Florida rears its ugly censorship head again in a deja vu incident reminiscient of the controversy that took place with Miami-bred 2 Live Crew in the early ’90s. Aspiring rapper Antavio Johnson posted a song about killing police officers to his Myspace account and was charged with corruption by threat of a public servant. He plead guilty for his song “Kill Me A Cop” and received 2 years in prison. A similar thing happened to NWA for “Fuck The Police” which got them scrutinized by the FBI and made cops not provide security for their shows. Is it hard to understand why so many Black men feel this way when there are past victims like Rodney King, Malice Green, Abner Louima, Amadou Diallo, Oscar Grant III and now Henry Louis Gates who thankfully did not get killed or physically assaulted by the police? 2 Live Crew was deemed indecent because of their album As Nasty As They Wanna Be which got a record store owner arrested for selling it to an undercover cop and members of the group arrested for performing it at a nightclub in Florida. The original indecency ruling made by a local judge was overturned by judge Jose Gonzalez of the United States Court Of Appeal For The Eleventh Circuit and ironically enough it was Henry Louis Gate’s expert witness testimony on behalf of the group that helped their defense.
