Hundreds Sign Petition Asking Rick Ross to Apologize for Rape Lyric

Rape isn't a punchline.

By Jamilah King Mar 27, 2013

Rapper Rick Ross may think that rape is something to brag about, but the rest of the sane world doesn’t. The former corrections-officer-turned-rapper has been at the center of controversy recently thanks to one of his lyrics from his new track "U.O.E.N.O" where he boasts about slipping ecstacy in a woman’s drink and then having sex with her: *"Put molly all in her champagne, she ain’t even know it / I took her home and I enjoyed that, she ain’t even know it." * The video that’s above offers some collective responses to Ross’s lyric on the "FemGeniuses" YouTube Channel. A petition has now sprung up on Change.org asking for Ross to publicly apologize for "glorifying drugging/rapping a woman." The petition claims that, at worst, Ross should be investigated and prosecuted assaults that he may have committed. At best, he should apologize, according to the petition. > Change doesn’t come from being outraged about big cases like the Steubenville rape trial. The dominant rape culture today has come from people ignoring and even glorifying statements like this because the song sounds good in the club. You don’t have to be a feminist to support this, but roofy-ing and rape are very serious and shockingly common problems. On Tuesday, [Jamilah Lemeiux wrote a piece at EBONY.com](http://www.ebony.com/entertainment-culture/rick-ross-thinks-rape-is-a-punchline-999#axzz2Om6SJtzW) that looked at the lyric as one example of a troubling body of work. The man is a marginally talented huckster who was lucky enough to find a massive audience that was either gullible or simply undiscerning enough not to care that the dude who’s supposed to be a 350-pound Miami drug kingpin was actually a corrections officer. And if it weren’t for a bunch of ghetto-fantasizing, pseudo-intellectual White boy rap bloggers who decided that Ross was the most important hip-hop act since Lil’ Wayne, I think he’d still be "hustling" loosies and porn mags to inmates. …What’s so scary about Ross’ line is that this is something that a good number of men and boys actually do. Maybe a rap lyric won’t inspire an impressionable young dude to go and try to flip a couple keys, but normalizing this sort of rape? I see it. I see it and it scares me. As of this afternoon, the petition has nearly 400 signatures. To read more about the it, [go here](http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/rick-ross-publicly-apologize-for-glorifying-drugging-raping-a-woman). Rosa Clemente, a prominent hip-hop activist and former vice presidential candidate, also offered up a response to Ross’s lyric.