If there is one thing Americans can agree on, it’s definitely how the Supreme Court has solved the most pressing issues of the modern time, right? I mean Presidential powers have been sorted out, everyone is cool about the whole abortion thing, everyone is friends about labor unions and no one cares about the environment anyways…so why not use the highest court to challenge “rap lyrics” posted on Facebook?
Long story short, back in 2010, a 28 year-old Anthony Elonis was charged with multiple counts of communicating threats after he posted a series of violent messages to Facebook. Elonis has stood by the claims his posts that directly threatened his wife and a female FBI agent were rap lyrics, he was found guilty and sentenced to 44 months in prison. The Supreme Courts purpose to take on Elonis v U.S. would be to clarify what actually constitutes as a threat and re-define rap music as something different than “threats”. Elonis (who is white) claims to be heavily influenced by Eminem, who also rapped about killing his wife, which is no different than when Elonis posted, “There’s one way to love you but a thousand ways to kill you. I’m not going to rest until your body is a mess, soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts.” (Can you say romance?)
Now I don’t know about you, but white people love to use the Eminem line to get out of shit…has anyone ever listened to Eminem’s White America, Eminem calls white people out himself. This Elonis guy sounds like a nutbag, definitely has a neck tattoo, but my biggest concern is that I won’t be in the room when the supreme court discusses the topic of rap/hip hop. And let’s get real, we all know which juror the camera will be on when the topic of rap music is brought up..
Ruth Bader Ginsberg.. Who did you think I was referring to?
-E
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