Lil Wayne and Emmett Till

Below is a before and after picture of 14-year-old Emmett Till -- before he was brutally tortured and murdered in 1955 for allegedly whistling at a white woman . . . and after. 




And below is an excerpt of the lyrics in Lil Wayne's verse on the new Future remix Karate Chop: 

"Pop a lot of pain pills
Bout to put rims on my skateboard wheels
Beat that pussy up like Emmett Till
Yeah….
Two cell phones ringin’ at the same time
That’s your ho, callin’ from two different phones
Tell that bitch “leave me the fuck alone!”
See, you fuck her wrong, and I fuck her long.”

What are your thoughts?

In an interview given shortly after the song came out (and posted below) the late young Mr. Till's family shared theirs:

“To compare his murder and how beaten and how bullied, beatened, and tortured he was to the anatomy of a woman was really very disrespectful,” said Taylor in a video posted on RapRadar.com. “We found it dishonorable to his name and what his death has meant to us as a people and as a culture. It was offensive not only to us, but to our ancestors and to women and to themselves as young, black men. I just couldn’t understand how you could compare the gateway of life to the brutality and punishment of death. And I feel as though they have no pride and no dignity as black men.”
Taylor then went on to state that not only is the Till family concerned with Till’s image, they’re also concerned with the young people who happen to be immersed in Lil Wayne’s music.
“Our family was very offended, very hurt,” Taylor revealed. “Disturbed by it…Our young people they emulate what they see, what they hear, and what they’re immersed in. And then we question them as they grow up and become citizens and they’re supposed to be productive in society and they’re not productive. And society is already criminalizing our young, black men at every opportunity they have. So it just really concerns us that here you are using Emmett Till’s name in such an egregious way and you’re not having any respect for yourselves as well as our family. And that’s the biggest concern. We’re concerned about our young people as well as the image of Emmett Till.”

 I'm going to be honest . . . up until now I was a big Lil Wayne fan (remember how you cringed when I first told you that, Nzinga Oyaniyi? LOL), and thought he was just in need of little guidance, and a lot of spiritual cleansing. 

I now think he is beyond help, and I'm getting rid of all his music.

But let me clear . . . this is NOT an indictment against hip-hop music, or the hip-hop generation. There are quite a few young rappers in my opinion, that have at least some sense of consciousness. And there are even more young non-rappers with a hell of a lot of consciousness.
 
No... my post is this specifically regarding Lill Wayne.