A friend sent me a clip of rapper Lupe Fiasco’s recent appearance on the FoxNews show “O’Reilly Factor.” At first glance, I thought I was in the twilight zone, seeing a progressive young rapper calling Obama a terrorist and an ultra-conservative commentator defending the president.

As I watched the clip unfold, Mr. O’Reilly made this statement:

President Obama's not a terrorist. He's trying to do what he believes is the right thing to do. The United States is not a bad nation; it's a noble nation. You go out there and you talk to a lotta younger people, and this is what gets me, constituency [is] not exactly political science PhD’s, they’re impressionable kids.

Well, since I do happen to have a Ph.D. in political science and happen to be a fan of brother Fiasco, allow me to clarify and continue this young brother’s point.

Lupe Fiasco

However, I want start by revising the brother’s statement from “Obama is the biggest terrorist” to a question: “Does Obama perpetuate and support acts of terrorism?”

The answer to the latter is, unfortunately, yes. Allow me to explain what I believe Lupe was attempting to say in his recent statements.

The first example would be the assassination of Osama Bin Ladin.

As heinous and grotesque as Bin Ladin’s actions toward America were, Obama lost his moral authority when he sent his troops like a thief in the night and killed an unarmed man (which raises a whole set of questions about what Bin Ladin could have brought to light had he been given his day in court).

Was this an act of terrorism? It surly was not an act due process.

You can substitute “military operation” and “act of terrorism” and the actions are indistinguishable. As I always tell my students: Whoever controls the conversation defines the terms, concepts and reality.

Another example one can look to is Obama’s actions in Libya. Just recently, the White House sent Congress a crafty legal argument explaining why the administration does not need congressional approval to continue its “support role” in removing President Muammar Gaddafi from power.

In the statement, the administration argued that this type of activity does not constitute an act of war because the campaign will not be enduring long (hinting that they believe they will kill Gaddafi in the coming weeks). Once again, these actions equate to terrorism by any marginal definition.

Additionally, Lupe was correct in contextualizing his statement by claiming that Obama was not the only president that practiced these tactics. Nor will he be the last.

Lest we forget, terrorism has been America’s staple, and she has used this method on the indigenous population to acquire the land, through enslavement of Africans to build the infrastructure through forced free labor followed by years of social and political terrorism and now even though immigration policies aimed at Latino communities.

I guess we sometimes forget that Obama not only inherited a bad economy; he also inherited a foreign and domestic policy that has used terrorism to maintain America’s dominance. I understand that black folk do not want to wrestle with this hard truth and that it is easier to just turn a blind eye. However, we have to speak truth to power, no matter what or who it indicts.

So, to all of the parents out there who have “impressionable kids,” make sure they listen to Lupe Fiasco so they can discern Obama “Words he never said.”
***
Joseph L. Jones, Ph.D., is a scholar, activist and political scientist. Email him at josephljones@hotmail.com.

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