Misunderstood The Kanye Affair
I personally wasn’t aware of the press conference it was a friend of mine who called an informed me of the press conference. My friend called and was yelling into the phone that Kanye West is on TV embarrassing black people. He went on to say Kanye was a total sellout and he needed to sit down somewhere. After hearing this I popped on the news and I caught part of a CNN broadcast where anchorman Don Lemon was taking Kanye West to task over Kanye’s meeting with Trump. Lemon suggested that Kanye was coming unhinged and need mental help services. He went on to say West was embarrassing himself and black people. In all my years of watching Don Lemon I have never seen him display such a disregard for journalistic integrity. I thought the job of the reporter was to report the news and facts as they are and not to involve his or her own personal opinions.
To judge Kanye as if he were King or Baldwin is disingenuous to say the least. Kanye has a creative spirit so many times he speaks like a creative and being a creative myself I get why he jumps from topic to topic so quickly. Other creatives should fully be able to get Kanye but after the meeting the only thing people seemed to be getting is upset with Kanye. People said thing like “Kanye is in the sunken place” or “Kanye is a coon” and to me he was getting bad rap from ignorant people who are led by the news media’s agenda to sensationalize everything that has to do with Donald Trump. The liberal media was attacking a black man for his briefs and that to me seemed just as racist as any of Trump’s racist rant about people of color. If I had the chance to ask Don Lemon CNN and all of the people hating on Kanye one question. I would ask, is it right for the so-called friends of people of color to dictate how people of color fight their fight? I could only imagine what they might say in response but I sure whatever they came up with wouldn’t a good enough answer for my question.
In all of this Kanye seems to be the only one thinking with a level head. People have become so bent out of shape over Donald Trump’s presidency that fail to see the strategic reasoning behind trying to deal with Trump head on. Yes, we could all stand outside the gates of the White House yelling and screaming but what is the likelihood that anyone would pay attention to us? As I said earlier the news cycle is dominated by Trump’s every little tweet and even the liberal media allows Trump to dominate the news cycle. So, to get in a word or open up the conversation we may have to go into the proverbial lion’s den. That means that Kanye is not a fool sellout or coon, given the facts Kanye may very well be the smartest person in the room. Kanye a media icon has figured out what all of the life wing progressives and liberals have yet to see. They have not seen that you can’t fight hate with hate and the only way to beat a bully is to stand face to face with he in love to expose him for what he is. Kanye should be commended for his efforts and not shamed for finding better ways to fight back hate and bigotry.
Sengbe Ben Yosef