So, a rapper, a convict and a pop star walk into the White House and that’s not even a joke

Last updated on: September 19, 2017 at 10:21 am by Marla Clendenin

So, a rapper, a convict and a pop star walk into the White House and that’s not even a joke 2017-09-19T10:21:19-05:00 Marla Clendenin

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I wish this was all a joke, but it’s not.

President Obama’s pet project, My Brother’s Keeper, is supposed to be a platform for young black men to be mentored by other black men in a way that sets them on a better path to their futures by ensuring they don’t fall into the same traps so many others do, namely drugs and crime.

So, it must’ve been awkward, to be at a recent MBK event at the White House when a particular “mentor’s” ankle monitor beeped loudly! Rapper Rick Ross was responsible for the noisy interruption. Ross, whose real name is William Leonard Roberts II, was wearing his court-ordered probation monitor because he is out on a $2 million bond over allegedly kidnapping his groundskeeper and smacking him around. As soon as Obama finished encouraging the young men — BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP.

And THAT, kids, is why you don’t beat up on your groundskeeper! (Inner-city kids have those, right?) Let him trim your bushes and mow your lawn in peace. Perhaps Ross should start a reparations club modeled after Obama’s called My Rapper’s Groundskeeper and teach them self-defense. That could come in real handy!

But convicts aside, there was someone else on hand to fill the minds of the MBK-ers: Nicki Minaj. (That translates to “female rapper who doesn’t wear a lot of clothes” in Swahili.)

I’m not sure why she was called in unless it was to show the boys an example of who not to date or what not to listen to.

Now, President Obama wants to help the young men learn to read, go to college, and have careers, but there’s something genuinely missing from these events: straight talk on the role of a father in the family. Of course, the whole point of the program is for Obama to step in as that father-figure in their lives. But these kids need to learn how to be good fathers and stay in their future children’s lives. It really should be called My Father’s Keeper and the encouragement should be keeping America’s black families intact so that great things can happen for them.

What’s worse, the program, despite its best intentions, sends a pretty bleak message to these young black men: stay dependent on the government. It shows them that government-run programs are there to lift them out of trouble, taking individual responsibility and throwing it out, thereby reinforcing their sense of entitlement.

Thanks, Daddy Obama, for showing us the way!

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