Rep. Bobby Rush Is A Menace II Society! (BLOG)

The Daily Grind Video

“Now O-Dog was the craziest nigga alive, America’s nightmare. Young, black, and didn’t give a fuck.”

-Caine “Menace II Society”

Do middle-aged white men see O-Dog when they see black people? Just a question, please don’t flood my Twitter timeline with “You’re a fu*kin racist” tweets.

I only ask because while channel surfing last night I had to stop the clicker and watch the first 45 minutes of Menace II Society. Now if you’ve ever seen Menace, you know the violence, bloodshed and tone of the movie didn’t help black America’s image in the public to say the least.

The gritty 1993 drama about a young hustler, Caine, trying to leave the hood for a better life while his best friend O-Dog, a murderous no nonsense teen with a quick temper and even quicker trigger finger, stays in the trap because he can’t leave the hood life.

Caine introduces O-Dog with one of the greatest lines in American cinema, he put it bluntly and simple, using words to emphasize his point; ‘Craziest” “Nightmare” “Don’t give a fuck.” That alone should scare anyone into believing that this young man is no joke.

While watching Menace, the question I asked earlier popped in my head and I thought about Rep. Bobby Rush throwing on his hoodie on the U.S. House floor in Washington D.C. in support for justice in the Trayvon Martin killing.

I only asked the question to myself after seeing the reaction to Rush’s protest.

Immediately after Rush placed the hoodie on his head, Gregg Harper (R-Miss.) banged his gavel to no end, repeatedly interrupting the congressman as he tried to get his point across.

It’s as though O-Dog showed up and started bussing his gun.

Harper asked the Sergeant at Arms to enforce the House prohibition on hats in the chamber, saying, after he had Rush removed from the floor:

“The chair must remind members that clause 5 of rule 17 prohibits the wearing of hats in the chamber when the House is in session. The chair finds that the donning of a hood is not consistent with this rule. Members need to remove their hoods or leave the floor.”

How convenient that he had the clause right in front of him as if he knew someone would eventually wear a hoodie in the name of Trayvon Martin.

But it’s the reaction that got me thinking; the comfort level on the House floor was shaken, something scary was happening, the natural order had been disrupted and it had to be stopped immediately.

The fact was, a 65-year-old black man wearing a hoodie on the House floor and speaking on behalf of an unarmed teenager shot to death for being racially profiled couldn’t happen, and breaking out an arbitrary rule was the only way to stop the madness.

Now I don’t know if Congressman Harper ever saw Menace II Society, but he did act like O-Dog busted in the room asking him “what you say about my momma?”

If you look at it, Harper acted offended as if to say, “How dare you do this on the House floor?” Either way, it was a jarring reaction to something positive, so shout out to Bobby Rush for standing up for Trayvon Martin. #HoodiesUp