Think you know Jay-Z? Well, you don’t, so think again. Unless you already think that he is partially to blame for the enslavement of thousands of Africans in pre-1807 Britain, in which case you don’t need to think again, because you’re absolutely right, according to Brooklyn Activist Clive Campbell and Da Black Defense League.
They have filed a $5 billion dollar lawsuit against Jay-Z, along with Barclay’s Bank and Forest City Ratner, a real estate developer, because they have:
“…profited from the African Slave Trade and continue to profit from these gains, through a conspiracy dating back hundreds of years and continue to date to oppress Black people, enslave them, unlawfully deport them to all corners of the Earth."
The bastard! Stop it, Jay-Z! Stop oppressing black people! What’s the matter with you? You’re black as well, you maniac! What kind of masochistic act is this? Behave yourself; it’s bang out of order.
It’s obvious, though, when you think about it; who better than Jay-Z to face a campaign of global African-oppression? He’s spent his career singing about the disfranchisement of black people; he’s the head of Roca-a-Fella Records and Rocawear, among other Roca-industries which, combined, have created employment for thousands of African Americans. Who then would believe that this was all an elaborate sideshow to his real hustle; the herding together thousands of native Africans and forcing them to work for rich people in nineteenth century Britain? How did we fall for it?
You see, according to recent findings from studies released on the 200th anniversary of Britain’s abolition of the slave trade by The Restitution Study Group, Barclay’s Bank (then Heywood’s Bank) was involved in over 120 slave trading missions and allegedly enslaved more than 38,000 Africans, with Jay-Z and Ratner apparently connected through their ties with Barclay’s Bank in a $4 billion Atlantic Yards project taking place in Brooklyn, which plans to build a basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets (partially owned by Jay-Z), over 6,000 new apartments, offices and a hotel.
So he isn’t really directly linked, but you have to ask yourself, dear reader, is there really any difference between forcefully removing an African family from it’s home, chaining them to a floor of a boat, leaving them to potentially starve on the long journey to back to Britain, raping a few of them for a laugh on the way before selling the survivors to do menial tasks and sexual favours for toffs, and trying to build a housing project in Brooklyn?
The answer is yes. Quite a lot of difference there.
Barclays has denied the allegations. It was, after all, legal back then. And Ratner has said it has no legal merit, whilst Da Black Defense League has called for a boycott of the New Jersey Nets.
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The Dread Pirate Sausage says
Jay Z DOES oppress Black people by perpetuating negative racial stereotypes that get them all despised up in America and train their children to become surly, skinny gangster-cart- i mean tycoons (sorry!)
He can walk the bloody plank. (I’m blessed in this way, y’see.)
Haargh
Different Opinion says
Attention grabbing nonsense by the sound of it. But as the Commenter said above you can argue Jay-z’s image perpetuates negative black images