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Lupe Fiasco’s Criticism of Obama: Ignorant or Misunderstood?
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Deft Magazine writer Mandee Macchia gives her take on the Lupe-Obama fiasco.
I remember when I first heard about the Lupe Fiasco media mess. My initial reaction was dispassion. It was just another case in which the mass media zeros in on one detail, and blows it out of context. Talking to the homie and MC Hired Gun out of NYC, I realized a few things, and I took a bit of a deeper look. Fiasco’s calling Obama a terrorist was really just a commentary on government and foreign policy. Yet, the issue isn’t what Fiasco meant. It’s what he said, verbatim, and the order in which he made his statements.
Fiasco is using the opportunities afforded to him because he’s Lupe Fiasco as a platform for his views. Ok. Can’t an artist do that? The problem, unfortunately, is that someone who has that much influence and that much shine from the spotlight should realize the precarious juxtaposition of media, government, educational institutions, and popular culture in the face of his messages.
Opening up with blanket statements on Obama being the biggest terrorist of all, and then quickly mentioning oil and touching on why he won’t vote, doesn’t give the larger world a chance to hear his message in its honest form. 10-minute TV spots are 10-minute TV spots. One can’t get into Fiasco’s fundamental problems with our foreign policy, and the fight for oil and power, or the ideology behind voting practices. If he wants to be heard, he needs to speak out in a way that will filter his ideas through these different social institutions effectively.
Simply put, there was a more eloquent way for Lupe to point toward the depth of his opinions. Instead, he put himself on a soapbox for causes that seemed vaguely understood, at best.
There is a point to which I can understand what Lupe is getting at. Our government perpetuates terrorism through misguided foreign policy that doesn’t see itself as part of the problem, and doesn’t understand its part in the process of sustainable international development. Our leaders are responsible for that. But those are my thoughts on his statements, and not everyone will think of my words when they hear Lupe’s Interview with CBS.
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