One day in 2013, I wrote these words in a journal, "Don't you wish a rapper would offer up a hip-hop version or critique of the latest Supreme Court antics surrounding the Voting Rights Act?" After all, aren't we all more than a little appalled by Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia saying that a critical part of the law regarding the Voting Rights Act was a perpetuation of "racial entitlement." People died so that discrimination at the polling places could end, yet a Supreme Court Justice said that. That statement, that day, made me think of racial profiling, stop and frisk policies, environmental racism (think Flint, Michigan, or the poisoning of water in East St. Louis due to Monsanto chemicals), the school to prison pipeline, and this was 2013. This was before we dreamed Michael Brown would be murdered by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. Then Philando Castille, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, and don't forget Trayvon Martin, and Tamir Rice, and so many more names were etched on our hearts as we saw evidence of "No justice, no peace."
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