Edited: killer mike is disappointing

General Discussion Politics
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crushing disappointment

the left is often accused of having problems with heterodoxy, and while i don’t deny that to be true in many instances, this really isn’t one of them. i have no issue with killer mike (or anyone) advocating for gun ownership, but advocating for gun ownership ≠ lending legitimacy to the nra.

the nra has a long history of using racist dogwhistles to mobilize white voters against progressive and/or liberal candidates. in my mind, there’s no acceptable way to appear on nra tv, unless in an elaborate homage to the end of wolfenstein:tnc.

furthermore, telling his daughter that he would kick her out of the house for walking out of school in protest, and then having the gall to claim that his reasoning was that "we are not a family that jumps on every single thing an ally of ours does, because some stuff we just don’t agree with” is just ignorant as hell. telling your fanbase that you threatened to punish your children for taking positions that you don’t agree with, because sometimes individuals need to take stands against views they disagree with is just circuitous and orwellian as fuck, and for a rapper who resides so firmly within a left-wing future shock milieu, this is just unconscionable to me. where’s el-p when you need him?

the problem, to me, is not strictly a disagreement of ideology. i agree with killer mike that gun ownership is politically and morally justifiable for black americans. but using a racist platform, such as the nra, to do so makes me smdh so hard. he might as well start doing interviews with the daily stormer.

at any rate, the final straw was mike’s comments about bullying and participation trophies.

our child needs to get punched in the face so he can learn to punch someone back. and that isn’t saying that it’s right to be punched in the face. that’s saying as sure as you’re an adult, some thing or some person is going to punch you in your face. and you have to develop the aptitude and the fortitude to fight back. and that’s not just in the physical. we are raising a generation of kids where everyone gets a trophy. but in real life, everyone don’t get a trophy.

this shit is straight out of a fox news talking head round-up. while zero tolerance policies in schools MIGHT have a long-term deleterious effect on resistance skills and resiliency in general, i don’t have any evidence or data to back that up. all i know is that this interview was a macho-ass shitshow, and i’m pretty unwilling to wanna boost killer mike’s signal, at least until he offers up some explicit mea culpas.

anyone have any different perspectives on this? or does anyone just wanna commiserate about another respected artist revealing themselves to be an untrustworthy asshole?

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Apparently they are a family who jumps on every single thing a family member does, regardless of if they just don’t agree with it.

I’ve seen a lot of really good and interesting thoughts from black socialists and radicals about the importance of gun ownership in protecting themselves, with the Black Panthers being a great historical precedent, as well as the inherent difficulty that any strict gun legislation up to a straight up ban would have with regards to enforcement, seeing as the racist violent police who already like to kill black people for no reason would likely be the ones deciding where to go first. The cops already act with impunity, it’s hard to imagine they would behave any better with the ready to go excuse that the victims were armed and about to use their illegal firearm to kill the cops. Totally legit thoughts. But look at Philando Castile, a legal gun owner, shot by police for no reason, a case in which the NRA said that Castile may have been partly to blame because he had weed.

None of those people would ever go to the NRA to say this shit though. Who’s watching NRA TV? Is it the liberals and leftists fighting for gun control? Is it the black people who are unarmed and might benefit from having some form of protection? No, it’s far right racist gunfuckers who are going to tokenise Killer Mike as an excuse to do nothing.

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Whatever you think of Killer Mike’s speech, implying a black man is some sort of outside provocateur for saying something you don’t like is really, really not cool. This rhetoric has been used to discredit black voices since the days of slavery, up to nowadays when it is used by the Louise Mensch / Eric Garland crowd to claim the entirety of Black Lives Matter is a Russian psyop.

EDIT: Just so it’s clear, I think this speech is terrible and that the NRA is a vile white supremacist organization. It’s still a really bad angle to criticize it from.

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maybe i should’ve tagged my title with /s, because i’m not actually making the claim that he’s working for russia, but more that he’s repeating the planks of their platform. but yeah, long history of black intellectuals and radicals being discredited for their beliefs and associations, and i’m not trying to play into that at all.

but killer mike doesn’t need me to discredit him. his words do a good enough job of that…

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I’ve been seeing this idea lately and am genuinely curious at to what point using a gun for protection would come in to play for POC? Is the idea guns are beneficial in protecting POC in individual circumstances or as a whole against a possible future more overtly oppressive government?

(I’m asking this question as a white guy from the UK with no experience of feeling the need to protect myself with a gun or knowledge of times POC may have protected themselves with guns in the US. I’m genuinely curious to understand, not trying to say it’s wrong.)

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Please look at what you wrote and think carefully on how ridiculous it sounds.

I’m pretty disappointed in Killer Mike myself, especially if he thinks the fucking “let’s arm all the nazi militias for a quick buck” NRA is going to give a crap about protecting black people, but going right for the Russian bot joke when I can easily find hundreds upon thousands of people who actually believe it is probably a really bad idea. Satire it kind of dead at this point and all.

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Well I just found out that Killer Mike is apparently an anti-vaxxer and what even the fuck

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exactly. my flippancy is perhaps problematic, but when a person’s talking points are indistinguishable from a daily mail slash breitbart comments bot, you’ve failed a very specific kind of turing test. my sympathy, in this case, is limited. i have no problem acknowledging my own shortcomings, however.

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there are a number of reasons why the moral calculations of gun ownership would be different for black americans. to use a recent, tragic example, stephon clark was just killed last week by police for holding a cell phone in his own family’s backyard. police violence targeting black communities is absolutely commonplace in the united states, and if any group in the u.s. had a rational and legitimate need to protect themselves against governmental tyranny, black americans are definitely near the very top of that (not very long) list.

this is anecdotal, but i have several black friends who advocate for responsible gun ownership, and one friend even is starting his own gun club for black gun owners. these friends are, just the same, support gun control regulations, and are disdainful of the nra death cult. black americans, much like gun owners, or any other affinity group, are not monolithic, and there are a range of decent opinions, many of which might diverge from mine, yours, or anyone else’s. killer mike’s opinions, as espoused on nra tv, are not within that range, imho. feel free to disagree (no sarcasm).

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This is why you shouldn’t have heroes. Like, in general. Eventually you’ll end up disappointed and be reminded of the fact that no one person is infallible regardless of how much fire he spits with El-P.

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Killer Mike (who I still respect as a dope MC), can have his views on gun ownership, even if I strongly disagree with them. But to advocate them on behalf of the NRA? When has the NRA ever stood up for minority gun rights? When have they not been transparently racist in their defenses of white gun ownership? Because right now, he is in my mind the same sort of useless PoC right-wing ally like Nikki Haley, Stacey Dash, or Raj Shah. Fuck 'em and their deference to white supremacy in order to make a quite buck.

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As a Black man who is very much pro-gun ownership and very much “Left”. I’m conflicted.

To be clear, fuck the NRA. At this point they hinder legitimate gun ownership more than they help it, on top of that their reactionary history is undeniable. As is their massive amounts of political power.

Am I disappointed in Killer Mike? Yeah, but I can’t act like I don’t understand where he’s coming from. This adds to my internal conflict more than anything.

I want to support the walkouts, I want to support the march. I also know what gun control looks like in America, and it won’t save lives but it will make the most vulnerable people in society even more vulnerable. That’s what happened last time, it’s probably gonna be even worse under a president who’s threatened to invade the 3rd largest city in the country with the National Guard.

I don’t know how to end this post, because I don’t want it to. I want to have a conversation about this. But the last thread about Pro-Gun Leftism didn’t end so well. Let’s try to keep this discussion from going that same route.

Here’s something worth reading.

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speaking of conflicted, but that’s how crimthinc. usually makes me feel. most of the anarchists and crusties i’ve known irl have been massively privileged and tonedeaf, but i generally agree with their pov. the only thing that really holds me at bay is their “choose a side” forced binary.

otoh, america is certainly in the midst of a civil war, the white majority just hasn’t admitted it yet. so, yeah, i’m personally in support of responsible gun ownership within means, while also being skeptical that even severe regulations would somehow reduce the incidence rate of mass violence. and yet, i also know that it can be several things simultaneously: we can change the leadership, be more strategic, find means to take the reins, as long as those means are democratic (socialist), while also enacting some meaningful legislation. the former need not preclude the latter. but yeah, state violence towards minoritized groups is a much bigger example of gun violence and terrorism than these spree shooters. gun control won’t change a damn thing about that either, and that is a very important thing to account for during this national conversation.

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Killer Mike says and nods along with so much ridiculous shit in that video it’s staggering. That someone can spend so much time spitting bars that are unabashedly anti-establishment af and then shill for an organization which has done nothing but pour dirty money into our political system and look out for no one but their predominantly white following is disgusting and pretty unforgivable. Where was the NRA to defend someone like Philando Castile, brutally murdered at the hands of the police for being a law-abiding citizen in possession of a legal firearm? Why is it NRA members who are the quickest to cite entirely racist defenses against gun control legislation “but uhhhh people in Chicago shoot eachother and they have gun control laws sooo uhhhh”.

Other highlights from this video include them arguing that celebrities should use their money to try and fund our entire ailing educational system instead of making that a government responsibility, killer mike threatening to kick his kids out for believing in something he doesn’t, and him saying that everyone needs to just toughen up and bullying wouldn’t be an issue if we just teach ourselves how to assault other people as a solution to our problems. Nice!

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Please watch.

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No, he can fuck right off. He’s a grown ass man who worked with the NRA and he’s an anti-vaxxer. I don’t ever want to hear about him ever again.

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God, this is frustrating. I don’t know a whole lot about Killer Mike, but I will also reassert as others have that the Black Panthers are one of the founding precedents for the gun ownership conversation.

So this makes sense to me.

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This feels weak. I mean, even if we accept that he just made a mistake by giving the NRA an interview, most of the stuff he said is still terrible (I mean the stuff about his kids, not black gun ownership, which should be supported).

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I, for one, am shocked that the dude who re-popularized the slur “fuckboy” has some other problematic takes.

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Please read.

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