Why did Lupe Call Obama a Terrorist on O’Reilly?

By Subhash Kateel

On Monday, Chicago-based Hip Hop artist Lupe Fiasco went toe-to-toe with Bill O’Reilly in a debate about President Obama (you can see the whole clip here or below). This time, Bill O’Reilly played the unusual role of the President’s defender against a no-liquor-drinking, skateboarding, devout Muslim, son of a Green Beret who many have called the second coming of Tribe Called Quest (sorry I got carried away thinking about Midnight Marauders).  O'Reilly tried to take Lupe to task for his characterization of Obama as a terrorist in the song “Words I Never Said.”

For starters, Lupe’s song was about a lot of things, not just Obama.  For example, Lupe chastised those that claim to be Muslims but misuse the word Jihad (a term that means “struggle” in Arabic).  He also went after people that complain about this country’s problems but don’t do anything about them.  But predictably, the statements he made about Obama have caused the most controversy.  

WHY I DON'T FREAKING CARE ABOUT ANTHONY'S WEINER...

"Do I care if a politician cheats on their wife?  Probably.  But I care a hell of a lot more when they cheat on us."

by Subhash Kateel

This whole week, I kept trying to figure out why this story about Anthony Weiner irked me.  I couldn’t put my…uh…I couldn’t figure it out.  For the most part, I have agreed with the Congressman on some things and found other things he has said to border on idiotic.  But this whole fiasco in the news rubbed me the wrong way.  And then I remembered why.

Back in 2003 I was a community organizer (yes one of those) for an organization called Families For Freedom.  We worked with this family who had a horrific immigration case.  Basically, after 9/11, Attorney General Ashcroft decided to go to after a lot of folks from predominately Muslim countries with Muslim names and deport them.  He thought that the best way to fight terrorists was to go after completely innocent people that had no connection to terrorism at all.  One of the people he went after was a lovely Pakistani-American family of five that lived in Queens, NY in Anthony Weiner’s district.