Killer Mike’s recognition as an elite wordsmith — he won his first solo Grammy Award this month — is long overdue. But a recent suggestion he made to independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that unmarried teenage fathers be made to enroll in trade school shows that the musical artist with clever lyrics, mature content and thoughtful song structure lacks credibility as a political commentator.
The musical artist with clever lyrics, mature content and thoughtful song structure lacks credibility as a political commentator.
Kennedy was recorded having a conversation with Black men at Killer Mike’s Atlanta barbershop. About an hour into the conversation, which can be found on the YouTube page called “Blacks for Kennedy,” Killer Mike (Michael Santiago Render), joins the group to offer Kennedy a bizarre and backward policy proposal.
“For young men and women who get pregnant as teenagers, this is the two-year plan: The first two years are debt-free. You don’t have to pay the government anything back so she doesn’t have to drag him into court and the court can say: ‘You owe us money for investing in your child in food programs and early Head Start programs,’ because, in those two years, he has the option, not the option, the demand and the command to then go to a trade school,” Killer Mike said. “You have to go to a trade school. It incentivizes the United States to do it because we need more tradespeople. We don’t have enough carpenters, we don’t have enough electricians, we don’t have enough people building roads.”
Kennedy doesn’t challenge any of this. Instead, he nods as if he’s having a serious and thoughtful policy discussion. According to the plan Killer Mike shares with Kennedy, after the young man completes trade school, the young parents would be given “incentives” to marry that include assistance on home loans. This, he argued, would strengthen the Black community.
There are many things wrong with this…
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