Vic Mensa doesn’t always need a beat to get his point across. Read his new essay where he tells the truth about race, unity and how a “yes” is more powerful than a “no.”
Vic Mensa continues to use his voice as a fist to the face of fear, ignorance and injustice. He’s been turning heads over the last few months with the politically-charged music on his There’s Alot Going On project, his truth-laden freestyles and his live shows and television appearances.
Now, he’s just straight up writing out what everybody needs to hear. In a sit down with Billboard magazine, Mensa spoke out for the first time since Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. His essay calls for unity throughout, but he also offers some very realistic perspectives that must be accepted if America is to ever really get to that point.
He calls out the concept of race for what it really is, a divisive tactic, not an actual identity. He also touched on how when community leaders and organizers dare try to bring all races together via economic awareness [i.e. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Fred Hampton] they get assassinated. Mensa also called upon readers to think beyond #BlackLivesMatter.
“I’ve been having conversations with people from a movement right now about creating something a lot bigger than a Black Lives Matter campaign — something very inclusive,” he writes. “For us to make real change, we’re gonna need everyone and people of all different walks of life to recognize the part that they play and how these powers at hand affect them too.”
The Chicago-rapper also admitted that had Hillary Clinton been elected, Black people probably would have continued to be pacified, just as they were during the Obama Presidency.
Mensa’s essay offered a lot to think about, but the most powerful moments come when he encourages people to stop talking with people who agree with them and actually talk with the opposition to prove how wrong they are. He also stresses that the power of a “yes” is more powerful than a “no.”
He writes, “My brother Malik Yusef is always telling me that, ‘The power of yes is so much more than the power of no.’ So when Trump tells a lot of people, ‘We’re gonna make America great again. We’re gonna make America yours again. We’re gonna bring you back to your position,’ he’s basically telling them, ‘Yes, white supremacy is the answer’ to their white nation. Our whole f—ing approach was, ‘No, that’s wrong. No, that’s not right.’ We can’t do that anymore. We’ve seen how that’s not powerful enough. We need to unify and decide what it is that we really believe in — that’s what we need to fight for. We can’t just fight against injustice. We gotta fight for justice.”
Read the entire essay here.
Photo: Instagram
