First, some background on ‘the Sister Souljah moment’ from Wikipedia:
The term originates in the 1992 presidential candidacy of Bill Clinton. In an interview published May 13, 1992, the hip-hop MC, author, and political activist Sister Souljah was quoted in the Washington Post as saying, “If Black people kill Black people every day, why not have a week and kill White people?”[1] The remark was part of a longer response to the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The quotation was later reproduced without the context of the complete interview[2] and resulted in wide criticism from the media.
In June 1992, Clinton responded both to that quotation and to something she had said in a music video (”If there are any good White people, I haven’t met them”)[3] while giving a speech to Jesse Jackson Sr.’s Rainbow Coalition, saying, “If you took the words ‘white’ and ‘black,’ and you reversed them, you might think David Duke was giving that speech.”
Prior to his appearance, Clinton’s campaign staff had conducted an intense debate about how far he should go in distancing himself from Jackson, who was unpopular with white and moderate voters. When Souljah was invited to speak at the conference, Clinton’s advisors saw their chance.
Then there’s this reported (and since deleted) Tweet from ABC’s Terry Moran (via Mashable):
Yes, he did. Of course, Kanye didn’t do this because ‘MTV doesn’t like black people’, but rather that Kanye is a jerk. Regardless, the point still stands.
Tags: ABC, abcnews, Barack Obama, David Duke, identity politics, Jesse Jackson, Jesse Jackson Sr., Kanye West, MTV, Politicking, race, racism, Sister Souljah, Taylor Swift, Terry Moran, the Washington Post, twitter, VMA
