Kayne West had an interview with TMZ on Tuesday morning in which he made some very bold commentary. He explained that if slavery occurred for 400 years, it had to be a choice for African Americans. This is a crazy comment that he stated as we all know that slavery was a forced action and no individual would willingly go through the process. Slaves were beaten, worked endlessly, raped, etc. and yet, Kayne still made a claim that these actions were prime choice for blacks, as if they really wanted to go through all these hardships. Van Lathan from the TMZ newsroom was quick to counter Kayne’s statements. He said “I think that what you’re doing right now is the absence of thought,” which is completely true. To think that Kayne stated this knowingly, and to think that people look up to him as an artist and a role model is appalling with the words he said. He knows that his voice is big and many individuals look to him, so it was nice to see an average man stand up to him saying “I’m disappointed, I’m appalled, and brother—I am unbelievably hurt by the fact that you have morphed into something to me that isn’t real;” I was pleased to see this occur. Kayne then tried to explain himself on Twitter, only giving in to making the claims relate back to him. He tried to make society feel bad for him for having new ideas on slavery. Clearly, he was just being egotistic and was completely wrong in his claims about slavery.
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I think one of the most interesting parts about this whole situation is how black twitter is responding. I saw someone on Facebook who had mentioned that responding in a satirical manner has helped show just how ridiculous Kanye’s claims are. Trevor Noah, the host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central, is a prime example of someone who uses satire to express their frustration towards people he doesn’t agree with or situations he finds outrageous like this one. He often jokes when discussing serious issues such as politics and racism but at the same time he often supports his opinions with evidence from different news sources. By exaggerating one’s actions or words viewers are able to easily understand the importance of the problem at hand. Not only does it help simplify the issue it keeps the audience captivated and it keeps them thinking and talking about the matter. Just as Trevor Noah jokes to get his points across twitter users use pictures and gifs to express their disagreement and frustration towards a certain topic.
Kanye’s statement is insensitive and frankly it was ridiculous. Slavery was NOT a choice and for Kanye to have such a large platform and say something as nonsensical as this is disturbing and disappointing.