via Wikimedia
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When Jay-Z participated in a panel with Meek Mill, Patriots owner Bob Kraft, Van Jones, and others, criminal justice was being discussed. Recently, footage resurfaced of him making comments about policing and the connection between violence and single-parent households… but what did he actually say?
Jay asserted that single-parent homes cause feelings of adversity toward authority, which in turn “causes people to lose lives” at the hands of police. Yikes. Though some people may agree with him, police brutality is a systemic issue that is about an anti-Black system - not our households.
The thinking Jay-Z displayed was infamously written in the 1965 Moynihan Report by then-Assistant Secretary of Labor Daniel P Moynihan. It blamed Black America for many of our problems and racistly portrayed Black homes as the site of crisis from where our issues originate.
You can’t blame Black people for systemic oppression. The truth of the matter is, police discriminate against Black people regardless of class, income, location, gender, or age.
This is FACT, not opinion. Black people are more likely to be viewed as guilty and brutalized because of racism, PERIOD.
Anti-Black criminal justice has ALWAYS existed in the USA. Black people can’t take responsibility for racism. And even if we all came from two-parent homes with more income, we’d still be fighting because it’s not just about anything WE’RE doing wrong. It’s about white supremacy!