Common Supports Barack Obama in Vote Hope PSA

Common is voting for Obama

Barack Obama gets some serious support from Common in a really nice commercial created for Vote Hope, an organization described on their YouTube channel as an "independent grassroots effort to win the California primary for Barack Obama".

Hey, might as well win the rest of the nation while you're working California, eh?

This is a great look for both Common and Barack.  And for Vote Hope as well.

Press Release:
Vote Hope Launches 'Get-Out-The-Vote 4 Obama' PSAs Featuring Hip Hop Artist and Actor Common

Comments

[slav]

these folks get the thumbs up from me. I've been ready to Barack the Vote since reading Audacity of Hope. I wonder who's gonna take Carolina though? John Edwards?
better yet, who are you going to endorse, if anyone, Clyde?

[Clyde Smith]

My dad would certainly like Edwards to take NC but we'll see. Honestly I wish he would have run for Governor of North Carolina instead. And maybe he will someday. He'd make a great governor but he's not well positioned for the presidency.

Seriously North Carolina could become a much more powerful state even as the tobacco dollars continue to dwindle if we could get someone like Edwards as Governor. He could help us move forward socially and economically at the same time and that's hard to find in a politician.

I've got to take a closer look at Obama but I can't believe I'm being asked who I'll endorse! Yes, ProHipHop will be holding a press conference soon to make that very announcement!

The big thing to me is to get a Democrat in the White House. I kind of like Hillary's vicious nature and I would love to see her unleashed but Barack's got that visionary thing going and I'm a sucker for visionaries if the person's history doesn't immediately undermine such a role.

I've assumed up to now that Hillary would take it so I haven't checked Obama out that closely. But his MTV and online moves could shift some things, especially as college kids go home for Christmas and start talking him up, so I'm going to check him out.

This may sound weird but this commercial was my personal tipping point on Barack, on the real. It caught me.

[Clyde Smith]

I just watched it again. That's a skillful ad right there.

And Common is starting to emerge as a potentially very important social figure if he continues on his current trajectory. Any time he does something like this you can see how it relates to who he is at this point in time.

He doesn't have to ask around about an issue to support and he comes across as very real when he does step up.

Damn they hooked me. Good thing I'm on to their tricks and wily maneuvers!

[DYlan Riler]

Common is definately starting to emerge as a potentially very important social figure. Not mysterious to be Pac, but a great example for today's Hip Hop generation on how to balance both superstardom and responsibillty. Anthony Shears reminds me of Common. He's like Lupe with Balls. His new project, The Growth: My ENDtroduction, comes out next Tuesday. I'm excited to see his growth, because I remember when Common was where Anthon Shears is.

[Clyde Smith]

Mr. Riler, that's classic copy! Your skills are wasted slumming in the comments sections of blogs.

Not that I know or care who the f*ck Anthon Shears is.

[Fige Bornu]

In one of this nation's whitest states, Senator Barack Obama overwhelming beat out two of his establishment-tainted and white contenders, Senator Hilary Clinton and former Senator John Edwards. And it must be true if left alone, our young people will act and behave based on what they see as legitimacy and sincereness . And Obama was the number one choice of young people in Iowa. The same was true for women. So what does this all mean?

Well, I might have to eat my words, but I have a gut feeling that white people are sick and tired of themselves and what they have and currently represent. They now see what Black people have seen for decades: that this system of false democracy in the United States of America is elitist and very selective. They have witnessed and experienced a white man, President George Bush, Jr., bamboozle not just Black people but white people as he lies, steals and then shouts out references to "God." White people in America are losing their liberties despite that wonderful document called the Constitution. They are losing their jobs, homes and are experiencing first-hand the disgrace, mistreatment and awfulness that Black people in America have struggled to wrestle themselves from for centuries. Not too long ago I attended a "lecture" at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles that featured rapper Chuck D and comedian Margaret Choo. Chuck and Margaret spoke volumes of how white supremacy has done this and that. Standing next to me, a young white male in his early twenties turned to me and asked, "Dam, what about me? I am white and I am dealing with the same things they are talking about." Yes, it seems, this once very controlled and powerful system of hate and deceitfulness has spread across the aisles.

And that great and not yet inhibited vehicle called the Internet? It has allowed unfiltered access to what is really going on in the world, and that includes what white people have done and continue to do to human beings worldwide. Mind you, the majority of today's white people are simply victims of their ancestry. Yes, their bloodlines may connect them to some of the worst people ever to inhabitant our planet. But they, poor things, are merely associates of the cruel and vicious acts their forefathers and mothers laid on Africans, Asians and Native Americans for thousands of years, and currently. And the signs are showing that they don't want to have nothing to do this disgusting and deadly regime.

I think what really tipped white people off to the mad cow disease that run in their bloodlines is what happened to tens and tens of thousands of Black people in New Orleans just a few years ago. That God-ordained Internet and the high tech mechanisms of the mass media could not hide, edit or re-explain the bold and massive racism that allowed thousands of Black people (and some white people) to suffer and die right before the eyes, ears, hearts and souls of human beings around the world. (Even today, Bush and his friends arrogantly deny the resources needed to re-built New Orleans for the thousands who had to flee). And the discussion about the thousands who are still missing in New Orleans is yet another reason why anyone with even a hint of a heart would be totally sick and tired of the same old system which must be technically entitled white supremacy. What happened in New Orleans and how it was handled allowed the bottom to drop out of anybody who has even a fraction of care and love in them. What happened in New Orleans was the beginning of the end of this system of white supremacy in the United States. Mark my words on this.

And I see it in the streets, especially amongst white young people: they are resentful and sick and tired of themselves. They are trying to diligently forge alliances with Black people because like most Black people, they are experiencing the same things. They are seeing their parents losing their jobs, homes and their Constitutional rights. And they want a change, even if that means 'kicking to the curb' those who look like them. Because when the shit hits the fan, people want to survive, fuck what the people who are causing them mayhem look like.

So does this mean that white people will finally get off of their trust fund and privileged asses and help Black, Yellow and Brown fight the good fight? I think they will because they have no choice. Because continuing this campaign of white supremacy and thinking that as a result of their skin being white they too will benefit and rise from this evil scheme, is not working for them no more. From George Washington to George Bush, they should, at least, now see that raping, hanging and killing innocent people ain't right. And they now know that they are next.

Good luck everyone, because we will need it and more.

Fige Bornu, Chairman
Positive African Image Institute