Kanye West is under fire for comments he made about slavery during a sit-down with TMZ on Tuesday. During the interview, the 40-year-old rapper touched on his love for President Trump, his recent tweets, and one point said slavery “sounds like a choice.”
“When you hear about slavery for 400 years. For 400 years?! That sounds like a choice. Like, you were there for 400 years and it’s all of you all? You know, it’s like we’re mentally in prison. I like the word prison ’cause slavery goes too — too direct to the idea of blacks,” he said in the interview. “So prison is something that unites us as one race, blacks and whites being one race. We’re the human race.”
Tanisha Ford, associate professor of Africana studies and history at University of Delaware, joined CBSN on Tuesday to discuss the impact of his remarks.
“Those comments show how completely out of touch Kanye is at this moment in time, and I think they would have his mother Donda West, a former college professor, enraged,” Ford said.
“It’s a far-cry from the Kanye West we knew who made the song ‘Crack Music,’ which made a link between slavery, the prison industrial complex and the rise of crack cocaine used in the black community.”
After the interview, West stood up in the TMZ newsroom and asked staffers if they thought he was “thinking free.” TMZ reporter Van Lathan shot back and called West’s comments the “absence of thought.”
Kanye West stirs up the TMZ newsroom over TRUMP, SLAVERY and FREE THOUGHT. There’s A LOT more that went down … and the fireworks are exploding on @TMZLive today. Check your local listings for show times. pic.twitter.com/jwVsJCMPiq
— TMZ (@TMZ) May 1, 2018
“I think what you’re doing right now is actually the absence of thought. And the reason why I feel like that is because, Kanye, you’re entitled to your opinion. You’re entitled to believe whatever you want. But there is fact, and real-world, real-life consequence behind everything that you just said,” Lathan said.
He continued, “And while you are making music and being an artist and living the life that you’ve earned by being a genius, the rest of us in society have to deal with these threats to our lives. We have to deal with the marginalization that has come from the 400 years of slavery that you said, for our people, was a choice.”
Lathan said he was “disappointed,” “appalled,” and “unbelievably hurt” that West had “morphed into something, to me, that’s not real.”
— Elliott Wilson (@ElliottWilson) May 1, 2018
In a series of tweets Tuesday, West wrote that “we need an open discussion” and “of course I know that slaves did not get shackled and put on a boat by free will.” He insisted his comments were “free thought.”
we need to have open discussions and ideas on unsettled pain
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 1, 2018
to make myself clear. Of course I know that slaves did not get shackled and put on a boat by free will
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 1, 2018
My point is for us to have stayed in that position even though the numbers were on our side means that we were mentally enslaved
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 1, 2018
They cut out our tongues so we couldn’t communicate to each other. I will not allow my tongue to be cut
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 1, 2018
Kanye vs the media is modern day Willie Linch theory.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 1, 2018
they hung the most powerful in order to force fear into the others.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 1, 2018
they hung the most powerful in order to force fear into the others.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 1, 2018
they can no longer stop our voice.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 1, 2018
the Nat Turner movie never made it anywhere because it showed slaves revolting. I understand why my god brother Puff calls his network revolt.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 1, 2018
if this was 148 years ago I would have been more like Harriet or Nat
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 1, 2018
the universe has a plan. I knew that TMZ would be awesome.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 1, 2018
we are programmed to always talk and fight race issues. We need to update our conversation.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 1, 2018
the reason why I brought up the 400 years point is because we can’t be mentally imprisoned for another 400 years. We need free thought now. Even the statement was an example of free thought It was just an idea
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 1, 2018
once again I am being attacked for presenting new ideas
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 1, 2018
in school we need to learn how magic Johnson built his business not always about the past. Matter fact I’ve never even heard of a high school class that presents future ideas
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 1, 2018
when the media masses and scholars talk about what started today. Here’s a title …
the overground hell road
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 2, 2018
I freed a thousand slaves I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves. – Harriet Tubman
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 2, 2018
West also drew immediate criticism online with writers and political commentators calling his comments trite and dangerous.
I don’t have the energy for nonsense but Kanye saying slavery was a choice reiterates my previous statements about how dangerous his trite, shallow ramblings are. He is not a free thinker. He is a free moron who doesn’t read. Do not @ me.
— roxane gay (@rgay) May 1, 2018
Kanye is a dangerous caricature of an “free thinking” black person in America. Frankly, I am disgusted and I’m over it. Also (I can’t believe I have to say this): Slavery was far from a choice.
— Symone D. Sanders (@SymoneDSanders) May 1, 2018
me in 2005: im so proud of kanye for telling the truth abt george bush not caring about black people. it needed to be said.
me in 2018: im so proud of the black tmz dude for telling the truth abt kanye not caring about black people. it needed to be said.
— Tracy Boomeisha-Ann Clayton (@brokeymcpoverty) May 1, 2018
Kanye’s rhetoric continues to fuel the racist right-wing folks who believe that black people are responsible for their oppression.
— deray (@deray) May 1, 2018
Last week, West shared images of himself wearing one of Mr. Trump’s signature “Make America Great Again” hats. The photos drew attention from fans and critics alike, including praise from Mr. Trump, who said he loved the support.
West explained Tuesday that he felt a freedom in sharing the photos.
“It was really just my subconscious. It was a feeling I had, you know. Like, people — we’re taught how to think. We’re taught how to feel. We don’t know how to think for ourselves. We don’t know how to feel for ourselves,” he continued. “People say ‘feel free,’ but they don’t really want us to feel free. I felt a freedom, first of all, in doing something that everybody tells you not to do.”
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