Kanye West Tries to Clarify Slavery Comments: ‘We Can’t be Mentally Imprisoned for Another 400 Years’
Following his comments on TMZ Live, where he claimed that since slavery lasted for a long 400 years, it sounds "like a choice," Kanye West went on Twitter to clarify his remarks.
“We are programmed to always talk and fight race issues,” West tweeted on Tuesday night. “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.”
"In school we need to learn how magic [sic] Johnson built his business not always about the past. Matter fact I’ve never even heard of a high school class that presents future ideas,” West continued, adding that he was again being "attacked" for presenting "new ideas." “When the media masses and scholars talk about what started today. Here’s a title … the overground hell road.”
He added, “To make myself clear. Of course I know that slaves did not get shackled and put on a boat by free will,” he said. “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…They cut out our tongues so we couldn’t communicate to each other. I will not allow my tongue to be cut.”
Honestly, Kanye's views are mostly just those of someone who hasn't studied history... like at all beyond the tidbits given in public school, no matter how "free" he believes his very average thinking to be on race issues in America. He even quoted a fake (and dangerous) Harriet Tubman about her being able to "free a thousand slaves if only they'd known they were slaves." Of course that quote implies that enslaved Africans were not rebellious, which is simply a lie and oversimplifies the decades long systems put in place to maintain slavery as a way of life in America.
To that end, over at OkayPlayer they've compiled a list of books he should read since he's previously said that he doesn't read books.
At any rate, Black Twitter wasn't having any of it it. Black folks turned the moment of outrage, disappointment, and anger into one of solidarity and satire, creating the hashtag #IfSlaveryWasAChoice.
As writer Preston Mitchum explained, "Black people will always turn oppressive political commentary into Black joy. #IfSlaveryWasAChoice is yet another example of necessary, comedic Black brilliance."
Check it out below.
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