That's what Ricky Walters, b/k/a Slick Rick, says in the AP article For 17 months, 'Slick Rick' awaits deportation ruling:
The Hip-Hop Hall of Fame inductee is into his 17th month behind bars, with no end in sight despite legal efforts and appeals from friends such as comedian Chris Rock, actor Will Smith and the Rev. Jesse Jackson."It's the same old, same old," the voice behind the classic hit La-Di-Da-Di said by phone from a federal detention facility in Bradenton. "Wake up, eat breakfast. Do a little exercise, try to keep yourself together. Call your wife.
"Stay positive."
It's tough in the face of endless negativity. Since his 2002 jailing, Walters has awaited word on whether he can return to his home and two sons in New York City, or if he'll face deportation to his birthplace of England. He sees his wife, Mandy, just once a month.
Obviously, we're all much safer with dangerous immigrants like him locked up.
See, this is why I've been avoiding the political stuff. There's only so many ways to say, "Dear God, they're idiots," and "We are sooooo fucked," and I think I've run through them all. Twice.
Link from Black Electorate, which also links to a piece at AllHipHop.com about the Honorable Minister Farrakhan trying to "mediate tension" between Ja Rule and 50 Cent.
Guess this means the kids at LGF won't be buying their cds no more. . .
I'm still at a loss for how a man can be detained for that long without some kind of resolution.
He's not a damn criminal...Criminy.
Just ruin my day, why dontcha.
someone very close to me is going thru this same thing. but instead of still being in detention, he was deported. even tho he's lived in the states for the past 25 years, is married to a us citizen, has children here, and his mother is a naturalized citizen.
in fact, there are so many people who have been caught up in the system like this. resident aliens who have served their time - but happen not to be american citizens, adopted kids whose parents thought all their paperwork was filed correctly - only to find 18 years later that it wasn't, people who did some dirt whose misdemeanors were reclassified retroactively as "aggravated assaults" which is grounds for immediate deportation... i've read so many stories about so many people who's families were destroyed. and though a lot of the turmoil happened as a result of 9/11, we need to go back a little further and look at the changes in the laws that happened in 1996 in the aftermath of the oklahoma city bombing.
what's happening to slick rick, what's happening to my friend, and countless other people who've served their time and want to rebuild a life with their families, is wrong.
rick needs to find some austrian ancestry in his family tree and run for governor of california. oh wait, too late. damn.
i would indicate rick's persecution as more evidence that our culture is dying if i weren't inclined to say it's been rotting unburied for decades. if it even existed in the first blace. </bitter>
i would like to see the mtv generation take to the streets with picket signs to get him out, but maybe that's just the fantasy world i live in.
The current MTV generation doesn't even know who Slick Rick is.
Wait, isn't Russell Simmons gearing up to run for Governor of NY or something? If Russell Simmons can get Slick Rick out of jail, I'll apologize for all the nasty things I said about him after the whole brouhaha around the Rockefeller drug laws. Check it:
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0324/allah.php