Easy E and the GOP, Or, Guess Who's Coming To Dinner



(image via thuglifearmy)

Remember the post-Cold War story about how Easy E attended a Republican White House dinner under George Herbert Walker Bush? We vaguely recall that after some donation the gangsta rapper got an invite. And then the story evaporated. Jerry Heller, popularizer of West Coast hip-hop, fleshes out the details in his latest book, "Ruthless":

"Because (Easy E) contributed his time and money to a South Central charity event, his name got cherry picked by the eternally vigilant fundraising apparatus of the Republican Party. A computer has no judgement. It doesn't care if you are a respected dope dealer, a violent agitator for minority rights, or one of the vocalists on a song called "Fuck Ta Police." Or all three.

"The Republicans understand money and the computer understands the slow grind of numbers. A huge Cray mainframe in Silver Springs, Maryland, picked up the scent of a twenty five thousand dollar contribution made to one (Easy E) of Westlake, California. That scent excited GOP cash glands. The Cray spit out the form letter invitation to said (Easy E) and we were off to have lunch with (President Bush, 41).

"...As it turned out, we had a pretty okay time. We ate poached salmon and roast beef. (Easy E) sat next to a woman from Dallas, who I would bet had never mixed socially with a person of color before in her long and well-heeled life. I expected her to start talking about 'the problem of the Negro.' I think she was actually afraid to look at the short African-American next to her, so she didn't notice that (easy E's) eyes looked like a couple of all-black marbles.

"Nobody's been that stoned in the White House since Gerald Ford's kid Jack smoked dope on the White House roof. And Easy had better weed that Jack Ford ever did."

Nobody? The Corsair has always entertained the notion that "hemp advocate" Ben Franklin was not averse to breeaking out a fatty after the Hasty Pudding and Madeira that was served during state dinners during the Jefferson Administration.

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