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Comment by gamache | Hacker News Reader

“Yet our best trained, best educated, best equipped, best prepared troops refuse to fight. As a matter of fact, it’s safe to say that they would rather switch than fight.”—Public Enemy, Fight the Power

Seriously? Public Enemy sampled it, they clearly didn't say it. Thomas N. Todd did. http://www.njcdlp.org/Thomas_N_Todd.html

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Nice. I never looked it up, but always just assumed it was Farrakhan. Always good to have assumptions proven wrong.

Do you have a transcript of Thomas N. Todd saying that so I can see some context?

It's from the late 70s so you probably won't find a transcript online. The speech was delivered at a Nation of Islam temple. See footnote #22 in the link below.

http://books.google.com/books?id=r_p_Q6TUrQoC&pg=PA261&#...

Yeah, that is a pretty huge over sight. Who would want to make a reference to PE without realizing that?

All of his blog posts start with a line from a rap song. It makes a lot more sense in the context of his blog (http://bhorowitz.com/2010/04/28/why-we-prefer-founding-ceos/, for example) than it does on Techcrunch, but I assume he just did the same thing out of habit.

Because he intentionally made the reference to PE to pick up on PE's context. He "sampled" PE, he didn't "sample" Thomas N. Todd.

PE's context is fighting back against oppression, which was what the Thomas N. Todd sample is talking about. Specifically playing along with the system at the time in which many blacks were second class citizens rather than standing up for ones rights.

In the article he mentions his employees wanting to avoid a direct fight, that is not the same as switching sides!

If you listen to the quote in context it's obvious Todd's main point is not not fighting but joining the other side (He stretches out "swwwwwiiiiiitch").

The author's not a journalist by trade so I'll cut him some slack, he's ignorant rather than lazy.

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