Sarah Palin totally P.O.’ed that “vile” rapper Common’s going to the White House
Common, obviously thinking about starting a revolution.
As anyone who follows music or pop culture—including NBA All-Star celebrity games and Queen Latifah romantic comedies—knows, Common isn’t a real “hard” rapper. Sure, he opposed President Bush’s residency in the White House, as well as U.S. military intervention in the Middle East, but dissent is an unalienable right, right?
And yet, it still comes as no surprise that Sarah Palin and the conservative right are up in arms about the South Sider’s visit to the White House as part of a poetry program tomorrow. After Tucker Carlson’s The Daily Caller posted something questioning some of Common’s previous spoken words where he suggests “burn[ing] a bush,” another conservative site, Pajamas Media, posted a story suggesting that the rapper supports “cop-killer” Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther, and met the current president at Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church Of Christ.
Common, for his part, seems to be taking the whole thing in stride, tweeting that he’s “dangerous,” and that people LOL-ing on Twitter are “ruining [his] street cred.” (For the record, Common has a good 100,000 more Twitter followers than Sarah Palin.) He, no doubt, understands the value of social commentary and using the voice of “the other” in lyrics.
As of right now, the rapper is scheduled to participate in writing workshops with kids during the day before performing at night for a larger audience, including the president. Common will be joined by fellow leftist activists Jill Scott, Aimee Mann, Rita Dove, Billy Collins, Elizabeth Alexander, and Steve Martin.
