Kanye West continues to resemble a shell of his former self. During a concert stop in San Jose, California, Kanye told the audience, “I didn’t vote. But if I would’ve voted, I would have voted for [Donald] Trump.” He continued by saying, “Black people, stop focusing on racism. It’s a fact, we are in a racist country.” Most of the crowd let out a moan and others booed.
When Kanye first entered the rap game, he was a brash kid from Chicago who shunned gangster clichés to rap about issues of race, politics, self-esteem, and religion. He was a complex artist who found inspiration from conscious rappers like Common, Mos Def, and Talib Kweli. He was the guy who stood up on national TV and reacted to Hurricane Katrina by saying, “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people.” He would later share how the clothing industry would discriminate against him because he was Black.
Kanye seemed to be aware of racism and how it affected every aspect of Black life in America. This is what you would expect from a guy who was the son of a former member of the Black Panthers and his mother who was a chairwoman of the English department at Chicago State University.
But the higher Kanye ascended in the music business, the further he became attached from his base. He broke-up with a woman who was in Delta Sigma Theta to eventually marry a woman whose family often embraces superficiality. It’s easy to believe that the brash kid from Chicago has been swallowed by the comforts of Calabasas, California.
By supporting Trump, Kanye is supporting everything that he once stood against such as bigotry, racism, and sexism. He can’t tell Black people to stop focusing on racism when unarmed Blacks are being murdered in the streets by police. If our civil rights leaders of the past would have told us to “stop focusing on race,” Blacks would still be living in Jim Crow.
At this point, Kanye is no longer needed. We don’t need him to rant about his personal issues while siding with a person who doesn’t care about the issues of his people. But this has given us a vivid example of what Kanye has become.
Kanye’s support of Trump was the latest revelation that proves how far he has fallen.
