Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib Featured in 'Brown Power' Music Video That Depicts White Police Officers as Villains
Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan each made appearances in a music video that portrays white law enforcement officers as evil.
Indian-American and Muslim singer Zeshan B released the video for his song “Brown Power” in February. When explaining the meaning behind the song, the singer told NowThis it is “a punch in the face to anyone who is trying to stop the browning of America.”
“We ain’t about to take no more from the ivory tower,” Zeshan B sings at one point.
Various white law enforcement officers, who appear to be police officers and border patrol agents, are depicted throughout the video as oppressive and racially biased.
Omar and Tlaib appear toward the end of the video along with other celebrities and political figures, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Muslim activist Linda Sarsour.
In an interview with The Fader, the singer said that the video and song celebrate the “browning of America and for that matter, the browning of the rest of the world.”
“And I believe that so many unsavory aspects of public discourse today are rooted in a very palpable backlash against that browning. There’s a lot of people and entities out there who are deathly afraid of a world that is less vanilla and more chocolate,” he said.
Zeshan B said brown power includes anyone who “[a]cknowledges the axiom that brown people all over the world have by and large been historically subjugated to harsh injustices (colonialism, slavery, police brutality, disenfranchisement, war crimes, genocide).”
Some saw the video in a different light.
these brown supremacists seem to claim that the great replacement theory and white genocide is actually a thing
i hope the adl will stop them
“brown power, from the streets to city hall” – never heard such a conspiratorial refrain https://t.co/PxkqBjCgFI
— Junes Lokka (@JunesLokka) March 11, 2020
“Brown power”
You stole that slogan from the KKK and just changed the word “white” to “brown”. https://t.co/XTMCq3jkEQ— Das k-rapital (@kl60199572) March 12, 2020
Omar last week said racism is embedded in America’s DNA, according to Breitbart.
“From slavery to Jim Crow to redlining to mass incarceration to voter suppression, racism is part of the foundation of American power,” Omar said at a panel discussion on “racial justice,” which she hosted.
“Our task as organizers is not only to all out the specific incidences of racism,” Omar said. “It is to recognize that our history is built on the oppression of black bodies.”
Omar said that it is not enough to pass new laws.
“We must recognize that this is the result of centuries of oppression and undoing that oppression will take more than just laws,” Omar said.
I am,
Hijabi
Muslim
Black
Foreign born
Refugee
SomaliEasily triggering conservatives, Right wing bloggers, anti Muslim bigots, tinfoil conspiracy theorists, birthers, pay me a ? to bash Muslims fraudsters, pro-occupation groups and every single xenophobe since 2016 ? pic.twitter.com/SffIqUT32I
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) February 24, 2020
Tlaib last year outraged Fox News host Tucker Calrson, who said at the time her demands to include non-white legislators in the top ranks of House Democrats was tantamount to saying, “Give us power because of our skin color,” according to RealClearPolitics.
“That’s Tlaib’s argument. Ocasio-Cortez made the same case during her Democratic primary campaign last year,” Carlson said, referring to Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
“By definition this is a racist pitch. It’s every bit as repugnant as a white candidate making the same appeal, as many Democrats did under Jim Crow. ‘Vote for me because of my race.’ It’s disgusting. But it’s everywhere now,” Carlson said.
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