Even More of Your Favorite People Speaking Out Against Stop-and-Frisk

Baratunde Thurston, Jasiri X, Janet Mock, New York State Senator Kevin Parker team up to rap about NYPD's stop and frisk.

By Jorge Rivas May 21, 2013

To help people understand that the NYPD’s Stop-and-frisk policy is everyone’s issue the creator of "This Week in Blackness" Elon James White issued an open call for submissions asking people to lend their virtual voices. White asked folks to submit videos of themselves rapping along to the song "10 Frisk Commandments."

An excerpt from the "10 Frisk Commandments Remix" is below:

I’ve never known a time when I wasn’t really warned

about how blackness is perceived with some malice and some scorn.

But Mama I’m sure I didn’t do nothing wrong

And then she said that’s not the point I just don’t want to see you gone.

Growing up it was me who was questioning the fact that being black

That I was somehow always under some sort of attack

It was the bad kids, the thuggish ones, I will be okay

and that’s the same bullshit they used on Kimani Grey

The video features Pittsburgh-based rapper Jasiri X and Florida-based artist and producer Willie Evans Jr. rapping alongside comedian Baratunde Thurston, New York Councilman Juamaane Williams, writer and activist Janet Mock, New York State Senator Kevin Parker, and many more people from all walks of life.

"I look at the 10 Frisk Commandments Remix as true hip hop with a message." said Elon James White. "This isn’t some wack song that tells everyone to sing kumbaya. This is a hard-hitting track with amazing production by Willie Evans Jr. and real-life perspectives that have been lacking in mainstream hip hop."

The video ends by asking viewers to sign a ColorOfChange petition demanding that NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Commissioner Ray Kelly abolish Stop and Frisk.