To Kanye, with love
7th May 2018 · 0 Comments
By Edmund W. Lewis
Editor
How does rapper Kanye West go from observing during a live national television broadcast that President George W. Bush didn’t care about Black people in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to professing his undying love and admiration for President Donald Trump and suggesting that slavery was a choice in 2018?
It wasn’t as cumbersome or complicated a transition as some might think.
Over the course of his career, the Chicago rapper has been all over the map and has said a lot of things that make people wonder how much glue he might have sniffed before becoming the world’s most famous college dropout.
When you look back on it, the George Bush comment might represent one of very few moments of clarity in Kanye West’s mind, a rare moment for an otherwise raving lunatic.
West, you might recall, has not been shy about expressing his fondness for Donald Trump, going so far as to visit him at Trump Tower after he was elected president of the United States in 2016.
Reacting to comments made online after news spread of his most recent declaration of his love for Trump on TMZ, Kanye said, “You don’t have to agree with Trump but the mob can’t make me not love him. We are both dragon energy. He is my brother. I love everyone. I don’t agree with everything anyone does.”
President Trump was as pleased as punch about West’s flattering comments about him. It looks as though the president has a new BFF that is every bit as delusional and detached from reality as he is.
Frankly, they deserve each other.
West revealed a great deal about himself when he professed his love and admiration for a U.S. president who has unapologetically referred to all immigrants from South America as murderers and rapists, encouraged NFL team owners to fire professional athletes for kneeling down during the national anthem and doing everything in his power to methodically dismantle the civil and voting rights progress made in America over the past six decades.
He clearly doesn’t identify with the masses of Black people who struggle every day with unconstitutional policing and a host of other issues related to white supremacy.
And, dare I ask, does Kanye West truly care about Black people?
His actions and words certainly suggest that he doesn’t.
Especially his remarks about the enslavement of our Beloved African Ancestors.
“When you hear about slavery for 400 years. For 400 years?! That sounds like a choice,” he said. “You was there for 400 years and it’s all of y’all. It’s like we’re mentally in prison.
“I like the word ‘prison’ because ‘slavery’ goes too direct to the idea of blacks. Slavery is to blacks as the Holocaust is to Jews.
“Prison is something that unites as one race, Blacks and whites, that we’re the human race.”
Kanye later said on Twitter, “[T]o make myself clear. Of course I know that slaves did not get shackled and put on a boat by free will.”
It would be tempting to attribute Kanye West’s antics to being off his meds or his recent opioid addiction perhaps altering the molecular structure of his brain, but he has a long history or erratic behavior and antics.
There was the time he snatched an award from teenager Taylor Swift at the MTV Awards and told the audience and the world that Beyonce deserved the award, not Swift. He later talked about how traumatized he was by the white backlash he received as a result of that incident.
There were his widely publicized boasts about how he doesn’t read books.
This is the man who refused to allow his future wife, Kim Kardashian, to have any say in making plans for their wedding and meticulously picks out her wardrobe.
Then there was the incorporation of the Confederate battle flag into his wardrobe. Who, in their right mind, would think it is appropriate or fashionable to wear a symbol of white supremacy, particularly at a time when there has been an unmistakable surge in conscious efforts to turn back the clock in America and strip Black people of everything our ancestors fought for over the past four centuries?
For West or anyone of African descent to wear Confederate flags and disrespect our Beloved Ancestors who endured hell to ensure that future generations might someday find freedom, is inexcusable.
It is even more inexcusable, inexplicable and utterly ridiculous for the son of a college professor and a former member of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense to do so.
West’s antics make him look an awful lot like a toddler seeking attention from adults and being willing to do whatever is necessary to get it. While he may think that in the long run it will be worth it to generate profits with media scandals, I think the brother needs a serious time-out.
Right now, he appears to be inescapably lodged in that “sunken space” where he cannot distinguish between reality and fiction and doesn’t understand how his ravings impact others, particularly Black and Brown youth.
As embarrassing and infuriating as West’s comments and shenanigans have been, it is now up to those who know him best and think he can be saved to see to it that he gets the benefit of mental health care and perhaps a little intervention and tough love.
I hope he gets it but I won’t lose any sleep worrying about it.
This article originally published in the May 7, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
