In his apparent quest to get attention and keep getting it, Kanye West suggested during a TMZ interview on Tuesday that American slavery was a “choice,” prompting a shocked TMZ senior producer, Van Lathan, to suggest West wasn’t thinking at all.
“Do you feel like I’m thinking free and feeling free?” West asked people present in the newsroom during the interview, CNN reported.
“I actually don’t think you’re thinking anything,” Lathan replied. “I think what you’re doing right now is actually the absence of thought.”
Musical artist and entrepreneur will.i.am has led the backlash against Kanye after he claimed that African Americans had a choice in being enslaved for 400 years.
Kanye’s comments “broke my heart” and were “harmful,” will.i.am said, according to BBC:
That was “one of the most ignorant statements that anybody who came from the hood could ever say about their ancestors.”
Kanye gained a reputation for speaking truth to power, but in the last few weeks, “speaking truth to Kanye West has become the norm,” Jon Caramanica wrote in the New York Times:
The old Kanye “lambastes the executives who don’t grant him full creative and
financial freedom. He calls into question the empathy of a president on live
television. He lays bare his emotions in ways that disrupt tidy narratives about
celebrity …. He is a lit match in search of a fuse, setting fires that people
(largely) cheer for. But in the last couple of weeks, as Mr. West has begun his return to public life after a quiet year, the roles have switched: He is the power,” Caramanica wrote.
TMZ’s Lathan said Kanye is entitled to his opinion, but there are real-world, real-life consequences behind everything that he says:
“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,” Lathan said. “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 … Frankly, I’m disappointed, I’m appalled and, brother, I am unbelievably hurt by the fact that you have morphed into something, to me, that’s not real,” Lathan concluded.
It was the mic drop heard round the social media world.
Later Kanye tweeted in his own defense, “of course I know that slaves did not get shackled and put on a boat by free will,” BBC reported. Then Kanye added that he was “being attacked for presenting new ideas”. Those tweets were unavailable at the time of this publication.
Kanye has been criticized recently and during the 2016 election campaign for supporting President Donald Trump and wearing a Make America Great Again hat. He also took heat from radio personality Ebro Darden for supporting the Black conservative pundit Candace Owens.
1) I am not on Infowars today.
2) Disrespecting any platform watched by millions is silly.
3) Please stop telling me and/or Kanye “no”, “can’t” or “shouldn’t”.Advice appreciated. Commands shut down. https://t.co/2jVNIpzS4k
— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) May 2, 2018
Kanye insists he is coming from a place of love.
this is so helpful. I'm always a student. I'm learning about love pic.twitter.com/IknblRx4Pk
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 2, 2018
Twitter users had fun with that. One thread evolved into a discussion of happiness, and why Kanye is doing what’s he’s doing.
i will send everyone $20 paypal that likes this tweet
— prince strap (@Qwivering) May 2, 2018
https://twitter.com/reSailorMac/status/991749002549841920
how to ruin your legacy in one week: a kanye west edition.
— little buddy (@__LittleBuddy) May 2, 2018
I understand what that means Kanye but I disagree. While Love is a high virtue, it is not the ultimate virtue. I believe that Happiness is. Not everyone cares to be liked, but tell me who doesnt want to be happy? Tell me a truly selfless act that isnt rooted in personal happiness
— Interviews & Shit (@interviews_shit) May 2, 2018
Happiness is a virtue. It's what drives everything we do. You sent a tweet bc you wanted to. Why did you want to? Bc you wanted to be heard. Why did you want to be heard? Continue finding the reason for action and it will always come back to "bc it makes you happy"
— Interviews & Shit (@interviews_shit) May 2, 2018