Can we get some new stars?

Just hours before he was scheduled to perform at the BET Hip-Hop Awards, T.I., real name Clifford Harris, was arrested for possession of unlicensed machine guns. Who the hell gets arrested for this? Who do you think you are, Ordell Robbie?

(Google it, if you don't know who that is.)

Somebody help me understand this. You are T.I. You are one of the top rap acts in the country. You are a platinum selling artist. You appear in movies. You appear in mainstream advertising. You recently appeared on a open-panel discussion on hip-hop and its effects on our community. You have skated through your music career on minimal talent. You are rich. You have bodyguards. What the hell do you need with machine guns and silencers?

What, are you trying to be the Punisher for Halloween, and you want your costume to be extra authentic? Are you trying to defend the hood from terrorists? Next time I see some terrorism going down in East Point, I know who to call, because as we all know, the hood is a hotbed of terrorist activity.

Last week, I saw a guy planting a car bomb in a beat-up Chevy Celebrity, but when I got closer, it turned out he was really just duck-taping his muffler so it wouldn't drag the ground. My mistake.

Clifford's (because I don't know or care what "T.I." means) defenders would probably say that this was a set-up or something, but no one except the Bush Administration is spreading anything good through the use of machine guns. I seriously doubt he was planning to use them to bring whimsy and wonder to our childrens' lives.

Unless the revolution is about to start and no one told me, I can't think of a good reason for Clifford to need machine guns. If he needs protection, that's what the bodyguard was for. The bodyguard's job is to take bullets for you, not go buy more guns so your dumb ass can shoot back.

So thanks, Clifford, for being a good example. You're only one of the most visible music stars in the world, with millions of young black kids looking up to you. Yeah, no one's gonna notice this. Not on the eve of the BET Hip-Hop awards, where you were to perform AND nominated for nine awards. Hell, there was only a TON of press there just in case something illegal happened. Good thing you were there to keep the press from a slow news day.

Then, at the awards show, some of his fellow artists performed his songs for him and tried to make him out to be a victim, by saying things like "Free T.I." Listen, Clifford is not a political prisoner. You're not gonna see Clifford on a t-shirt with Malcolm and Martin. Clifford's troubles have nothing to do with "the struggle," unless it's struggling with his handcuffs, or struggling to find new ways to get arrested, because he won't be struggling to make bail or struggling to find a good lawyer.

Don't get it twisted, Clifford is not one of the Black Panthers.

If we are trying to hold up Clifford here as some sort of pariah or victim, then we are truly in trouble. Why do our stars have to be knuckleheads? Not that white folks don't have their own embarrassments, but for one, whites aren't all identified as one group, and two, I'm not embarrassed by the latest Britney Spears scandal. I don't really care how many cocks the paparazzi caught Paris Hilton sucking.

The real question here is, can we get some new stars? Maybe some who are allergic to jail time. Maybe some who won't brag about going to jail on a song (Clifford rapped on Young Buck's "Stomp" that he "caught some cases, but that's just a minor setback," before getting eaten alive by Ludacris). Maybe some stars who aren't so concerned with hood acceptance and "keepin' it real." I've never understood why you'd want acceptance from the hood, anyway. There's good people in the hood, but that's also where the people live who are plotting to rob you every time you go down there, regardless of their "acceptance" of you.

Can't we bring back Bill Cosby? Someone needs to get crackin' on that time machine.