Lauryn Hill Talks Racism Days Before Heading to Jail

By: Taren Vaughan

Lauryn Hill’s “racist rant” is the latest talk surrounding the R&B singer. Lauryn Hill’s money troubles were apparent after it was reported that the singer owed a massive amount of money in back taxes. And it looked like she was on the verge of clearing up her debt and was able to pay down a sizable chunk of the money she owed. It wasn’t quite enough though as Lauryn Hill was sentenced to three months in prison for tax evasion. Despite facing time in jail, she did manage to land a new deal with Sony and even got a chance to drop her new song “Neurotic Society” for her fans who have been waiting a long time for her to make her way back to the studio. The song however got mixed reactions from listeners as some people felt the track was not up to par with what they feel Lauryn Hill is capable of producing. And the lyrics Lauryn rapped led people to think she had a problem with members of the gay community. After getting accused of being homophobic, Lauryn Hill took the time out to explain the lyrics on her Tumblr page. And just days before heading to jail, Lauryn expresses her views on racism in another post she uploaded on her page.

Here’s a snippet of what she wrote:

The concept of reverse racism is flawed, if not absolutely ridiculous. Most, if not all of the negative responses from people of color toward white people, are reactions to the hatred, violence, cruelty and brutality that they were shown by white people for centuries. Much of the foundation of the modern world was built on the forced free labor of black peoples. The African Slave Trade, the institution of slavery, colonialism, its derivative systems, and the multiple holocausts throughout history, where whites used race as the defining reason to justify their oppression, conquest, and brutal treatment of non-white peoples, are how race became such a factor to begin with.

The initial claim by the oppressors, followed a moral imperative (so they said) that people outside of Occidental and European birth were in savage and cursed conditions, and that God justified the captivity of these people, and the rape and pillage of their lands.

Ironically, these oppressors would try to discard this same God, who supposedly justified this brutality, in the name of Darwin, whose famous line ‘survival of the fittest’ was used to justify criminal behavior once the Bible could no longer be used as a hiding place for economic domination and evil intention.

Spirituality and morality were replaced by capitalism, and with it a conscious shift of focus toward the exploitation of the vulnerable.

In order to justify reverse racism one would have to first create an even playing field, undo the generations of torture, terror, and brutality, and then judge whether or not a non-white person is in fact a racist. This approach would require people to examine the need/addiction to feel superior to someone else for no justifiable reason, and the myriad policies: Spiritual, political and social, that it bore. True dominion is self evident and not the result of sabotaging another in order to achieve it. That would be an illegitimate as well as a fleeting position. The Universe, will eventually seek to right/balance itself.