Jadakiss Fundraiser Canceled By Black Church And Community Leaders
Published by oshun May 8th, 2007.The Don Imus bandwagon is reaching full speed with the Black church and Black community leaders finally taking a real stand against negativity in rap music, most recently canceling a celebrity basketball fundraiser at Stamford’s Yerwood Center where rapper Jadakiss and his D-Block crew were scheduled to appear.
According to the Stamford Advocate, the rapper was dissed by Jere Eaton, a former Yerwood Center board member and a potential presidential candidate for the NAACP’s Stamford branch, who was concerned violence would break out at the event.
She was so concerned she hopped online to gather Web site links, articles and lyrics before sending out a warning email blast to community leaders and the media demanding Jadakiss be dropped.
“Under the leadership of Dr. Robert Perry (pastor of Union Baptist Church) and other clergy in Stamford,” she wrote, “we are demanding that the Celebrity Basketball Fundraiser is canceled or ‘CLEAN’ entertainment is provided by artists with ‘CLEAN’ reputations.”
Eaton had previously made her views crystal clear by saying, “All of these artists are the worst of the worst. They’re criminals, their favorite word is the N-word, and they demean women by calling them bitches and hos.”
Deborah Sewell, the Yerwood Center’s president and CEO, canceled the fundraiser after receiving over 60 phone calls expressing concern. There was no time to schedule a replacement.
One leader who spoke out against the event was Rev. Tommie Jackson, pastor of Faith Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church.
“It doesn’t make it right if it’s said by Don Imus or black rap artists,” Jackson opined. “It is antithetical to the morals and values that we’re trying to teach and impart to the sons and daughters of the community.
“The bottom line is we believe that the Yerwood Center needs to raise money, but there are better ways of doing it than bringing in Jadakiss.”
Well after 20 plus years of tolerating the nonsense of rappers poisoning the minds of our black youth with imageries of gangsterism, violence, denigration of women, etc. its good to see that church people can do more than just sit back, do nothing except benefit from the efforts of others who roll up their sleeves and are always fighting for the self-respect, pride, dignity and honor of black Americans.
For far too long your silence and activity concerning the fate and destiny of our youth and community has been stuck on doing nothing. For far too long we have allowed the antics of rappers to poison the minds of our youth and not say a single solitary thing about it. Kudos to Jere Eaton, for standing up taking control of your own destiny, instead of hiding behind the cloak of God as an excuse to sit back and be sycophants, watching and saying nothing as the likes of some rappers drags our community down the gutter.
WELL DONE Jere Eaton and the rest of you church members for finally taking a stand against indecency and self-debasement.
I hope that the churches kicked in to raise the money for these kids who were trying to go to Africa, and I hope that the next step these “morality vigilante’s” take is to march on Prince or the Artist formerly known as Prince for his “lyrics” you will find his lyrics to be less than “clean”.
He has used the “N” word and called women bitches and whores…but that’s okay right??? It’s even okay that he dedicated a song completely to incest and doing his sister, it’s okay that he has more than one song about oral sex…
Oh, but he doesn’t sing those songs anymore….oh really? well not in public anyways! And we certainly gave him over 20 years to grow and mature beyond humping the stage!!!
Bush knew what he was doing when he created “Faith based” funding to churches, they are all on his payroll now and willing to attack their own youth instead of building a bridge of understanding.
This is really getting ridiculous!!!!
I fully support the decision to cancell the show. Its about time we clean up our own back yard before we demand others clean up theirs or ours.
Russell Simmons always mention rappers rap about what they see. Well now they can rap about how good people are taking a stand about decency. (hopefully the rappers see this). Do rappers have tunnel vision, is all they see is crime and all they hear is filth. What happen to their mothers’, didn’t they raise these rappers with bettter morals, or really, are they just blind to decency.???