Responding to the question “Trayvon Martin one year later, what have we learned?” on CNN Tuesday morning, hip-hop activist Chuck D went on to discuss how the downfall of the Black community directly coincided with the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush years.
Being interviewed by “CNN Newsroom’s Carol Costello, the Public Enemy front man said that the murder of Trayvon was the consequence of one being armed and the other being unarmed:
“One man had a gun and one didn’t, and we’re going on a story that this man is telling everybody.”
Barely missing a beat, Chuck D then turned the conversation to the state of the Black community since — what he coined — “R&B”:
“The bottom line is this: Back when I was growing up, you couldn’t find a gun on anybody. Since 1980, the beginning of R&B, Reagan and Bush, there’s been nothing but guns and drugs in the Black community for the last 30-some-odd years.”
Chuck D then spoke about how this reality correlated with Black male incarceration rates:
“There’s been an upswing of people in prison — largely Black males — since that time, and nobody seems to give a clear answer. And when these things all come out, these are the side effects that come out of it: race is America’s folly.
Returning to the Trayvon Martin murder, Chuck D said that, unfortunately, the murder of Black youth isn’t new:
“When you talk about an incident like this, it’s just the same old tired story over and over again, and it’s reared its ugly head once again. I’ve been seeing it for the past 30 years.
“I’m going back and forth with this cat right on Twitter on how he thinks the case is just all wrong and everybody’s got it all wrong. They are talking about [Trayvon allegedly] head banging [shooter George Zimmerman] on the pavement. [Look,] one person had a gun and one person didn’t. One person’s dead and the one we’re relying on is the story that’s told from the person who had the gun…Stop!
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