Bad guess, CarolC. Jay Z is flippin' off the people who dare to criticize his brand of thuggery. Jay Z is the problem, NOT the solution for chrissake. Just like Oprah is the problem, and not the solution.

And you know what, artbrooks? Obama may well have all those folks in his back pocket.

But he doesn't have Maya Angelou's vote.

And people should be asking themselves why.

Maya Angelou isn't one of the Bill Cosby black conservatives steeped in the black nationalist separatist tradition of "segregation wasn't so bad".

She isn't one of the 70% of African Americans whom, in true conservative reactionary mode, regularly denounce rap and hip hop as a corrupting influence, the same way whites do.

She doesn't even issue blanket condemnations of hip hop from her high, lofty perch among the American literary giants.

Imagine that. One of the last living scions of a generation of the Black Arts Movement, one of the last living grande dames of the Civil Rights Era. And even though her family and friends are all voting for Obama, she is not.

Now, it isn't my intention to put her on a pedastal for that, not by a long shot. But to understand why she is making that choice, you need to know a bit about African American history. You have to know that black conservatism is a tradition that winds it's way back, and includes Bill Cosby and Obama, Amiri Baraka and August Wilson, Louis Farrakahn and Jeremiah Wright, back to Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, and Booker T. Washington.

But that those folks don't represent the black liberal integrationist philosophy, especially those of the other half of the 60s Civil Rights Movement, including Martin Luther King, Ralph Ellison, and stretching back to W.E.B. DuBois.

Yet, Maya Angelou, Josephine Baker, Ida B. Wells, and Sojourner Truth don't fit easily within either of those two male dominated pantheons of African American History. But Zora Neale Hurston quite comfortably does fit within the conservative Booker T. Washington/Bill Cosby on Pound Cake pantheon (though she wasn't a huge fan of Marcus Garvey's ability to pocket the peoples' monies in his own pocket).

What I, and I think Riginslinger too (and some others here, who have expressed reservations about him, but may yet vote for him) have recognized about Obama, is his brand of inclusivity is a mile wide and an inch deep. His political ideology seems more firmly rooted in the prevailing winds, than in any moral ground, much less the high one.

The Hip Hop Nation, such as it is, is every bit as complex and diverse as any other aspect of African American history. It is true many black nationalist conservatives, urban, suburban, and rural, have flocked to Obama. And why wouldn't they? He is one of them.

But some very thoughtful, wise, and intellectual powerhouses of the black intelligentsia have not leapt on board, and the train is pulling out of the station.

Why not dare take a look at what they have to say?