Kanye West.
I’ve not agreed often with CNN’s Don Lemon in the past. But he’s evolved and become more thoughtful in recent years. I agree with him 100% that Kanye West needs professional help; and we are not talking about his music.
The only part where I disagree with Lemon is that Kanye West “embarrassed” Black America. He does not represent Black America; the notion that the malady of one Black individual is emblematic of all Black folk is Eurocentric and perverted.
To me any Black man who says racism doesn’t matter to him is beyond ignorant and very, very deep into mental illness. For someone to say that racism won’t discourage him or demoralize him is one thing; but it’s all together something else to flippantly dismiss racism as something trivial that doesn’t matter, as Kanye West did. That is sickness. Does he really think all those victims of police murders, including 12 year old Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Anton Stirling, Walter Scott, Sandra Bland, Laquan McDonald, Michael Brown Jr., Eric Scott, and hundreds others through the years had a choice?
Surely Kanye West must be familiar with Emett Till? He must know of Red Summer? He must know of Tulsa? Of course; but these aren’t the kind of tragedies that account for a good part of the type of thoughts that go on in Kanye West’s mind.
Kanye West was in the White House to discuss “prison reform” with an alleged serial rapist who still maintains the so-called Central Park 5 are guilty of rape even after they were exonerated by DNA evidence and were awarded $45 million by the City of New York for their suffering as a result of the many years of wrongful incarceration they endured.
Kanye West’ Step-in-Fetchit display before Trump and the world also revealed levels of megalomania and Messiah complex which are stunning, considering that his comments did not even indicate above-average intelligence; or evidence that he had reflected much upon the topics he spoke on.
Clearly, he does not spend much time thinking about those enslaved-Africans whose genocide on the Southern plantations produced the capital accumulation that created the wealth their killers’ descendants, like Trump, now enjoy while the majority of the descendants of the victims remain as the underclass or incarcerated under The New Jim Crow regime.
Then again, if Kanye West suffers from serious mental illness, as manifest by his behavior, then that is compelling explanation.
The sooner he starts treatment, the better for himself, his family, and those millions of people who still support him and his music.
After all, he did call himself a “crazy motherfucker in front of someone of equal billing.
Perhaps the public should take Kanye West at his word and encourage him to get treatment.
