400 Years of Slavery, A Choice?
Kanye West appeared at TMZ Live where he had this to say:
“When you hear about slavery for 400 years … For 400 years? That sounds like a choice.”
“You were there for 400 years and it’s all of y’all. It’s like we’re mentally imprisoned.”
https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/5/2/17311286/kanye-west-slavery-comments-tmz
Provocative statements are common coming from the 40-year-old business mogul. This week he’s been making headlines left and right, including expressing his love for Donald Trump But when he made his off-handed remark about slavery, a TMZ employee had something to say.
He stated,
“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,” th employee said. “We have to deal with the marginalization that’s come from the 400 years of slavery that you said for our people was a choice.” He added, “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.”
Kanye later took to twitter as a means of tying to explain himself. As his words lit the social media app on fire, Kanye tried to explain what he meant. Here is his series of tweets Tuesday evening:
“To make myself clear. Of course I know that slaves did not get shackled and put on a boat by free will. 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.”
And then Kanye quickly made it about Kanye:
“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. Once again I am being attacked for presenting new ideas.”
I believe Kanye should have the freedom of speech to express his mind, but any person with a platform or an influence as big as Kanye West should have well expressed points on a topic as sensitive as this.
Showtime James • May 17, 2018 at 8:30 am
I feel like Kanye disrespected a lot of people by making this comment.