LL Cool J On Jay Leno
April 12, 2013 @ 8:46 AM EDT
News
LL Cool J continued his press run yesterday and appeared on the Tonight Show With Jay Leno. Once again, he explained his stance on “Accidental Racist”, Men’s Fitness cover and Bajan roots growing in Queens.
Agree or Disagree I thought he explained himself well
Neva heard the song…have no intention of hearing it…but the way that nigg explained it makes me wonder what all the fuss is about…Chuuch….
I was HEATED at LL when I first heard the song but I think he explained himself very well. The context really does matter. His verse wasn’t really bad. It was just the ad libs at the end that seemed to equate a du-rag with the confederate flag, but he explained that it wasn’t trying to equate them, but it was more “Don’t judge people by what they’re wearing. For some the Confederate flag is just a southern pride thing and they don’t intend to wear it to be racist. And don’t judge black people who wear du rags(or hoodies) and assume that they’re thugs.”
I think a few of the lines could have been written better to convey what he was going for more clearly… but it’s clear from the context that he’s not saying forget about the history of abuse that slavery and segregation back in the day and the systemic racism that still exists today is causing, but don’t be defined by that either.
It’s a message that some black leaders (Bill Cosby being the most prominent) have been saying to the community for awhile. And for the most part, they have been demonized for speaking some hard truths. And while it may have been more effective and necessary to have a more militant tone to communicate our frustrations with the past it’s much more effective at this stage of the game to tone down the rhetoric and try to speak to one another without screaming at each other.
He definitely could have communicated that better in the song, but I’m glad to hear explaining himself in these interviews.
Hopefully people will get over the need to just clown LL because it’s become the funny thing to do and they’ll take a minute to hear what he was intending. Unfortunately, most people won’t and this will probably go down as an L for him.
Co-sign @Dashing
the problem has always been that america would have us (Black people) cut off our roots and seek acceptance on their terms, which is a eurocentered standard. Black people can’t afford, spiritually, mentally, politically, economically, socially, to accept a euro standard, or yard stick by which we govern our existence. it has to be afro-centered because, again, we can’t be cut off from our roots. that’s what american slavery did, and that’s what we’ve been trying to correct, or re-acquaint with, while at the same time the value system that is in the fabric of america is contrary to that necessity of ours, in its nature.
we need to come together as a country. sure. but not on their terms, because there is no justice in their terms. justice, in truth, will inherently do a lot more separating than it will reconciling. if the conversation LL is talking about isn’t based in truth, and justice, and really atonement, then it’s not worth having more conversations full of empty, pacifying rhetoric. lies, half-truths, and deception. and as a people, we still need to busy ourselves with some collective economics and self-love, FIRST.
s/o to Dashing n shit.
@ Nathaniel just wrote 2 paragraphs of utter gibberish.
lol Dude quickly typed a slew of moronic ramblings & masked em using coherent sentence structure.
There’s no such thing as a ‘euro standard’ or ‘afro-centred’.
Europe and Africa are large, diverse continents with a wide range of beliefs, values & cultural practices.
This sums up the comical contradictions in his comment:
‘we need to come together as a country. sure. but not on their terms’