Killer Mike Talks Gun Rights, Charleston, Classism on "The Tavis Smiley Show"

Last night, Killer Mike was once again a guest on “The Tavis Smiley Show”, where he talked about gun rights, the shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, the black diaspora, and more. Below, you can watch the interview, which concluded a two-part series that began yesterday.

This interview began with a short discussion about Run the Jewels. Smiley pointed out that some viewers might be surprised that Mike’s rapping partner, El-P, is white. To which he responded: “We are all suffering under this oppression. We’ve taken the bait of racism—which is another form of classism, masked with color—to in-fight and not see the real enemy.”

Mike talked about wanting to see the black community “self-segregate” its money by frequenting more black banks and credit unions. “We have a responsibility to do better as black people in this country,” he said. “I don’t care how white people look at you—I care that we have a one trillion dollar spending base and if you want to see change, you have to start to focus on, economically, how can we change our communities.”

He then switched to the issue of gun rights, and said, “I don’t understand how any black person can tell me that they’re not pro-gun.” He pointed out that America was founded by armed citizens, and said, “I’m not advocating armed rebellion in this country. I’m saying a Mexican standoff is a Mexican standoff for a reason.”

When Smiley asked if he thought the victims of the Charleston shooting should’ve been armed, he said:

I’m not going to say they should have been armed, they’re stupid—because that’s wrong, that’s evil, and I’ve heard that said. I’ve said publicly on Twitter that I wish they had been armed. I wished it in the way a child wishes Christmas had come earlier. I wished there would’ve been some deterrent; I wish the angel Gabriel had really been in front of that door to stop that man. I can’t tell you that I want them to be armed in church. I can tell you that the Nation of Islam frisks everyone that walks in that door.

He added:

I think we gotta have the full American experience. We should stop sheltering ourselves in this victimization that we’re in, that everyone wants to hurt us and the only person that can save us is the federal government, because that’s not true—they don’t do a very good job. 

Read our feature on Run the Jewels, Last Rappers Standing.

Watch Killer Mike and El-P on Pitchfork.tv’s “Over/Under”:

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