Thanks for making us look good, Kanye. Nothing helps put racism and bigotry to rest like having a famous Black man claim beating the crap out of your old lady isn’t really a big deal. Kanye West famously claimed George Bush doesn’t care about Black people because the people of the 9th ward couldn’t wade through chest deep water (my mother has commuted an hour and a half into New York from New Jersey to work everyday without a car, on a bad knee and during blizzards for 20 years, but Northeastern Black folk are a little tougher than those 9th ward pussies) but now West himself is exposed as a hater of Black folk, for claiming Chris Brown’s vicious assault on Rhianna was “just a mistake” anyone could make.
Also mistakes people make in West’s mind: child molestation, murdering your ex and getting high. You know how easy it is to accidentally rape a child, kill your wife then smoke a bong. From Reuters:
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Hip-hop star Kanye West trashed Radiohead and said the public should give Chris Brown “a break,” during a recent taping of VH1’s “Storytellers.”
But the comments will not make it to air when the episode premieres on the lifestyle cable network on Saturday.
[…]
During the taping, according to a Reuters reporter, West was aggrieved that Radiohead singer Thom Yorke had allegedly snubbed him backstage at the Grammys five days earlier. That hurt, West told the audience, because he idolizes the British band, and considers it one of his few creative rivals.
“So when he performed at the Grammys, I sat the f— down,” West said.
A little later, West asked the crowd, “Can’t we give Chris a break? … I know I make mistakes in life.” He was referring to R&B singer Chris Brown, who was arrested on the night of the Grammys on suspicion of beating his girlfriend Rihanna.
In the same context, West earned loud applause with his declaration: “Michael Jackson, amazing. Michael Phelps, amazing … He’s a real f—in’ person; he makes mistakes,” referring to the champion swimmer’s recent bong pipe brouhaha.
VH1 has cleaned up those comments a bit, and it also included West’s less-popular follow-up observation: “O.J. Simpson, amazing. Is he not? What he did, when he did, what he did. Was he not amazing though?”
So let’s summarize. Snubbing Kanye if you’re busy will bring Kanye, a grown man, to tears. Beating your old lady until she’s bloody, raping children, cutting off your ex-wife’s head or letting your “friend” take a picture of you getting high? Just momentary lapses in judgment my friend, nothing that would allow a person to judge the subject. Let’s give them a break!
Misogyny and the abuse of women is endemic in the Black community, in part driven by a hip-hop culture that promotes the view of people like West that sadism is a mistake that can be forgiven, and worse that the victims of rape, violence and abuse are in some way deserving of it. If West cared about Black people at all he’d want to make sure the message that the too influential rap music industry sent to the fatherless fans who emulate them is that women are equal to men and should be respected, you have to take responsibility for yourself and killing your ex or raping children is wrong.
But instead West is saying that these people should be automatically forgiven for their actions because they’re “just making mistakes.”
West doesn’t live in a Black neighborhood. He lives in a rich, mostly White one with plenty of security so he doesn’t care what kind of negative effects his drivel has on the community, nor do his peers, the White liberals who shove his nonsense down the throats of Black people. These are the same White liberals who have spent the last 30 years publishing rap and helping create the illusion that “Black” music is a monolithic sub-culture. I grew up in the era of Shalimar, Bad Brains and Ice T, when Black musicians were in all genres. There was a diversity of opinions and music and a wellspring of talent. Then MTV and Time Warner decided that they would throw their billions into pushing rap, which they turned into the special education class of the music industry and now we have famous, well respected celebrities announcing that beating up women is basically no big deal.
The Black community will never move forward until people like West are not allowed to speak for all of us and we start teaching our young men to act live civilized human beings.
