Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons visited The O’Reilly Factor last night to promote his new book about the value of meditation. And I don’t know about you but I thought it spoke volumes that O’Reilly immediately seized on Simmons’ appearance to attack black culture, black music and, specifically, Beyoncé.
O’Reilly disingenuously introduced the segment by saying, “We have been trying to help children at risk across the country, especially minority kids without parental guidance.” Yet O’Reilly’s “help” always seems to amount to attacking African Americans for not handling the problem the way he thinks they should.
Even when O’Reilly acknowledges his approval of an initiative like President Obama’s recent “My Brother’s Keeper,” O’Reilly doesn't spend time highlighting what the program actually does or its successes. Instead, as he did last night, O’Reilly called it “a very strong step forward” and then quickly moved along to his attack: “But, along with that, the inner city culture of cynicism must be in play,” O’Reilly immediately added.
Simmons' book is about the value of meditation for health and success. One of Simmons’ goals, as he told Fox News in a previous appearance, is to bring meditation into schools, which he believes will help reduce violence in the inner city. But O’Reilly was more interested in lecturing Simmons about the evils of black culture and Beyoncé.
O’Reilly got the title of Simmons’ book wrong in his introduction. Instead of calling it, “Success Through Stillness: Meditation Made Simple,” O’Reilly announced the subtitle as “Mediation Made Simple.”
O’Reilly’s first question:
Explain this. Beyoncé. I saw her sing the Star Spangled Banner at the Super Bowl in Houston. Brilliant. Alright? Worth about $350 million. She puts out a new album with a video that glorifies having sex in the back of a limousine. Teenage girls look up to Beyoncé, particularly girls of color. She’s an idol to them. I’m saying, why on earth would this woman do that? Why would she do it when she knows the devastation that unwanted pregnancies… and fractured families – why would Beyoncé do that?
I so wish Simmons had thrown back to O’Reilly the question, “Why do you, as a multimillionaire who claims to be such an America lover, go on a cable news network and promote hate and resentment every night, when you know that the country is so stressed and divided already?”
Simmons kept trying to talk about meditation but O’Reilly – who said he agrees with Simmons on putting meditation into schools – was clearly more interested in grandstanding.
I believe that an entertainer like Beyoncé and a mogul like you have an obligation to protect children, not put out exploitive garbage that you know harms impressionable children. I think Beyoncé, what she has done here is inexplicable and I’m asking you, Russell Simmons, to explain it to me.
Simmons answered that his daughters “make choices based on inspiration that we give them as parents.” He tried to argue that “the art that comes out of a community” is not the cause of the problem but O’Reilly interrupted to challenge the word “art” and soon changed the subject to meditation.
Hell, she even took a major money hit by releasing the “Born This Way” album to Amazon for 99 cents for its first two days of release (selling roughly 440,000 copies of its total first week sales of just over 1.1 million).
You want to bash Perry and Minaj and Kesha, fine. Go right ahead. (Perry deserves a special place in hell for her faux-lesbian tripe, “I Kissed a Girl”—not saying it’s not a fun little pop ditty, but the message is really not what people think it is. The title implies a coming out; the lyrics state it’s more the “Girls Gone Wild” trash. Minaj is more hype than any real talent and Kesha couldn’t sing her way out of a paper bag without her Autotune. The best thing to come from Kesha’s career so far: Julie Brown’s parody, “Another Drunk Chick.”)
And, thinking about it… Has O’Reilly said one word about Taylor Swift having the balls to call herself a role model, and tell her fans how to live… while dressing like an escort, and centering her whole career on every song being how sexually awkward every guy she went on a date with since the last album is?
I guess the fact that both of them are registered Republicans has nothing to do with their double standards, or their inexcusable pandering to young girls telling them how to act.
Beyonce hates being sexualized. When she has a choice in what she wears, she dresses like a soccer mom, or like someone who’s going to church. Even a lot of her awards show appearances, it’s tasteful if it’s sheer. But that’s the way it’s gone for women in music- You show the skin, or there’s the door. That’s why I only condemn the ones that seem to enjoy being famous purely for their onstage sexuality, and milk it when there’s a choice- Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Kesha, Nicky Minaj…
They can act like they hate it all they want, Beyonce has walked the walk on proving it, while they’ve proven they’d be prostitutes if it was legal.
Apparently Billy is not the only man who has the hots for Bey. Rusty the Radio Clown liked Bey’s lyrics so much he had to play it twice.
http://youtu.be/V2YLIJZEOT4
NOTE TO BILLY
You secretly wished you were in that car with Bey instead of Jay-Z, you dirty old goat.
