Homeboy Sandman Calls Black People Cowards In His Op-Ed

In light of recent events concerning Donald Sterling’s racist rant and the public outcry, rapper/writer Homeboy Sandman wrote a piece for Gawker first calling black people “cowards” then calling for the black community to take a stand and boycott not only NBA games but also hip-hop clubs, music, television and publications. Below is an excerpt from the piece:

Let’s step it up and take off from work and stay home with our kids until these preposterous tenure rules are revoked from public schools and it’s the kids that can’t be fired, not the teachers.

Let’s step it and use social media to rally each other. Everybody knew about that woman who fired a warning shot and got 20 years (I hear she’s been released now. No thanks to us). Everybody knows about that woman who got however many years for leaving her child in the car while she went to a job interview. Every single week all over Facebook there’s a new video of someone catching a beating as bad as the one Rodney King caught, but I never see a post that says, “Share this if you’ll go on strike from work until these police officers are fired.” “Share this if you’ll strike until this woman is released.” “Share this if you won’t spend a single dollar until Troy Davis is released from death row and granted a new trial.” Can you imagine the impact that that would have? Everybody is always trying to act there’s no solutions. There are plenty of solutions. We're just too cowardly to implement them. Worried about this discomfort or that discomfort, great or small, that might take place as a result. Having to find a new place to party. Or a new show to watch. Isn’t the discomfort of oppression enough? There’s plenty of solutions, just no easy ones, but if we can shift to courage instead of cowardice, there’s more than enough solutions to guarantee our success. Guarantee. Next time you’re complaining about how this country was built on us, take a second to think about the fact that it still is. If we want to, we can shut this whole place down.

Powerful stuff. The full piece can be read here and is definitely worth your time if you have it. The big question is, will people just post it to their social media sites and blogs, or will they get out there and do something?—Peter Walsh

[Gawker]