“Aren’t you voting for Obama?’’

I have been asked this question from a plethora of people when discussing the upcoming presidential election in November. Often times, people assume the entire black population will vote to re-elect President Obama in the 2012 presidential election.

In Nicki Minaj’s verse on Lil Wayne’s “Mercy remix” she stated, “I’m a Republican voting for Mitt Romney. You lazy b____ is f______ up the economy.”

Minaj stirred up a lot of controversy over the line, and questions as to whether she was being sarcastic or serious swept the nation. President Barack Obama was interviewed on Florida radio station Power 95.3 FM.

When addressing the issue, Obama stated, “Yeah, I’m not sure [an endorsement is] actually what happened,” he said. “I think she had a song on there, a little rap that said that. But she likes to play different characters. So I don’t know what’s going on there.”

Minaj stated she never meant to endorse the Republican candidate for U.S. president. She also said, she is not really a Mitt Romney fan as well as the fact that she is glad President Obama understood her creative humor and sarcasm.

When the remix to “Mercy” came out, people began to gossip about her verse in the song. A lot of people were disappointed in Nicki Minaj.

I understood why so much controversy came from Minaj’s statement. Minaj has millions of fans and some of her fans are willing to do whatever she does.

By Minaj stating that she is a Republican voting for Mitt Romney, many of her fans may feel obligated to do the same. Although, what I did not understand was why there would be a problem if she was a Republican and wanted to vote for Romney. Why does her choice of political party matter? If Nicki wanted to vote for Romney, doing so would be her expressing her right as an American citizen. She should not feel obligated to vote for Obama just because she too is African-American.

It is assumed by a numerous amount of people that African-American people are voting for Obama just because he is African-American. Yes, there are black people that will vote for Obama just because he is African-American. Likewise, there will be white people who vote for Mitt Romney because he is Caucasian. It goes both ways.

For Nicki Minaj to be put down because of her mentioning being a republican is stereotypical. I feel that if she stated that she was a Democrat voting for Obama there would have been no controversy at all. With the amount of controversy that her line caused, I am glad that it has cleared up and that she has stated she was being sarcastic. That should not have been surprising to anyone because it is Nicki Minaj, and we all know, Nicki loves attention.

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• Kameron James, Contributor