By: Amanda Anderson-Niles
Emmett Till’s family is not backing down from the good fight with Lil Wayne, and although the rapper finally addressed them regarding his offensive lyrics in a letter, the family feels what he issued out to the media is not a real apology. As a result of the non apology Lil Wayne has penned, the family of the civil rights icon is now calling for a meeting with Lil Wayne and Pepsi. While it’s unclear if the Till family is still targeting the rapper’s Mountain Dew endorsement, it’s been confirmed that the Rev. Al Sharpton has now gotten involved in the matter. The AP reports:
The family of Emmett Till says a letter from Lil Wayne fell short of an apology for his crude reference to the civil rights martyr, and they want a meeting with the rapper and representatives from PepsiCo to discuss their commercial partnership.
A publicist for the Rev. Al Sharpton says he is attempting to arrange a meeting between the parties to work out differences over Wayne’s vulgar reference to Till in a song lyric. Wayne has a contract to promote PepsiCo product Mountain Dew.
Lil Wayne’s letter, which appears on Young Money Entertainment letterhead and was provided to The Associated Press by the family, offered empathy and outlined corrective measures regarding the offensive lyrics in the song, but stopped short of apologizing.
“I was not impressed,” Airickca Gordon-Taylor, a cousin of Till’s, said of the letter.
The Till family also goes on to tell the AP that they feel Lil Wayne was pressured to make the “apology” out of fear that he would lose his endorsement and that the statement was not an apology but simply an acknowledgement. They now want to have a sit down with Lil Wayne and have dialogue about why his lyrics were hurtful.
Good.
I’m glad they aren’t letting this go. It’s time for these rappers to finally be held accountable by their own people.
Exactly!
I hope they get their meeting. Enough is enough!
I wonder if Pepsi made him issue the statement…hmm…
They probably did.
Al Sharpton tho? Lawd…
Weezy don’t care. He’s too ignorant to care about anyone but himself.
An apology or acknowledgement letter… So what!!!!!!!! It’s over with already. He said he will no longer use the lyrics anymore, which he hasn’t because I heard the updated version. I genuinely feel bad for the Till Family. But sheesh, let it go. Now they wanna go after his endorsements??? Why??? Because of What happened with Rick Ross so they feel they can do the same with Wayne. They got what they wanted. Sitting down meeting with him & Pepsi is DOING THE MOST RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!
Girl…swerve. You’re obviously a Weezy fan which means you already don’t need to be commenting on MY response. Your generation is full of ignorant souls who have no idea about what our people fought for. So only your kind thinks it’s “doing too much” for this family to fight for the RESPECT for Emmett Till, the one person the whole civil rights movement started from! Go away and read a book. I can’t stand your kind.
They got what they wanted? Nope, what they wanted was an APOLOGY. They did not get that. Go away you Lil Wayne fan.
I agree with you Anonymous and What what!!! These young people dont understand or respect what these people went through to get them where they are today!!! Keep up the fight Till Family, there are some of us that do appreciate!!!!
Kim you are part of the problem. The civil rights movement was all about fighting for what was right even though there were people who didn’t think things needed to change because it wasn’t “that serious.” I’m glad none of our leaders listened to people like you. If they did, we’d still be forced to sit on the back of the bus and told that we can only use the “colored only” water fountains. All I can do is shake my head at you.
THE TILL FAMILY IS DOING THE MOST RIGHT NOW
F-ck Lil Wayne and his fans. He’s a disgrace to all black people.
Now…if only we fought this hard against the injustices being done to us outside of our own race. We will fight each other until the end but turn a blind eye quick when you have a white politician,actor, singer, news reporter, etc; calling us n%%@$ and treating us beneath them!!! How many big corporations have openly disrespected us as a race and you still use their services or products? Where is the rally, the boycott, the loss of endorsements then…..?
Wow. You Lil Wayne fans just won’t stop will you? Actually, the black community is fighting Pepsi/Mountain Dew right now for the offensive ad they just released which included them pushing the stereotype that most black men are criminals (google it). Thanks to black people protesting the company, the ad was removed and the company apologized. Oh, we also have rallies all the time and are fighting against injustice of our young black men such as Trayvon Martin and Kendrick KJ Johnson. Oh, and we vote for the people who we feel are looking out for us and turned out for Obama in record numbers. Ask Romney about how involved blacks are in politics. It’s one of the reasons he’s not president now. But that’s just a few things. You should keep up with your own people a bit more so you won’t have to sound ignorant on here. We’re very involved, but you’re just bitter that Weezy is being held responsible FOR ONCE so you need to pretend we’re not. LOL. Nice try though.
@Anonymous- a hit dog will holla! I didn’t know u knew me, aren’t you anonymous? Have we met before for you to tell me what I keep up with?…If you knew me you would know i don’t listen to rap… so u must be one of those people who get called a female dog in a song and then go pop ur butt to it in the club lol!!!..no rally then! AND MY OPINION stands,…you see rational people can disagree without name calling, now that’s ignorant!! So i repeat…..write it, laminate it, and take a picture of this….Now…if only we fought this hard against the injustices being done to us outside of our own race. We will fight each other until the end but turn a blind eye quick when you have a white politician,actor, singer, news reporter, etc; calling us n%%@$ and treating us beneath them. Just as well as you can list those FEW isolated incidents THAT ONLY GOT UR ATTENTION BECAUSE IT WAS HOT IN THE MEDIA..I can list even more where we were disrespected and there was no repercussion, the President who in his last term.. wont even stand up for you in the face of the world against all the racism going on because he is too scared of what the white man has to say…girl #bye
Your response lacks any rationale, intelligence, and maturity. Even when presented with facts, you still choose to be like your favorite rapper…IGNORANT. I also didn’t call you any names, so you’re basically just upset because you couldn’t find an intelligent response. You certainly fit the bill of a Lil Wayne fan. I’m also a man, but continue to live in your ignorance young lady. I mean, you certainly have displayed enough of it on here in your weak comments.
Don’t waste your time. You’re too smart to argue with this person. #muchrespect
This is the dumbest comment I’ve seen on here in a very long time. You did yourself no justice. But #carryon YMCMB right? -_-
Oh excuse me..i don’t know many men that read this blog…most don’t keep up with the latest celebrity gossip…(clears throat) 🙂 Does typing IGNORANT in all caps make you feel your point penetrates me any deeper? How cute. So keep being the hot in the media civil rights activist you are and again…girl #bye
“Oh excuse me..i don’t know many men that read this blog…most don’t keep up with the latest celebrity gossip…(clears throat)”<<<<< So not only are you ignorant, you're also sexist and most likely homophobic. Well, I'll tell you some common knowledge. Men read black celebrity blogs. We all like to pass time at work. That's why the writers here include post on sports and hip hop. But because you probably didn't graduate from high school, you're logic is non-existent, so you probably couldn't figure that out. How sad. You get slower with each comment you post.
You media civil rights activist crack me up!!!! Sorry that the truth hurts, but glad it was valid enough to piss you off. People only get angry at something that touches something in them…things that make you go hummmmm!
“Hummmmm?” It’s hmm you clown. My goodness you’re not the brightest. Stop embarrassing yourself.
Do you realize how unintelligent this response was? According to Merriam Webster, -intransitive verb
1a : to utter a sound like that of the speech sound m prolonged b : to make the natural noise of an insect in motion or a similar sound : drone c : to give forth a low continuous blend of sound
2a : to be busily active b : to run smoothly
I’m sorry but i was unable to find “hmm”. Did you just go to Google for this or did you look it up in the urban dictionary? Me a clown? embarrassing myself!!!!? Stop trying to come for me and move on….
Then you’re still stupid and can’t spell. The word you are referring to is “hum.” Hmm is slang. I thought that’s what you were trying to say because hummmmmmmmm is not a real word nor a valid form of slang. And well, you seem to use quite a bit of slang and love your rappers. But at least you know how to Google. Maybe next time you should google what blacks are doing in the community before you embarrass yourself on here.
You probably don’t even know what an intransitive verb is. But keep copying and pasting. It can’t undo all the other stupidity you’ve typed on here.
You’re both stupid, childish, and ridiculous. Copying & pasting dictionary text…really? All because you dont agree. STFU and let it go. Damn.
Whoa! No one is stupid on here. We just have different opinions and that’s cool. Troll you’re going to get banned girl, Anonymous, you too sir. You can’t call people names on here. Admin will block you and it’s not cool to call people stupid. Kmm didn’t call you names, so chill.
At Kmm, I don’t agree, but you have the right to your opinion. Don’t let an Anonymous poster bother you. They usually post things to cause fights on here. God bless and Happy Friday. 🙂
Someone with the name troll and someone who wants to argue slang cant bother me! The steering wheel is clearly in his… or her back!! It’s funny to me that all folks can do is resort to name calling and consider themselves educated or more mature than. I expect that because my opinion is a bit radical as I dont tend to follow popular opinion like a sheep in a herd, but it’s just that… my opinion! I’m not God! Gosh…you’d think my opinion makes or breaks some so totally agree with you and love how you can disagree without the extra!! God bless and Happy Friday as well!