Vic Mensa Thinks Barack Obama Made A Major Misstep During His Presidency By Ignoring ‘Chiraq’

Getty Image

Many distressed Americas may be clamoring for Barack Obama to step back into the oval office amidst the scourge of the Trump administration, but Vic Mensa may not be one of them. In his ranging conversation with Hot 97 personality DJ Funkmaster Flex, Mensa spoke on what he perceived as Obama’s perceived negligence of Chicago, where he was based as an Illinois Senator before being elected President in 2008.

The native Chicagoan first broke down his understanding of racial inequality in Chicago, which he suggests goes back to the construction of the city’s Dan Ryan Expressway which served as an unofficial barrier of class and racial lines. He then recalled seeing Obama “make international moves and sending troops into the middle east” as President while the city he called home before DC “stayed the same” as far as gun violence and civic apathy typified by the lack of a trauma center in the treacherous Southside area. The city became notoriously known by its own residents as “Chiraq” because more Americans have been killed there than in Afghanistan and Iraq combined since 2001.

“To me, that’s a misstep of his Presidency,” Mensa said, before noting that Obama “wasn’t President of Chicago, but it speaks to a larger conversation of what his priorities really were as a President, and what mattered to him.” The Autobiography rapper then told Flex that in his opinion, turning things around in Chicago didn’t “jump off the page” to him as a priority for Obama.

×