “change what we see daily so we cansing and rap about the roses and not about the bullets”. We will say, help give us better situations to create better verbal material”. Don’t just go running off to the media to air the dirty laundry of the family and not expect us to fight back in some kind of way. What you are doing is wrong and it’s pissing off a lot of people with less money and camera

time! Young Black America’s problem is not Hip Hop or the music, Young Black America’s problem is Old White America. In the young black community, there is a growing level of resentment toward the ‘so called leaders’ because you guys DON’T WANT TO REALLY FIX OUR PROBLEMS. You guys don’t really want to be on our side fighting for better school systems, more after school programs, more money for college funding! Where areyou leaders at when there’s a need to break down to freshman in college on how not to get caught up with credit cards by singing up for an MBNA card, with high interest rates that eventually screw up your credit and makes it that much harder for you to become a homeowner after you graduate college pending you can find a job in your field after you’ve spent all this money in student loans! Where are those seminars? Dubois had it right when he spoke of the Talented Tenth! Rally around us to help teach us about THIS life! It’s not our fault that the world is messed up and filled with debauchery. It’s not our fault that our communities are screwed! The problems in our community should not fall on our lap. And if you begin to hold us accountable for simply our words – then I will begin to hold you accountable for your actions; or lack there of. Right is right and wrong is wrong. You as our leaders should have taken a better approach to gaining the attention of those that you are dissatisfied with and had a conversation with them. You don’t scold your child in public without fair warning!


Al Sharpton: You run around towns and cities speaking words of wanting to better our community by cleaning up the airwaves. You hold rallies in front of radio stations saying turn off the music and clean the airwaves. You want to shut down local stations that are playing urban music when most of these local stations house and employ the same people in your community – the black community. When you visit any station in any city (big or small) playing urban/rap music, the staff is generally black. Now if those stations were to ever shut down – where do those employees go? Al, if you are for the people, where was your rally when the 3 college students were executed in New Jersey by black men. Where is the rally atfor those families and that neighborhood??? I don’t see you out there asking for justice yet that incident happened in a black community. If someone was to rap about “how f**** up black on black crime is and how even if you go to college you aren’t safe on the streets and nigga’s aint’ s---” – that kind of tone is offensive to you and you want to stop that! If that’s the truth, then why are you censoring it? No, you need to stop the crime before it happens so that there is no gangster song about a gangster situation.


Oprah: You recently you held a town hall meeting dedicating 2 days of talk to have an open forum about the “Nappy Headed Ho” comment from Imus. Everyone had their 2cents to say and yet the people that needed to REALLY be there were not at all on your panel of ‘experts’. The questions all were about “why use the word ho or b**** or nigga etc” yet the rappers in question ala Nelly, Snoop, Ludacris weren’t anywhere present on your panel. In my eyes you had all the wrong people on there representing and speaking on behalf of other people. Common is great but he’s not gangsta. If you had a problem with the true content of rap songs then where were those that do that kind of rap

100%? You want to talk about change, and about having us not call women in rap songs “bitches” and “hoes” but one thing I noted, you had all men on your panel of executives. Russell is wonderful but he’s not the Zenith when it comes to new school rappers or their new school mentality. Kevin Liles is great but what happened to Sylvia Rhone the head of the label that Nelly is signed to, or Kathy Hughes the head of Radio One or Deborah Lee the head of BET. If the problem really was about women and the “bitch, ho” term being used, where were those ladies to speak on their stance on this issue! They are the ones with the ultimate say pulling all the strings and yet they weren’t dully noted as absent from your panel! Oprah you are suppose to protect us, I can find more harm being done to the black community by the movies and sponsors you promote than any rap song.


Just like your son or daughter, niece or nephew… rappers are just kids growing into their own. They aren’t always right, but they aren’t always wrong either. If our path is misguided, then help us get back on the right road. I’m young, I’m black, and I’m a hard worker. I’m from the hood where mother’s leave their kids in the hands of strangers and never look back, I’ve been with killers, dope dealers, b******, church folk, grandparents, bad parenting from good parents, pushers, junkies, robbers, middleclass workers, but that’s the life I’vebeen around. Gunshots and church hymns usually go hand in hand in most neighborhoods. The grim reality for a lot of kids out there living alone is that life is harsh and cold; kids grow up faster than they want to because they are forced too! Kids are growing up in situations that are f***** up. So the songs we listen to mirror the things we see, the things we dream about and the fantasies we have! Don’t change the songs I listen to, change the circumstance from which it comes from---then the situation will be better!


Growing up in this world of hip hop it’s disheartening to see our ‘so called leaders’ leave us out to dry. Fine you don’t like what we say. Fine disagree with our choice of topics; however, the things we talk about aren’t new. We didn’t invent the term pimps, pushers, hoes, tricks, doobies, nigga’s and gangsta’s. Hip Hop didn’t create that. Those words were left here for us to use by you guys, your generation. This life we are continuing to live was handed to us by the people before us who didn’t do much to clean it up. There may never be a time that we agree on anything, but there is always room for change. As a family – we will agree to disagree but it’s the synergy in which we do it. If you are on one extreme tangent, and I’m on another, we will never meet eye to eye. At the same time, I will not allow you to bash, yell, condemn, and have a condescending tone on my source of refugee and happiness. As you leaders call out the hip hop community saying that we are wrong for what we do and how we do it, I am CALLING EACH OF YOU OUT saying you are wrong for what you are doing to us. How dare you guys not call Nelly, Snoop, Lil Wayne, David Banner, Jim Jones, Akon, Rick Ross, Fabulous, 50 cent, Young Buck, Bun B, Too Short and say lets talk this through. Do you even know who ANY of these people are??????? You are so disconnected from us that we don’t even look at you for guidance. If you really want to change something, start by changing your dialogue. Don’t talk at us, talk to us!


-DAVID BANNER

[IrOnMaN]

Cheers to David Banner!

I totally agree with everything he said, truly. I wish he would have included Bill Cosby in this letter because most of the statements he says are just out of line. I'm speechless. He spoke for his and my generation in terms of how and why things are the way they are with young blacks. David Banner he smart. Doesn't he have a B.S. in English? I hope his letter gets display in magazines and TV.

Thanks, Blackwisdom.

[Huggasaurus Sex]

yeah i don't think censoring rappers would improve black people's situation. but unfortunately, i don't think anything will...

[Slippy The Pimp]

yeah i don't think censoring rappers would improve black people's situation. but unfortunately, i don't think anything will...

Explain.

[Huggasaurus Sex]

the only populations that were less ravaged by imperialism than blacks were the native americans and australians, and their situation certainly isn't getting any better. and if we look at which populations have been able to rise up and challenge euro-american hegemony it's been asian nations that were able to basically beat the imperialists at their own game. it's just an opinion, but i believe blacks are less inclined to play by those rules. and banner's reaction has kinda confirmed my beliefs.

[CharlesJones]

Very good topic and i agree with everything David Banner said. What these black leaders need to learn is that before rap music came along, there was crime in the black community. I'm so tired of the older generation of blacks blaming rap music for the ignorance in the ghetto. Crime will always be a problem in the black community because ignorant blacks don't wanna change and be somebody other than a criminal. They don't wanna go to school to educate themselves and read because to them, that's boring. How else are you gonna make it in this fucked up world if you don't read and educate yourself? White rich people definitely aren't gonna give you a job because they don't care about poor ignorant blacks. You have to read and work for what you want because nobody is gonna give you anything and until ignorant blacks realize that, black on black crime will continue to happen. The problem with ignorant blacks is that they have so much self hatred towards themselves and other blacks. I don't know why they're like that but that's how they are. I would like to see rappers rap about education and politics more to educate the black youth because i'm tired of these wack ass topics that rappers are talking about like clubbing, sex, violence, materialism. The black youth look up to these rappers so rappers need to change their topics and talk about what's more important. I do agree like David Banner said that these black leaders/politicians need to talk to these rappers and ask them why they rap about the ignorant stuff they talk about. The reason why Oprah didn't have those rappers on her show that David named is because her show has a majority white female audience and those white people would be scared shitless if those rappers he named came on her show to talk about why they rap about what they rap about LOL.

[TSA]

"Young Black America’s problem is not Hip Hop or the music, Young Black America’s problem is Old White America."


Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahh !




that's the truest shit since ODB!


I've always liked Banner, he's an intellegent man.



im sick of older black ppl acting like the reason shits bad for blacks is cause 100% of blacks aren't model citizens.


i don't even think 20% of whites are model citizens.


it ain't about "acting right", it's about being a slimy leech, and manipulation. If there was a black group of 100 influential ppl that are secertive and specifically designed to be a black illuminati the problem is solved.

That's why there's a government, not EVERYONE needs to be the brothers keeper, just a small group and willing it suck blood from everyone else.

Asains have done well because the lack of imperialism and a culture that VALUES not fucking up.


White ppl have because of that group that has look out for them (the US gov)

Blacks are doing a lot better but haven't because technically they've been citizens for 40 years and this is the first generation that can have a non janitorial job. AND these mother fuckers are trying to kill us.
AND after filling 21 applications I get 1 call back.

[CharlesJones]

I agree with you about whites discriminating against blacks on the job. They've been doing that for a long time and they haven't changed. I hate filling out job applications too because it takes them forever to call me and most of the time, they don't call me at all. Like Willie D of the Geto Boys said on If I Was White song, last hired and first fired, that's us LOL. Man i'm sick and tired of these prejudiced bastards LOL. One million niggas in the NFL and not one black owner. Willie D speaking the truth. Ya'll should listen to that song. He speaks the truth about white people. At the end of the song, he talks and he says when a white man goes to court, the jury look at him different because he's a upstanding citizen because of the color of his skin but when they look at a black man, they say he's a slave slave slave nigga nigga nigga hahahahahahahaha.

[Huggasaurus Sex]

"Young Black America’s problem is not Hip Hop or the music, Young Black America’s problem is Old White America."

i agree

Asains have done well because the lack of imperialism and a culture that VALUES not fucking up.

well asians encountered imperialists as well but by that time they'd already formed empires which were capable of repelling an invasion, and they were able to use trade to their advantage instead of having their resources plundered like in africa and the middle east. also asian nations were able to industrialize quickly because the bureaucratic structures were already firmly in place unlike in sub-saharran africa.

black culture values failure no more than any other culture but it's all in how you define the goals. is the kind of life that white people and asians work for the same kind of life that blacks want? its wars for oil, war on drugs, war on terrorism, the proliferation of corporation-controlled capitalist "democracies," global free trade, etc. all these things are more or less attendant with the greed-fueled lifestyles that whites and asians aspire to, whether they know it or not.

[SHEEPISH LORD OF CHAOS]

my man david banner talked nothing but motherfucking truth man, truth i was saying the same thing when i watched that fucking town hall meeting lets break it down though we as black people and as hip hoppas we hurt ourselves by not policing ourselves and these people try and do it but they don't know our culture like we know our culture so why aren't we doing something

[blackwisdom]

the only populations that were less ravaged by imperialism than blacks were the native americans and australians, and their situation certainly isn't getting any better. and if we look at which populations have been able to rise up and challenge euro-american hegemony it's been asian nations that were able to basically beat the imperialists at their own game. it's just an opinion, but i believe blacks are less inclined to play by those rules. and banner's reaction has kinda confirmed my beliefs.

You do make a good argument. I say that in order for a people to totally achieve THEIR goals of independence and self reliance that people must control their Land, Culture (History, Science, Arts, etc), and Resources (Economy, revenue flow). Most of the Asian nations that have knocked Europeans off their backs possess these things. Most of the Nations that still suffer from imperialism don't possess these things.

My $.02

[blackwisdom]

The problem with ignorant blacks is that they have so much self hatred towards themselves and other blacks. I don't know why they're like that but that's how they are.

We're trained to hate ourselves from our nappy heads to our black feet.

The reason why Oprah didn't have those rappers on her show that David named is because her show has a majority white female audience and those white people would be scared shitless if those rappers he named came on her show to talk about why they rap about what they rap about LOL.

Good point.

[blackwisdom]

well asians encountered imperialists as well but by that time they'd already formed empires which were capable of repelling an invasion, and they were able to use trade to their advantage instead of having their resources plundered like in africa and the middle east. also asian nations were able to industrialize quickly because the bureaucratic structures were already firmly in place unlike in sub-saharran africa.

black culture values failure no more than any other culture but it's all in how you define the goals. is the kind of life that white people and asians work for the same kind of life that blacks want? its wars for oil, war on drugs, war on terrorism, the proliferation of corporation-controlled capitalist "democracies," global free trade, etc. all these things are more or less attendant with the greed-fueled lifestyles that whites and asians aspire to, whether they know it or not.

I like the way you put this. Great points.

[blackwisdom]

my man david banner talked nothing but motherfucking truth man, truth i was saying the same thing when i watched that fucking town hall meeting lets break it down though we as black people and as hip hoppas we hurt ourselves by not policing ourselves and these people try and do it but they don't know our culture like we know our culture so why aren't we doing something

We lack proper foundation and infrastructure. A lot of our true Hip Hop leaders are marginalized, silenced, bought out, or knocked out. We have some great leaders but unfortunately their voices don't carry as far and as strong (at this time) as we need them to in order to saturate to the point where they will be maximumly effective. This is a very partial reply.

[TSA]

i agree


well asians encountered imperialists as well but by that time they'd already formed empires which were capable of repelling an invasion, and they were able to use trade to their advantage instead of having their resources plundered like in africa and the middle east. also asian nations were able to industrialize quickly because the bureaucratic structures were already firmly in place unlike in sub-saharran africa.

black culture values failure no more than any other culture but it's all in how you define the goals. is the kind of life that white people and asians work for the same kind of life that blacks want? its wars for oil, war on drugs, war on terrorism, the proliferation of corporation-controlled capitalist "democracies," global free trade, etc. all these things are more or less attendant with the greed-fueled lifestyles that whites and asians aspire to, whether they know it or not.

true true, but there's a comfort with having little in black culture, and im not blaming them, this is the first generation that they've been citizens for, before that it was crazy to think you'll even get paid minimum wage, or at all.

things are getting better for blacks and their achievements will never by highlighted because the general culture is used to them not doing well and associate them with that on some typical blame the victim shit.



Asains that are intouch with their culture do better in school then the ones that are more Americanized. It's a part of their cultural values to do well in school, and that's they're route to success.




another thing is black people are constantly debating their general moral standing in the country but why don't white people? You never see Rush Limbach or whatever talking about curbing racism, the high divorce rates, child/spouse abuse or anything else that goes on with white people, but when a black person fucks up in comes the national debate.

even with this Imus thing, it's now the black rappers that influenced him, cause we all know that faggot has Death Certificate bangin in his tape deck.



and also
The only Asain culture that didn't deal with imperalism in Japan.

Ethiopia was also able to repel invasion.