There, left-wing lawmakers ignore real problems like crime and homelessness to focus on inane, pointless distractions that do nothing to improve the lives of a majority of their citizens.
New York is a perfect example.
There, the Democrat super-majority looks askance at the rising tide of criminal violence as they move to protect rap artists from having their song lyrics used against them in a court of law.
No, that's not a joke.
According to local station WINS:
...[T]he New York State Senate passed the “Rap Music on Trial” legislation, a bill which prevents song lyrics from being used as evidence in criminal cases, creating protections for all artists and content creators, including rappers.
Artists like Jay-Z and Fat Joe along with academics like Michelle Alexander previously signed their names on a letter endorsing the legislation aimed at securing freedom of creative expression in New York, barring prosecutors from interpreting rap lyrics literally as evidence against defendants in courtrooms.
The bill is sponsored by Senator Brad Hoylman (D/WFP-Manhattan), Senator Jamaal Bailey (D-The Bronx) and Assemblymember Catalina Cruz (D-Queens) and was introduced in November with the intention of protecting all artists and content creators from the misuse of their work in legal battles.
The bill actually covers artists of all musical genres, but supporters say that the legislation is vital to protect rap artists whose violent, women-disparaging lyrics have been "denied the status of art," WINS reported. Rather, as one prosecutor has said, the music is often referred to as an "autobiographical journal" in which the rapper essentially details criminal behavior and disguises it as a 'song.'
And of course, there is the racism claim: WINS reports that supporters say labeling and usage of incriminating rap lyrics in courtrooms "disproportionately affect black and Latino people" (maybe that's because there are more black and Latino rappers?).
“Rap should not be treated differently from any other art form; yet in courtrooms across the country, artists have been unfairly targeted for simply exercising their right to creative expression,” said Bailey. “Presuming a defendant’s guilt based solely on musical genre or creative expression is antithetical to our foundational rights and perpetuates the systemic racism that is embedded into the criminal justice system through discriminatory conflations of hip-hop and rap with criminality.”
Prof. Erik Nelson of the University of Richmond supposedly discovered at least 28 instances of cases where New York criminal prosecutors tried to use rap lyrics as evidence since 2017 -- likely because they were incriminating. As recently as this month, the Fulton County district attorney in Atlanta, Ga., (who is black, by the way) allowed prosecutors to submit as evidence rap music from 'artist' Young Thug in a bid to prove his involvement in a criminal case.
“Art is creative expression, not a blueprint of criminal plans. Yet we’ve seen prosecutors in New York and across the country try to use rap music lyrics as evidence in criminal cases, a practice upheld this year by Young Thug’s prosecutors," Bailey yammered on.
"It’s time to end the egregious bias against certain genres of music, like rap, and protect the First Amendment rights of all artists. I’m proud the New York Senate passed this legislation so that New York leads the way in treating artists fairly, no matter their race or gender," Bailey continued.
In reality, what New York Democrats have done is provided another avenue to protect criminal behavior based on the skin color of the alleged perpetrators, which is legitimate racism when you think about it.
That's because the Democratic Party is obsessed with race rather than obsessed with issues that will improve the lives of all their constituents.
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