A few weeks ago, TMZ released footage of Lil' Wayne stomping on the American flag while shooting the video for "God Bless Amerika," a song from his latest album. The fact that this was done in the context of a music video did not deter the fascists and extreme nationalists who spend their lives worshiping the flag and savaging anyone who "disrespects" it in any way. Wayne responded by issuing a statement that was effectively an apology but also included some rather profound points about how the abstract entity "America" means different things to different people. (Yes, racists, black rappers can, it turns out, speak intelligently. Is your mind blown?)
Unfortunately, Wayne's thoughtful and apologetic statement apparently did not suffice, because the video has finally been
released, with the entire flag-stomping segment stripped out. One cannot place the blame solely on Wayne for this. Surely, editorial decisions regarding a Lil' Wayne video are made by a number of different people and involve many factors. Wayne has had some bad publicity lately with the
Emmett Till stuff and his whole team might have just agreed that this was a headache they didn't need. Still, though, it's hard to believe that if Wayne had really gone to war over this, he wouldn't have gotten his way.
It's a sad state of affairs when even a guy who has spent his entire career not caring what anyone thinks about him can't stand up to this deranged culture of flag-worship. Here's the new, presumably
O'Reilly-approved version of the video, if anyone's interested. Cool song, actually, but that's beside the point.
{Originally posted at
Crimethink}