Emily Dickinson, he's not.
It is unusual to encounter a situation where there is no course that doesn’t violate some legitimate ethical principle. The dilemma involving rapper Common’s controversial invitation to the White House is one of them. None of the options are strictly ethical, and this has led advocates both for and against his inclusion in Michelle Obama’s poetry event, “An Evening of Poetry at the White House,” to behave unethically themselves. Let’s see: what comes closest to being ethical conduct of the possible outcomes?
Option A: Michelle has her poetry event, but doesn’t invite any mainstream rapper. Ethical breaches: Incompetence, bias, censorship, dishonesty.
Rap is the most dynamic and popular form of poetry in America today. Having an event to “showcase the impact of poetry on American culture” at the White House that excludes popular rappers is absurd on its face; it would be like the White House celebrating the influence of sports in American culture and omitting football.
Option B: The Obamas invite Common (known to his friends as Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr), a well-known, successful, “moderate” rapper, meaning that his rap is less obscene, misogynistic and violent than most rappers. Ethical breaches: irresponsible conduct, giving credibility to culturally destructive values, lack of integrity, hypocrisy.
Common’s past rap lyrics have been plausibly (barely) interpreted as calling for harm to President Bush, when Common rapped, “Burn a Bush cos for peace he no push no button.” Another lyric called for the release of a convicted and imprisoned cop-killer; others have suggested gun violence. A President has to be careful what and whom he places his imprimatur on, because that can be the equivalent of cultural approval. Is it responsible for the Obamas to honor—for his being invited to perform at a White House event is an honor— someone who can be seen on YouTube saying…
“Tell the law my Uzi weighs a ton … I hold up a peace sign but I carry a gun.”
—at a time when the level of inner city gun violence by young black males, the largest audience for rappers like Common, is a national crisis? Probably not.
Take your pick.
Meanwhile, the critics and defenders are lying, spinning and exaggerating like Baron Munchhausen in his prime. Rush, Hannity, Fox and the gang are telling their audiences that Common “called for the murder of President Bush” and “encourages cop-killing in his songs.” Give me a break. “Burning Bush” is an obvious, if stale metaphor: you have to be a real cement head…a la “Ronbo”—to see that as incitement to assassination. Common, like others on the Left, believe that Mumia Abu-Jamal, an incarcerated former member of the Black Panther Party who was convicted in 1981 for killing a Philadelphia police officer, is a political prisoner and has argued, in verse, for his release. Calling for the release of a convicted cop-killer that you think was wrongfully convicted is not an endorsement of cop killing, except to those of extremely limited logical resources.
The rebuttals offered by the Obamas’ defenders, however, are equally wrong-headed. The most common: yes, he’s violent and misogynistic, but so are all rappers, and he’s better than most. “Everybody does it”, anyone? Happy, you fans of “It’s not the worst thing”? The issue is whether the President should be honoring bards of violence and misogeny at all, not whether he and his wife have identified the nicest of the violent misogynists.
For their part, some defenders have strayed from facile rationalizations into outright intellectual dishonesty, like Atlantic writer Conor Friedersdorf, who seems to really think he can make us believe there is an equivalency between Commons’ personal and political rage, broadcast to angry street youths, and the Beatles “Abbey Road” spoof, “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.” White House spokesman Jay Carney was arguably worse, saying, ““It’s ironic to pick out those particular lyrics about this particular artist when in fact he’s known as a socially conscious hip hop artist or rapper who, in fact, has done a lot of good things,” offered Carney. “You can oppose some of what he’s done and appreciate some of the other things he’s done.” Yes, Jay, but you can’t honor someone in the same context in which he has done some of the “things” the President opposes and not appear to be endorsing those things too. Let’s see…if Rev. Terry Jones did some really, really good things for his community, would the President and Mrs. Obama invite him to he White House for that, with Jay Carney brushing aside that unfortunate Quran-burning incident by saying, “You can oppose some of what he’s done and appreciate some of the other things he’s done”?
No.
So what would be the most ethical course? Rap is too culturally prominent to ignore in a celebration of poetry, and he’s probably the best choice among his colleagues. But his lyrics involve values, such as incivility, that the President should not be supporting, and in fact has spoken against.
I think the most ethical course, and this is a pretty depressing conclusion, was for the Obamas to side-step the dilemma by not having a White House poetry event at all. It is too late for that, however.
Ethics Alarms 
I guess it comes down to what you consider “poetry” and “art”. Some believe that the definition is wide open and can be interpreted in any way one likes. Obviously, Michelle Obama is one of these. For myself, I believe it’s a matter of message. Porn is not art. Gangsta rap is not poetry. Both bear a negative message to the extreme. Michelle is free to indulge herself on her spare time with whatever might be legal. When she brings trash and people-bearing-trash into the White House- and on our dime in our name- that’s when the objections SHOULD follow.
Go to Hulu and watch Jon Stewart’s opening from last night. He crushed it out of the park.
Jon Stewart went on O’Reilly to discuss the “Common” situation and defend his stance. Very entertaining. The entire 27 minute uncut raw footage is available on foxnews.com
Saw it. They are both right and both wrong. In the abstract, Common’s kind of content should not be honored at the White House. But rap can’t be left out of a cultural overview.
So, you think that inviting an already well known celebrity to an event at the White House, not only honors him, but honors every piece of his past work to the point that he should be shunned if he once stated something undesirable?
I’m going to pull out the Golden Rule here. One day, should I be the lucky recipient of an invitation to the White House, I hope that when people are combing through my posts on this site, that they don’t claim that my invitation is a travesty because of something I wrote here. I hope my invitation is evaluated in the context for which it was assigned.
If a guy can weave words into a rhyme or a rap and he can do so at the poetry event without the objectionable content, then what does it matter what content he used before the event?
I once said “Fire” in a theater, but I didn’t do it loudly and convincingly to encourage people to action. Neither did Common. His objectionable content isn’t clear when you listen to it and it’s only objectionable now that stodgy opponents have cherry picked lyrics away from their context and meaning. No one takes the lyrics cited and plays them on a continuous loop, independent of the full song, until someone goes and shoots a cop.
You DON’T think inviting a celebrity to the White House honors him? Really? Ask him if he felt honored, and while you’re at it, look up cognitive dissonance. Either Obama feting Common raises Common in the public’s estimation, or lowers Obama/the White House/ the presidency. And Common is what he stands for, which is rap—an overwhelmingly pro-guns, pro-violence, pro-drugs, anti-police, anti-women, obscenity and racial epithet-laced art form. Yes, he’s better than most. Yes, if I had to honor a rapper, he’s as good as any….but he’s still not good.
Here’s a Common song pulled at RANDOM:
Yeah! Hah! Yeah, we got, come on
Y’all cats know the abstract nigga with the attitude
Pass the booze, and let’s build on it
I’m rolling in a Cadillac with the grill fronted
I ain’t even smoke no mo’ but I feel blunted
Yo I’m tokin on the freedom
Stepping to the A.M., cats be tokin in the P.M.
Tell the players I’m the G.M.
Told my team let me get my plays straight, I’ma feed them
They need me like I need them
See the streets is bleedin
Had to meet with my mind and ? to be defined and
Stay on my climb
I’m grind – ing, ’til I get blue balls
Everyday, same shit new star
Don’t make me act like where I come from because he grew tall
There’s a place that to run from it if you neu – tral
Hustlers and vogues, customers and smokes
I kiss the sky feeling high off the stuff that I wrote
[Chorus] (x2)
I want to ride in my car, smoke my weed
Keep my head high, let the chrome spin
I got the right to feel hood
I got the right to feel high
I got the right to feel hood
I got the right to feel high
Nice. Yes, it’s better than Tupac, and so what? That should be honored at the White House? And it is “that” because “that” is all Common does, if he didn’t do “that”, then nobody would have heard of him at all. This isn’t an isolated instance, or uncharacteristic….you can’t play that card.
If you and Jon Stewart think the highest office in the land should be putting its stamp of approval on smoking weed, blue balls, feeling high, and words like nigga, great, be my guest. I guess I think the President should be a little more discriminating, and shoild honor people whose values he can legitimately endorse, and that are healthy for the culture, the public and kids.
Your Tim Levier example isn’t on point. Rap isn’t this guy’s hobby, or a youthful indiscretion. Ray Charles was honored at the White House, and his private life was despicable, but nobody thought that was what was being honored. Nothing Common has done would warrant White House honors without his rap songs and their generally vulgar, pro-drug and violence message. Is inner city drug use a big social problem among young blacks or isn’t it? Then why is the President celebrating an artist who promotes destructive behavior? (ANSWER: because he doesn’t get it, and his leadership learning curve is flatter than Kansas.)
I wrote, you’ll recall, that once they decided on poetry as a topic they had to include rap, and if they had to include a rapper, Common was a decent choice. It was a bind, but the results were still bad.Not earthshaking bad, but Stewart is wrong to act like the President’s role model status isn’t misused by this. It just is.
You DON’T think inviting a celebrity to the White House honors him? Really? Ask him if he felt honored, and while you’re at it, look up cognitive dissonance.
No. I do think he feels honored to be there. I DON’T think because he feels honored that average citizens will examine his body of work and then be influenced by that body of work to change their entire value system. Nor do I think that someone who already was at risk would double down and take that as an endorsement to act violently and do drugs.
Common didn’t get where he is by killing and doing drugs. Common got where he is by rapping and a whole lot more. Judge him, not by his words, but by his actions. If you must judge him by his words, judge him by the words that he intends and not by the words he used with creative license.
You see the WH as endorsing the lyrics of Common’s work. I see them as endorsing the man, in spite of the lyrics, for his real world accomplishments and actions. He didn’t say something nice and then burn a Koran. He said something dirty and then acted professionally.
Tim—I’m an artist myself. If I’m honored as an artist, it’s my art that is being honored. When I was nominated for DC best director award. they weren’t honoring my work in ethics. Common was there for his words–his poetry. For a poet, words are conduct.
But none of this was said about Bono or Bruce Springstein and they both performed at the White House. And both had songs celebrating convicted cop killers.
Point? “So this is OK, then!” “From now on, the messages featured at the White House don’t matter!” “Once you miss criticizing what should have been criticized, you can never criticize it, ever!” What are you trying to say, and is it worth saying?
Let’s see…if Rev. Terry Jones did some really, really good things for his community, would the President and Mrs. Obama invite him to he White House for that, with Jay Carney brushing aside that unfortunate Quran-burning incident by saying, “You can oppose some of what he’s done and appreciate some of the other things he’s done”?
This paragraph really annoys me. What if Terry Jones, with all of his history, single handedly stopped a nuclear bomb from detonating and saved the city of Washington, D.C. Would you still be appalled by the President inviting him to The White House?
No. But finding the exception to the rule does not invalidate the rule: see “bin Laden, death of”