In “I’m Not Black, I’m Kanye” (2018) Ta-Nehisi Coates, a Black writer who has been compared to James Baldwin, weighed in on the Kanye West controversy.
For those living under a rock – or living more than ten years from now – Kanye West has lately been saying stuff like slavery was a “choice”, that President Trump is his “brother”, that they share the same “dragon energy”. He has taken to wearing Trump’s “Make America Great Again” hat and repeating Fox News talking points.
But why take Kanye West seriously? He is just an entertainer. He is not even up on the news: he just found out about Trump’s anti-Muslim travel ban. It has been in the news for over a year.
Ta-Nehisi Coates, who is part of the Black thinking class, who is paid (by White people) for having really deep thoughts, says that what Kanye West says matters profoundly.
The drum: Coates quotes Zora Neale Hurston (kind of a requirement) about when Blacks were brought from Africa as slaves:
“They tore away his clothes so that Cuffy might bring nothing away, but Cuffy seized his drum and hid it in his skin under the skull bones. … So he laughed with cunning and said, ‘I, who am borne away, to become an orphan, carry my parents with me. For rhythm is she not my mother, and Drama is her man?’ So he groaned aloud in the ships and hid his drum and laughed.”
Coates:
“There is no separating the laughter from the groans, the drum from the slave ships, the tearing away of clothes, the being borne away, from the cunning need to hide all that made you human. And this is why the gift of black music, of black art, is unlike any other in America, because it is not simply a matter of singular talent, or even of tradition, or lineage, but of something more grand and monstrous.”
Michael Jackson and Kanye West were not just the best entertainers of their time – they were bearers of the drum that helped keep Black people human in a dehumanizing land.
Responsibility: So when Michael Jackson made his face whiter and whiter and when Kanye West wears Trump’s hat, it affects more than just their fans. It affects all Black people, like it or not, destroying them bit by bit on the inside. Far worse than what any White entertainer could do to White people as a whole.
Freedom: Kanye West claims the right to be a “free thinker”.
Coates:
“he is, indeed, championing a kind of freedom – a white freedom, freedom without consequence, freedom without criticism, freedom to be proud and ignorant; freedom to profit off a people in one moment and abandon them in the next; … a Confederate freedom, the freedom of John C. Calhoun, not the freedom of Harriet Tubman, which calls you to risk your own …”
Kanye West has chosen “collaboration” not resistance. Thus his “freedom”.
You can read Coates’ whole piece at The Atlantic.
– Abagond, 2018.
See also:
- Kanye West
- Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Cornel West on Coates – Cornel West (no relation) last year argued that Coates himself has been co-opted by the Trump Era.
- Michael Jackson
- James Baldwin
- Donald Trump
- Fox News
- America Was Never Great
- internalized racism
555
Here is my basic reaction: I really like Coates’ work in general, but he’s psychoanalyzing Kanye way beyond what is warranted. And no, Kanye is not a god/God. That’s an awful headline (I’m Not Black, I’m Kanye…Kanye West wants freedom — white freedom). Provocative yes, but was it honest? Since we all have multiple identities that overlap, it’s not either/or.
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“Freedom: Kanye West claims the right to be a ‘free thinker’.”
Of course individual freedom is of great importance, but the right to individual freedom ends when that freedom begins to damage other people’s right to their own well-being. Supporting Trump in the name of freedom is almost like running around and punching people in the name of freedom. “I’m doing whatever I want in this moment even though it harms others, damages society, and will probably come back to bite me! Ha ha, you can’t stop me because I’m just so free! Behold my edginess!” Ugh.
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Kanye’s support of Trump is a separate issue, IMO. No one has to like it, of course. Whatever the consequences may be, Kanye will experience that. None of us gets to control other people or the entire universe.
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“When you hear about slavery for 400 years … For 400 years? That sounds like a choice.” – Kanye West
Looking at the descriptive images below, it doesn’t appear that the slaves had much of a “choice.”
Sorry ‘bout that Kanye, but slavery was not simply a choice. And if it was a “choice” as you put it, … it was made while in a state of duress and by the threat of force which could’ve quickly resulted in death. In most instances the force was invoked with either the barrel of a gun pointed at your head or a readily available leather whip to place some bloody stripes across his or her back for enforcement purposes and to bring the subject back in conformity.
Fear, targeting the slaves was and is still to this day is a tool utilized for domination and control. (e.g., Kanye) He may not be conscious of it, but he is in fact a contemporary slave with an unseen yoke of iron around his neck.
Additionally, the maintenance of the institution of slavery while on the plantation was also done so by force as well. For instance, when a slave escaped the plantation, white “massa” sent slave patrols in search of the escapee, not to mention, they, those paid mercenaries, also had pistols and rifles as well.
Moreover, slave patrols are what actually gave birth to what we refer to these days as the police force or law enforcement.
http://time.com/4779112/police-history-origins/
https://www.gettyimages.com/license/526614264
https://www.gettyimages.com/license/463989469
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Let’s see the stars of entertainment for what they are: entertainers.
Let’s not want to look at them as some kind of high intellectual entities whose sayings we must pay close attention and give an extraordinary value.
Their sayings are on average not deeper than the opinions of the average person on the street.
The same for sportsmen and sportswomen.
For opinions coming from the likes of Thomas Sowell, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X, Nelson Mandela, etc it’s different because they, independently of the currents of thought they represent, are people whose opinions are based on a wider base of knowledge and a deeper analysis of the society around them. Whatever they say merits closer attention.
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The only people who had a choice was the white oppressors.
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As if I would take that Kardashian puppet seriously…
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https://www.quora.com/Is-Kanye-West-from-the-hood
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“Here is my basic reaction: I really like Coates’ work in general, but he’s psychoanalyzing Kanye way beyond what is warranted.” – Fannie LeFlore
How so? Because when people make comments such as this and it has broad reaching effects across many cultures, especially we as so-called African Americans. The asinine comment(s) must be deconstructed or disassembled to the point as if he or she never made them to begin with, or make the commenter appear to be either a fool or a “jackass” as Obama referred to Kanye as being. His quick assessment of Mr. Ye still holds true today.
Through short sighted comments like these, history gets corrupted, Black children are then further mis-educated and a people as a whole are further devalued.
Yes Ms. LeFlore, the act of labelling is very dangerous due to its longitudinal length and cognitive effects.
“And no, Kanye is not a god/God. That’s an awful headline (I’m Not Black, I’m Kanye…Kanye West wants freedom — white freedom). Provocative yes, but was it honest? Since we all have multiple identities that overlap, it’s not either/or.” – Fannie LeFlore
How could this be? Yes, we may have “overlapping identities” or personalities. The word but is a conjunction, which means there is an exception. However, our mind is not a blank slate. One of these personalities must be engaged at any given time.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/homo-consumericus/201210/the-mind-blank-slate-hopeful-wrong
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LOL, Snoop-Dogg’s KLANYE
Anyway, perhaps Kanye just wants publicity right now.
However, I think he’s right about being kind of like Trump.
I don’t think Obama met with him but Trump did.
Therefore Kanye likes Trump now.
Trump also likes people who flatter him.
From Kanye’s perspective he must be thinking he got closer to power with a white man as president than with a black man.
So he’s on the Trump train now!
(:-D–<
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Don’t see very well without my glasses, and when I first saw that picture, I thought it was George Zimmerman. Equally dangerous…
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@ blakksage
Re: embedded images
Getty Images sets it up so that you cannot embed images off of their website. Not surprising since they make their money by licensing images.
For an image to automatically embed in the comment thread here the link has to end in .jpg, .gif or .png. You might be able to get away with .jpeg.
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It’s pretty much common knowledge at this point that MJ and Kanye had/have mental problems, so I’m not bothered by them
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