Vic Mensa is using his influence to bring awareness to the treatment of immigrants in ICE detainment facilities. Last week, Mensa dropped the controversial video for his 93PUNX single "Camp America," a visual that shows the reported unethical treatment of immigrants. However, instead of featuring children of color, Mensa uses white kids to show the injustices that young people face while locked away. The music artist recently sat down with MSNBC to discuss the politically-charged music video and how he hopes to “disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed."
"As I was coming up with the concept, I wanted to display the situations that are really happening in these immigrant prisons where kids have reported being tortured with plastic bags over their heads," Mensa said. "Families have reported being left with no option but to drink toilet water. Kids have been sexually assaulted. All of these things that are obviously just human rights violations, but are looked over because they're done to people of color and they're done to immigrants that are poor [and] are coming from war-torn countries. None of those things would be allowed to fly were it America's prized white children at stake."
"I'm hoping that people watch this video and they think about how immigrants are treated in this nation," Mensa continued. "I hope they think about how people of color are treated in this nation, and also that we can make the through line—the tie in—from these immigrant prisons to mass incarceration...because let's not forget that this is not really a new issue or new occurrence."