Why the right hates Common

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From Salon:

On Wednesday, the White House honored arts education with a Celebration of American Poetry. There was a poetry workshop for children during the day, and in the evening, performances by the likes of Elizabeth Alexander, Rita Dove, Kenneth Goldsmith. This being the administration that can turn Jay-Z references into campaign rallying cries — and campaign rallying cries into hit videos — there were also musical artists on the bill, including Aimee Mann and Jill Scott. And, this being the administration that never fails to provoke the outrage of that holy trinity of right-wing attention gluttons — Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Sarah Palin – there was controversy.

The man at the center of all those middle-aged white people’s anger this week was Chicago’s own Lonnie Rashid Lynn Jr., aka the Grammy award-winning rapper Common. The Daily Caller was quick to register its fury at Common’s presence on the bill, with writer Neil Munro singling out “Letter to the Law,” which dares to include lines like “Tell the law, my Uzi weighs a ton” and “Burn a Bush cos’ for peace he no push no button/Killing over oil and grease/no weapons of destruction.” This, according to the Caller, is tantamount to “threats to shoot police and … calling for the “burn[ing]” of George W. Bush.” Yes, and when William Blake wrote, “I am black,” he literally meant he was black. And when Sylvia Plath wrote, “Daddy, I have had to kill you,” she really killed her father. And when T.S. Eliot wrote, “We are the hollow men,” he was in fact a chocolate Easter bunny. Because there’s no room for metaphor or imagery or drama in poetry.

But who could expect any acquiescence to Lit 101 from a team whose favorite medium isn’t verse but sarcasm? On Tuesday, Palin tweeted a link to the Caller story with a snide, “Oh lovely, White House …” And Rush Limbaugh sneered on his show that “Now, Common is an artiste. That’s what you must know, he’s an artist … in addition to being an artiste … he’s also a rapper and he has written poems and songs in support of cop killers.” And Sean Hannity asked flat out on his show, “Is this the guy we should be inviting to the White House, the people’s house?”

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