National
OPINION – Who Dropped a Dime on 50 Cent? Ice Cube’s Platinum Plan Dripped Away
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As the elections and voting cycle winds down, we all just witnessed, with rapt attention, the unraveling of the premature, immature, and amateur rapture culture phenomenon of rappers 50 Cent and Ice Cube.
50 Cent, using the $400,000 income level taxing plan championed by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as his excuse for endorsing Trump for President, soon discovered that he had fallen out of favor from his folks.
Somebody, maybe his ex-girlfriend Chelsea Handler, dropped a dime on 50 Cent’s non-sensical rant in the face of Trump challenging him and Black America with his ridiculous claim that he was doing more for Black America than any President since Abraham Lincoln while asking Blacks, “What do have to lose by supporting him?”
50 Cent Tweets 'F**k Donald Trump' After Chelsea Handler Says She'd Give It Another Go With Him | Entertainment Tonight #mycivicduty https://t.co/haYxubDWpq
— Chelsea Handler (@chelseahandler) October 26, 2020
Handler yanked him down quite handily and he flipped his own script and denounced Trump with a 4-letter expletive in the same flippant manner.
a what,
another spin
Fu*k Donald Trump, I never liked him.
for all I know he had me set up and had my friend Angel Fernandez killed but that’s history. LOL @chelseahandler @jimmyfallon pic.twitter.com/Tya6EqDBFt
— 50cent (@50cent) October 25, 2020
On the other hand, Ice Cube prepared a more thoughtful, scholarly treatise on the possible remedies to the Black community’s economic woes. Maybe it was naivete or the twitch-level expectation of the Twitter and ATM-style response expectations, but he got played by their pigeon-drop style of hustling his brand as an excuse to appear relevant on the Black side. His Platinum Plan is a good start, maybe he should develop some raps about financial literacy. Ice Cube’s plan melted down and dripped away from him.
Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner bundled their overtures into the same bag with Kanye West and turned their reputations into a giant con.
But all is not lost. If they follow the path of the rapper Common and use their microphones to join with the Joy to the Polls music that encourages all Blacks to vote.
They ought to write raps that say, “Mr. President, you ask us what can we lose because you have done more than any other since Lincoln, then if that’s the case then why are you spending so much time, money and energy preventing us from voting?” You can sample Ludacris’s message as your coda: “Move Trump git out the way!”
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U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Rep. Lateefah Simon to Speak at Elihu Harris Lecture Series
The popular lecture series is co-produced by the Oakland-based Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center and Peralta Community College District. Jeffries’ appearance marks the 32nd lecture of the Barbara Lee and Elihu Harris Lecture Series, which has provided thousands of individuals with accessible, free, high-quality information.
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By Scott Horton
United States House of Representatives Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY-8) will be a speaker at the Barbara Lee and Elihu Harris Lecture Series on Friday, Feb. 21.
The event will be held at the Henry J. Kaiser Center for the Arts, 10 Tenth Street in Oakland, at 7 p.m.
The popular lecture series is co-produced by the Oakland-based Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center and Peralta Community College District. Jeffries’ appearance marks the 32nd lecture of the Barbara Lee and Elihu Harris Lecture Series, which has provided thousands of individuals with accessible, free, high-quality information.
The overarching goal of the lecture series is to provide speakers from diverse backgrounds a platform to offer their answers to Dr. King’s urgent question, which is also the title of Jeffries’ latest book: “Where do we go from here: Chaos or Community?”
In addition to Jeffries, Congresswoman Lateefah Simon (D-CA-12) will also speak.
“Certainly, now is a time for humanity, in general, and Americans in particular to honestly and genuinely answer Dr. King’s question,” said Dr. Roy D. Wilson, Executive Director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center and Executive Producer of the lecture series.
“Dr. King teaches that time is neutral but not static. Like the water in a river, it arrives and then quickly moves on,” continued Wilson. “We must urgently create conditions for listening to many different answers to this vital question, and generate the development of unity of action among all those who struggle for a stronger democracy.”
In his book, Jeffries shares his experience of being unanimously elected by his colleagues as the first African American in history to ever hold the position of House Minority Leader.
In January 2023 in Washington, Jeffries made his first official speech as House Minority Leader. He affirmed Democratic values one letter of the alphabet at a time. His words and how he framed them as the alphabet caught the attention of Americans, and the speech was later turned into a book, The ABCs of Democracy, bringing Congressman Jeffries rousing speech to vivid, colorful life, including illustrations by Shaniya Carrington. The speech and book are inspiring and urgent as a timeless reminder of what it means to be a country with equal opportunities for all. Jeffries paints a road map for a brighter American future and warns of the perils of taking a different path.
Before his colleagues unanimously elected him Minority Leader in 2022, Jeffries previously served as Chair of the House Democratic Caucus and as an Impeachment Manager during the first Senate trial of the 45th President of the United States.
Jeffries was born in Brooklyn Hospital, raised in Crown Heights, grew up in the Cornerstone Baptist Church and he is a product of New York City’s public school system, graduating from Midwood High School. Jefferies went on to Binghamton University (BA), Georgetown University (master’s in public policy) and New York University (JD).
He served in the New York State Assembly from 2007 to 2012.
Admission is free for the Feb. 21 Barbara Lee and Elihu Harris Lecture Series featuring Congressman Jeffries. Please reserve seats by calling the Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center at (510) 434-3988.
Signed copies of his book will be available for purchase at the event.
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