TweetyV6 said:

bashraka said:

“(Fans) care about black-owned, don’t they? Go over (to other services) if you want. Any sort of ownership we have is really important,” he says about Tidal and its competition. “When you own your own community, you pay for your police department. Police were created to protect property of white folks. They were originally slave catchers. … When you get your own studio, now what are (labels) going to provide for you?”

http://www.usatoday.com/s.../71597178/

It's like deja vu when Prince went on Tavis Smiley in 2009 and said that "white folks" need to watch the State Of The Black Union Address so they can understand black people.

YAWN!

Dear Prince,

The world is bigger then the USofA. That disqualifies the 'Police statement'
And why would I, living in Germany, working in the Netherlands, ever watch the State of the Black Union Address? I don't care a single fuck.

Now get back into the studio and make some decent music instead of making dumb ass political statements no one gives a shit about.

YAWN!

Prince was speaking to USA Today, no? You might have a point if he referenced Germany or the Netherlands. I want to presonally thank you for letting a world traveller know that the world is bigger than the United States.

filthyrichyuppie said:

bashraka said:

No. I just found it interesting for Prince to make a statement like that in a newspaper where he is promoting a new album. Usually celebrities are tight-lipped about making comments on heavy topics like the historical White ownership of public entities like law enforcement and educational instititions at the expense of African-Americans because they fear offending potential consumers. I have more respect for Prince because of it.

There's some essential assumptions you're making that are, quite franky, ignorant of the history of law enforcement; or indeed any of the institution created a long time ago. They're not inherently racist or designed to pu the black man down. It's like any system...corruption exists but it wasn't designed to be racist. Example. Would you say police forces from central African countries are racist against black folks too?

So if a country's constituition expressly approves of racism ("3/5 of a man"), and their system of laws (and their policing) is bound by that constitution, shouldn't following the dots lead to some racism?

itsjustaroundthecorner said:

i think i officially hate prince.

more hate for the police when he has no idea how difficult their jobs are. and how he short-sidedly insults brave men and women who try to serve our communities, help protect us and bring justice to victims.

i hate this kind of idiotic speech from someone who's head hasnt been on planet earth in about 30 years.

what a total d*ck

He made a generalization, but its likely from his experience and those of his anscestry.

Publicly speaking against wrongdoing is what makes the country better.

Many people claim blacks/minorirties are "hating" on the police. I certainly don't think you will find many who don't respect a policemans' job. That doesn't give a policeman the right to abuse his power; it most certainly doesn't give him the license to kill unarmed citizens without a crystal clear reason for doing so, or performing many other tasteless, unwarranted acts against blacks/minorities.

As various citizens provide proof that shows these police abuses and unwarranted homicides, you should applaude it being made public; maybe it will aid in the next situation being handled properly.

Prince/they is (are) not insulting the brave men and women performing as policeman; an institutional problem needs to be fixed, and it's not going to be fixed without people speaking publicly against it.

Aerogram said:

jcurley said:

I think this is a catch 22 argument. N Prince is confusing reality of outcomes with the history of the police. Ultimately the police were created for the prevention of crime. However most crime is against property. Due to racism black people had little access to any kind if ownership. As time passed black folk were seen as the threat to this property as were anyone without it. However due to inherent racism it was easier to guess a black stranger was without than a white man. Prince is confusing outcomes with the creation. To be fair to prince to differentiate is a mute point. Here in the UK the police have long been accused of tax payer funded private security force for the propertied classes. Get the argument it's just too sweeping

No question, Prince isn't exactly historically accurate. He never was, he lacks formal education.

However inaccurate his statement is, it's exactly as you explain it. There is a continuing issue of profiling and targeting minorities and particularly African-Americans. Many would like to believe it's just a few bad apples, but somehow it's African-Americans that are regularly killed for no reason, and disproportionally jailed.The effect of not addressing this issue is extremely prejudicial, whole families and communities are crippled, the human pain is incredibly sad.

So while Prince has it wrong in terms of history, he has a right to be fed up. I'm sick of seeing headlines about black people dying for nothing and being sent to jail so much more often because they are more targeted. He spoke controversially but he's not wrong to challenge -- I just wish he'd be better informed.

I'm not sure I agree with Prince not being historically accurate. Obviously, ONE of the reasons police were created was for crime prevention. That doesn't mean there wasn't a privileged demographic for whom the crime prevention was mostly created for. With blacks being designated as 3/5 of a man, along with dehumanizing civil rights injustices, it's quite easy to consider that the black population was not truly a part of that demographic. Prince made a simplistic generalization - that doesn't make it historically inaccurate, or at least not a part of a larger truth.

itsjustaroundthecorner said:

PurpleSkipper58 said:

I wonder how Hannah, Ida and Donna feels about this? And Wendy & Lisa, and Doctor Fink, Eric Leads, Allen Leads, Susan Rogers, and others..

I wonder how Sheila E and Stevie Wonder and Janelle Monae and Liv Warfield and Lenny Kravitz and John Blackwell and Dez Dickerson and Andre Cymone and others feels about this?

This is kind of fun. You name more whites and I'll name more blacks.

Prince working with another race shouldn't change his perception of how he feels minorities are treated by the police. If it does bother any of those people you named, oh well, it appears he hasn't been inclined to work with them for quite some time.

[Edited 9/4/15 4:32am]

PurpleSkipper58 said:

I wonder how Hannah, Ida and Donna feels about this? And Wendy & Lisa, and Doctor Fink, Eric Leads, Allen Leads, Susan Rogers, and others..

Leeds, with two "e" and no "a".

i don't care about the police/white folks comment... whatever

but i wish he would just shut the hell up about the music industry... enough already... how many years has he been bitching about the same shit

it would be nice if he concentrated on making some decent music

williamb610 said:

Prince is such a bimbo.

MIRvmn said:

I miss the quiet, weird, scary Prince that never talked.

Why is there not a huge influx of African Americans signing up to be Police so they can manage law enforcement in their communities?

VelvetKittyKat said:

PurpleMedley122 said:

I don't know why Prince needs to use race to try to sell his relationship with Tidal.

Isn't that just outdated politics? The USA is and always has been made up of multi-national communities. Surely, it's time they all got on together and stopped blaming 'white' people for all their problems. Move on!

I once got pulled for speeding by a black cop here in SC. He approached my car cautiously. I already had my window down and he firmly told me to put both my hands on the steering wheel -- out of caution. I gladly obliged. I treat all law enforcement with the utmost respect. You couldn't pay me enough to literally risk my life everyday on their salaries. Where I live there is a large percentage of black cops. Prince needs to get out more and stop generalizing and feeding this BLM insanity. Cops are getting executed for being WWP (white while patroling). Maybe he can write a song about that. What an ass.

i would take prince more seriously on these things he's always rambling about

if he'd just write some really good songs about them.

maybe on this album we'll get those although, i think there will probably

be a few songs about him being the greatest ever and about young women,

and half a dozen songs about parties on there too so let's hope there is some

room for political statements too, eh?

skywalker said:

bashraka said:

“(Fans) care about black-owned, don’t they? Go over (to other services) if you want. Any sort of ownership we have is really important,” he says about Tidal and its competition. “When you own your own community, you pay for your police department. Police were created to protect property of white folks. They were originally slave catchers. … When you get your own studio, now what are (labels) going to provide for you?”

http://www.usatoday.com/s.../71597178/

It's like deja vu when Prince went on Tavis Smiley in 2009 and said that "white folks" need to watch the State Of The Black Union Address so they can understand black people.

Does this offend you?

It's not 100% truth (they were not originally slave catchers)
Makes me think of SW Clones originally to help and protect, then turned to hunt Jedi
but this is a P&R thread topic

and I see this one as well going down in flames lol

ehh I give prince a pass for this. The sentiment he's expressing seems to be, "if black people had more power in communities, police forces wouldn't be racist." It sounds reasonable.

I'd much rather prince make kinda clumsy political statements about real issues than have him talk about chemtrails.

also, sorry to the fans in europe, maybe prince just isn't talking to you.

pdiddy2011 said:

itsjustaroundthecorner said:

i think i officially hate prince.

more hate for the police when he has no idea how difficult their jobs are. and how he short-sidedly insults brave men and women who try to serve our communities, help protect us and bring justice to victims.

i hate this kind of idiotic speech from someone who's head hasnt been on planet earth in about 30 years.

what a total d*ck

He made a generalization, but its likely from his experience and those of his anscestry.

Publicly speaking against wrongdoing is what makes the country better.

Many people claim blacks/minorirties are "hating" on the police. I certainly don't think you will find many who don't respect a policemans' job. That doesn't give a policeman the right to abuse his power; it most certainly doesn't give him the license to kill unarmed citizens without a crystal clear reason for doing so, or performing many other tasteless, unwarranted acts against blacks/minorities.

As various citizens provide proof that shows these police abuses and unwarranted homicides, you should applaude it being made public; maybe it will aid in the next situation being handled properly.

Prince/they is (are) not insulting the brave men and women performing as policeman; an institutional problem needs to be fixed, and it's not going to be fixed without people speaking publicly against it.

You think Prince has bad experiences with cops?

probably only during Bob George

Screw any of you racist punks for not wanting to deal with the truth to the wickedness of racism. Prince isn't speaking about the police in the Netherlands or any other place except America in this instance. You don't live here, and don't know the gravity of what happens here. You never had to truly deal with racism so you talk out of your ass. You hate that Prince is a grown ass man and not your little music slave. He is a person first, musician second. The police were and still are a big instrument for the institution and support of an evil ideology called white supremacy. If the truth hurts don't get mad at Prince. Address the evil bastards that started all of this racist evil terrorist shit. Call out the evil racist terrorists who spent and continue to spend ridiculous amounts of resources to terrorize another group of people so they can have a genetic advantage. That's what racism truly is. It's the need and desire for a genetic advantage in the world. If you don't have experience of police officers terrorizing you then just say it's never happened to you, but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened to others. You love the police so much because they've been right by you for the most part. But they haven't been right by everyone. That's the silly assumption you make when you think of the police. It's inaccurate. They're selective about whom they treat with respect and dignity. And most times the unselected are not white. So when those who have been terrorized by the police speak on it, you struggle to believe your precious little protector can be so evil. The truth is...THEY CAN.

EFFDUBB said:

darkroman said:

I don't know why Prince needs to use race to try to sell his relationship with Tidal.

Isn't that just outdated politics? The USA is and always has been made up of multi-national communities. Surely, it's time they all got on together and stopped blaming 'white' people for all their problems. Move on!

To imply other groups of people are just blaming white people for all of their problems shows how ignorant you are. Have you talked to any of these people? Are you acting like the laws of our country didn't give white people an advantage over other peoples? Why did they want a genetic advantage? Has there ever been a law that makes it illegal for white people to read in this country? Has the police ever shot white people because they're white? Have the police every targeted white people specifically to harrass?

PurpleSkipper58 said:

EFFDUBB said:

Screw any of you racist punks for not wanting to deal with the truth to the wickedness of racism. Prince isn't speaking about the police in the Netherlands or any other place except America in this instance. You don't live here, and don't know the gravity of what happens here. You never had to truly deal with racism so you talk out of your ass. You hate that Prince is a grown ass man and not your little music slave. He is a person first, musician second. The police were and still are a big instrument for the institution and support of an evil ideology called white supremacy. If the truth hurts don't get mad at Prince. Address the evil bastards that started all of this racist evil terrorist shit. Call out the evil racist terrorists who spent and continue to spend ridiculous amounts of resources to terrorize another group of people so they can have a genetic advantage. That's what racism truly is. It's the need and desire for a genetic advantage in the world. If you don't have experience of police officers terrorizing you then just say it's never happened to you, but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened to others. You love the police so much because they've been right by you for the most part. But they haven't been right by everyone. That's the silly assumption you make when you think of the police. It's inaccurate. They're selective about whom they treat with respect and dignity. And most times the unselected are not white. So when those who have been terrorized by the police speak on it, you struggle to believe your precious little protector can be so evil. The truth is...THEY CAN.

There are bad cops that don't deserve to wear the badge. They make all the other cops look bad. But there are good cops out there too.

Yes, there are good cops out there. Many of the good cops are too afraid to stand up and be good men because they are afraid of the bad cops. They are afraid of breaking the blue code. They won't give respect to their profession by holding the bad cops accountable. Instead they remain quiet and silent. They blindly support the bad cops because they're cops. The police organizations and government officials always protect the cops in every instance, even when one does wrong.

i love it when Prince gets on his pro-Black, or so-called "conspiracy theory" shit ...

its a healthy, natural progression for a brother his age, and has been a long time coming...black men of that age, have seen, heard, and have been exposed to alot of social and political injustice in their lives, whether they themselves have dealt with it personally, or through others...he has every right to speak on these things, and as a black man of his age and prominence, its his DUTY to do so