Mushnick on Jay-Z Lyric: “Every Run-backwards, Self-enslaving Stereotype Of Blacks”

I’ve admired New York Post writer Phil Mushnick’s Equal Time Sports in the media column for years; nobody gets it righter fo the most part. But he lost the plot in today’s “It’s Greek To Me”.

Back in 1988 Jimmy the Greek, the bet touting commentater for CBS’s NFL pre-game show, when asked about black peoples athletic superiority compared them to thoroughbred horses and got fired. Of course it was all an all too typical over-reaction but it’s ancient history. Still, if what Mushnick felt like doing is putting the record straight it’s okay with me.

But that wasn’t his target. Instead he riduiculously claimed Jay-Z’s lyric to “Empire State Of Mind”. Now, “Empire” is a lousy song but it aint racist and if Mushnick is clueless as to ebonics he should keep his mouth shut or else take a spin of Chris Rock’s Never Scared CD and listen to his explanation of the use of the N—- and the difference between whites using it and blacks using it.

Yep, hip hop is about trash talk, sexism and drugs, much like the world many of these rappers emerged from in the projects in the Bronx and in projects in Bed Stuy. Thirty years later the point is so moint it’s unheard of. Jay-Z  might be an arrogant ass but equating him with Jimmy The Greek is bad journalism.