A Love Letter To Lupe

Dear Lupe,

Lupe Fiasco, you have been an influence of the young people for some time now. Ever since you emerged nationally on the music scene in 2006, you’ve been the person to speak out against injustice, have helped Africans receive clean drinking water and have fed the hungry.

Unlike most rappers, I believe you’re probably one of the most intelligent and brightest MCs to emerge on the music scene in a long time. What I don’t agree with is how you’ve been criticizing President Barack Obama over his decisions to invade Afghanistan and his alleged “acceptance” of the war in Israel and Palestine.

In your interview with CBS News's "What's Trending," you were asked about the U.S.'s fight against terrorism and your reply was “In my fight against terrorism, to me, the biggest terrorist is Obama in the United States of America.” You go on to say, “For me, I’m trying to fight the terrorism that’s actually causing the other forms of terrorism. The root cause of the terrorism is the stuff that you as a government allow to happen and the foreign policies that we have in place in different countries that inspire people to become terrorists. And it’s easy for us because it’s really just some oil, which we can really get on our own.”

Calling the President of the United States, Barack Obama, the “Biggest Terrorist,” is premature and a downright ridiculous statement. We all can agree that the United States government system is flawed. President Obama didn’t flaw the system or create the ridiculous foreign policies that the U.S. government prides itself on. The U.S. government has been flawed and pretty shady since its inception.

Do I think Barack Obama has the power to change the nasty motives and flawed foreign policies of the United States Government? Unfortunately, No. President Obama can’t even get the Republicans and Democrats to agree on health care, the economy, or damn near anything, for that matter.

I totally agree that the United States Government is somewhat a terroristic organization. The past of our government is far from squeaky clean, but it wasn’t Barack Obama who legalized slavery. It wasn’t Barack Obama who murdered the Native Americans one by one during colonization. It wasn’t Barack Obama who rounded up the Japanese and every Asian face in America and put them in internment camps. It wasn’t Barack Obama who wrote and signed the Balfour Declaration of 1917. He, himself, is not the terrorist you should be targeting. I think an overall denouncement of the entire U.S. government would be a better well suited argument.

It was a combination of “forefathers” who terrorized the people of this nation, as well as people of the world, not Barack Obama. If Barack Obama is the “Biggest Terrorist” then terrorism needs a new definition because you and I both know of people who can capitalize the T in terrorism and most of them are in our back yard, literally.