Run the Jewels’ very smart and politically minded Killer Mike is a huge opponent of the Confederate flag — especially in light of the shooting in Charleston and the ensuing battle over the Confederate flag that flies over South Carolina’s capitol grounds. In a Fader interview, the rapper talks at length about why the flag is an anachronistic relic for losers who sip Traitorade. “I have no problem with Southerners who consider that a part of their heritage flying it privately in their homes or [wearing it] on their shirts or jackets,” he says. “But I do not think it should ever fly over a state, city, county building, or school, for the simple reason that it represents secession from the Union.” He adds that “any group of traitors, anyone who tried to break up this country, deserves no honor once they’ve lost.”
Here are some of his other thoughts:
On the flag’s symbolic racism:
As a child, the Confederate flag was explained to me as a flag of racism, that there are often men who will use that flag to try to terrorize black people. My grandparents both were unafraid. My grandmother had been a part of the civil rights movement. She had grown up with her family in Alabama, in Tuskegee. They were always protected and sheltered. My father was a gun owner and protected his home as need be. I’ve never been afraid of that flag. I’ve never been afraid of white supremacists. … I have never walked around in fear, nor will I.
On alleged shooter Dylann Roof:
[Roof is] a terrorist. He is a product of a terrorist propaganda that represents a caste system that hides itself behind race in this country. I see that mentality of terror as something that needs to be fought. There is no hope and no redemption for this young man. I have no forgiveness in my heart for him, and my hope is that he spends the rest of his life in prison or is quickly put to death behind the great and heinous act he did.
On how to change the domestic terrorism aimed at America’s black citizens:
I feel like that terror is state sanctioned and that this minority group should deal with the state in terms of the voting booth. In the core of me I feel like, economically, there are corporations that have backed politicians that have kept the Confederate flag high and that have allowed the premise of white supremacy to stand. I think that [people] should attack those corporations economically by withholding money from them.
Killer Mike is the latest in a string of musicians, including Nas and Lupe Fiasco, who have made their voices heard post-Charleston. For more from his interview, catch the full piece here.