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Words by Andre Kettle
Jeezy used social media to voice his frustrations on the Georgia elections, all while encouraging his fans to vote, praising allies that are non-black participants in the protest against racism, and keeping the black dollar in the community.
In the beginning of the video the Atlanta rapper commends the non-black allies for their hashtags and protesting support and making sure that “we’re all on the same page.” He then shifts his focus on how things were handled in Georgia for voting.
“I was very upset at the way things were handled. Long lines, they shut down the polls at a certain time that means people there didn’t even get a chance to vote. If you didn’t know your official’s name and it wasn’t on the ballot, you wouldn’t know who you were voting for so you had to research that. The machines didn’t work so you could already tell we at a disadvantage,” Jeezy says.
The veteran rapper then begins to talk about accumulating the Black dollar. “We must build the black dollar, I’m not gon’ let up off that because if you think about it in the Jewish community the dollar stays around lest say a week. Asian community, two weeks, the white community, forever. The black community, our dollar only stays around six hours. We go spend our money with everybody else, which is why they’re trying to support us now and say that all these black lives matter, these big corporations, because if they lose our money, they lose. So we gotta, let’s stand firm on that. We take our money we spend it outside of our communities and so now we gotta put our money back in our communities and in our people. So support your black local businesses, support your black restaurants, support your black entrepreneurs, support anybody that’s out here that trying to do something that looks like you.”
You can still hear the frustration in his voice but he circles back around to the topic of black people needing to vote in November,
“We gotta have this same energy when it’s time to go to them polls in November ’cause listen if y’all, cause if we play it’s a wrap. Four more years of this I don’t know what’s gonna happen. You think they disrespecting us now the first term that he was in, if he gets another term you shall see the disrespect will be even more realer than its been. If you think that they’re walking around these Karens and making all these reports like we’re the problem, people treating us like we’re the aggressors, its gonna get even worse. And they’re not even sweating, so we out here marching, we out here using our leg work and energy and they’re sitting at home waiting on November.”
In his closing statement he talks about the time is now & how important it is to keep fighting for equality and relates it to the Selma march.
“We gotta keep going, we can’t stop. This is real, this is real. So, I commend all my brothers and sisters that are non black that are marching with us. We gotta be in this together, we got what Martin Luther King had in Selma times a million so let’s not play with it. The time is now, it’s time, it’s time.”
