All This Recent Kanye Idiocy

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Whatever. Malcolm X is overrated.

For most of his life, Malcolm X was a member of the Nation of Islam, which was and still is an extremist organisation. The NoI is a pro-segregation, anti-white, homophobic, anti-Semitic organisation.

Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam later in life because he realized that Muhammad was against racism. That's why he was murdered.

Was that video made back when Malcolm X was part of the NoI? If so, we all can disregard it.

Malcolm X was talking about the differences in approach between house slaves (I won't repeat his terminology) and field slaves.

Kanye said slavery was a choice.

How does this indicate agreement? Malcolm X was talking about the image - and the reality behind the image - of those who would trade their own subservience for some comfort. He was painting them in the light of their betrayal of other black men and women, those whose bondage was much more harsh.

If anything, I would interpret Malcolm X's words as a fairly stinging indictment of Kanye's circumstances and actions - currying favor with the current power structure in return for a cushy lifestyle that most PoC do not share and will never experience.

If Kanye said slavery was a "choice," he certainly doesn't know his history. I would say, if he truly believes this, that his ignorance is boundless.

He's a man who likes to "stir the pot," though. So I'm skeptical as to whether he actually believes this in his mind.

I saw this type of reply coming a mile away. If I had posted MLK, you would've erroneously discredited that too.

Noam Chomsky, as usual, has the right idea.



TL;DR: What the Trump Administration does is more important than what Trump says.



Well ... when you are rich and famous, you can get away with anything. Perhaps he knows that he doesn't need to give a damn about anything.

In other words, he's probably just acting like a spoiled toddler. Mental health breakdowns are more common among people who are actually poor and underprivileged.



I agree. The media should stop giving him so much attention.

Unfortunately, the media probably will never stop giving him attention. That's how they make money. They have a financial incentive to prod him and make him dance some more.



Yep.

Being a good singer doesn't make you a political expert. It just makes you a good singer. Everyone has their own area of expertise. Celebrity worship occurs when people don't realize this important fact.

Getting socio-political advice from a celebrity is like hiring a rocket scientist to fix your sink. Rocket scientists are smart, but a plumber still understands sink repair more than a rocket scientist does.

Are singers sometimes right? Absolutely. For example, the Dead Kennedys said a lot of true things about the Reagan Administration in their songs ... but only a fool would use them as a primary source.

I have a similar attitude towards people who cite Al Gore in debates regarding environmentalism. There are plenty of people who understand climate change more than Al Gore does. Al Gore gets more attention because he was a prominent public figure long before An Inconvenient Truth. It's a shame that Gore has become the public face of environmentalism. He has eclipsed the scientists who provided him with his information. This is a depressingly common part of celebrity activism.



I'm pretty sure that the mainstream media deliberately engineers this sort of idiotic noise pollution. When celebrities are used as symbols of political movements, it is easier to turn those movements into money-making machines.

That's how legitimate leftism is replaced with corporate liberali$m. Legit leftism is dangerous to the establishment, so they have to create a declawed, lobotomized version of it.

This is hilarious. Exactly what I predicted when the guy went pro trump. I doubt anyone in this thread would have given him much of a thought otherwise. And in general on media and wherever the response to what he said would have been much milder. But because of him being pro-trump it's full scale scathing vilification.

Far too reductionist, Ezra. First, I've disliked Kanye for years, and his political opinions have nothing to do with it. He was a vain twit long before Trump was elected.

Second, "slavery is a choice" would have ticked me off no matter who said it.

And what Malcolm X said in the clip you posted was not in agreement with Kanye's idiocy. Not a big Malcolm X fan in general either, but there you have it.

For the record, I never liked Kanye West at all. I didn't mention him before because I felt that his stupidity was self-evident.

Taking yourself personally out of the equation, I think overall you know I'm right.

I think Kanye's betraying every Black person alive with his statements, but as a white woman I also don't think my voice needs to be the first or the loudest heard on that front.

However, watching people (not you personally, Ezra, and please don't take it as a directed comment) use Kanye's words to justify their own hatred for and oppression of Black people, because they love any excuse to pretend slavery wasn't a vile crime against humanity...that troubles me, deeply.

Racists, not just Trump supporters, are using his words to further damage other human beings. If people who despise Trump find that fuels their outcry against Kanye's stupidity, I really don't have a problem with it.

White people are the loudest and most up front when it comes to racism and how evil white people are and how they need to protect everyone from them. I'm with Morgan Freeman in that this inflames rather than decreases racism.

^ Gotta keep 'em voting democrat...

You're... not the messiah?

I’m not sure why it makes so many people so angry to consider another point of view. There are slaves right now, in every country. Perhaps someone should fish one of them out and ask about their experiences. That might help us all understand. Maybe concentrating on an actual problem that’s happening to living people right now would be a little more productive than getting bent out of shape about someone challenging a narrative about history.

I remember being a kid reading about some of this stuff in library books. It would get to the part about how the main character suffered. I’d be like, that happened to me last week. I don’t get this.

If someone famous wants to talk hard issues and help poor people, by god I’m excited about it. It’s not a sporto conservatives versus liberals thing. Let’s just see where it goes.

I have considered other points of view. I was actually extremely right-wing when I was a teenager.

I saw both sides of the argument and I made my decision.

Kanye's "point of view" was barely even coherent.



If we want to end slavery in Africa, the global economy needs to change.

Read about conflict diamonds. They are mined by poor African people who are basically slaves. DeBeers still sells these conflict diamonds.

I we want to end slavery, we need to punish the Western corporations that profit off of it.

Kanye's attitude towards slavery is completely wrong. I'm not really "offended" by him. He's just completely wrong. He claims that Afro-American slaves didn't rise up because they were "mentally enslaved". In reality, Nat Turner tried to rise up. He was killed by the US government.

The Afro-American slaves knew that they would be executed if they rose up. That's not the same thing as "mental slavery".



Most of us don't suffer as badly as the slaves did. They were forced to work constantly and they were whipped if they disobeyed an order.



What has Kanye done to help poor people? He's basically implying that black Americans are responsible for their own situation. In other words, he is implying that American police are completely innocent.



Spoiler Alert: West is going to abandon his newfound "revelation" as soon as people start to boycott him. He is all about money.