I'm Not Black, I'm Kanye (by Ta-Nehisi Coates)

[OneGrassRoot]

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/05/im-not-black-im-kanye/559763/


This is a long, worthy read but it was nearly impossible to pull four paragraphs for an excerpt, but I tried...

I’m Not Black, I’m Kanye
Kanye West wants freedom—white freedom.

There is no separating the laughter from the groans, the drum from the slave ships, the tearing away of clothes, the being borne away, from the cunning need to hide all that made you human. And this is why the gift of black music, of black art, is unlike any other in America, because it is not simply a matter of singular talent, or even of tradition, or lineage, but of something more grand and monstrous. When Jackson sang and danced, when West samples or rhymes, they are tapping into a power formed under all the killing, all the beatings, all the rape and plunder that made America. The gift can never wholly belong to a singular artist, free of expectation and scrutiny, because the gift is no more solely theirs than the suffering that produced it. Michael Jackson did not invent the moonwalk. When West raps, “And I basically know now, we get racially profiled / Cuffed up and hosed down, pimped up and ho’d down,” the we is instructive.

What Kanye West seeks is what Michael Jackson sought—liberation from the dictates of that “we.” In his visit with West, the rapper T.I. was stunned to find that West, despite his endorsement of Trump, had never heard of the travel ban. “He don’t know the things that we know because he’s removed himself from society to a point where it don’t reach him,” T.I. said. West calls his struggle the right to be a “free thinker,” and he is, indeed, championing a kind of freedom—a white freedom, freedom without consequence, freedom without criticism, freedom to be proud and ignorant; freedom to profit off a people in one moment and abandon them in the next; a Stand Your Ground freedom, freedom without responsibility, without hard memory; a Monticello without slavery, a Confederate freedom, the freedom of John C. Calhoun, not the freedom of Harriet Tubman, which calls you to risk your own; not the freedom of Nat Turner, which calls you to give even more, but a conqueror’s freedom, freedom of the strong built on antipathy or indifference to the weak, the freedom of rape buttons, pussy grabbers, and fuck you anyway, bitch; freedom of oil and invisible wars, the freedom of suburbs drawn with red lines, the white freedom of Calabasas.

It would be nice if those who sought to use their talents as entrée into another realm would do so with the same care which they took in their craft. But the Gods are fickle and the history of this expectation is mixed. Stevie Wonder fought apartheid. James Brown endorsed a racist Nixon. There is a Ray Lewis for every Colin Kaepernick, an O.J. Simpson for every Jim Brown, or, more poignantly, just another Jim Brown. And we suffer for this, because we are connected. Michael Jackson did not just destroy his own face, but endorsed the destruction of all those made in similar fashion.

The consequences of Kanye West’s unlettered view of America and its history are, if anything, more direct. For his fans, it is the quality of his art that ultimately matters, not his pronouncements. If his upcoming album is great, the dalliance with Trump will be prologue. If it’s bad, then it will be foreshadowing. In any case what will remain is this—West lending his imprimatur, as well as his Twitter platform of some 28 million people, to the racist rhetoric of the conservative movement. West’s thoughts are not original—the apocryphal Harriet Tubman quote and the notion that slavery was a “choice” echoes the ancient trope that slavery wasn’t that bad; the myth that blacks do not protest crime in their community is pure Giulianism; and West’s desire to “go to Charlottesville and talk to people on both sides” is an extension of Trump’s response to the catastrophe. These are not stray thoughts. They are the propaganda that justifies voter suppression, and feeds police brutality, and minimizes the murder of Heather Heyer. And Kanye West is now a mouthpiece for it.

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/05/im-not-black-im-kanye/559763/

[mountain grammy]

1. Bookmarked to read later..

Ta Nahisi-Coates is one of my favorite authors of our time,

[Zoonart]

10. Read it twice.

It is remarkable.

[mountain grammy]

13. Like most of his writings

I’m sure I’ll read it multiple times. I have The Case for Reparations on my desktop and reference it often. I just finished this one and you’re right. It’s remarkable..and I will read it again.

[Zoonart]

16. YEP

[hlthe2b]

19. He is a very good writer and a fine mind for the times...

If I am to be honest, I think he sometimes needs an editor to increase the impact of his sometimes seemingly endless (though quite wonderful) prose. But, he clearly is one of the best social commentators of our time.

[mcar]

2. This is a brilliant essay

Well worth the time. The Michael Jackson parts are so compelling and so sad.

[oasis]

3. The sun is slowly setting for West.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. Thanks for posting

and trying to distill it down to the 4-paragraph limit! He was right on point.

(and glad to see you posting 'cause haven't seen you post in awhile until yesterday )

[OneGrassRoot]

15. Thanks for noticing I was gone...

[Achilleaze]

5. k and r

[IluvPitties]

6. Good read.

[Hoyt]

7. Well worth reading. I understand wanting "white privilege," but white America doesn't have a lot

to recommend it otherwise considering the way it has treated people. That article leaves me sad.

[PunkinPi]

8. K&R nt

[betsuni]

9. K&R

[EffieBlack]

11. Thanks for posting this.

[malaise]

12. Excellent read

Thanks

[ismnotwasm]

14. K&R

[heaven05]

17. okay

very busy, thoughtful reflection on black conservatism vs the artist in this country. I read.

[geardaddy]

18. K & R

[Duppers]

20. Brilliant - big K&R

The arrogance of ignorance on full display is doubly sad when it's a numb black man happily rolling around in his personal wealth.

West should visit the new "National Memorial for Peace and Justice," better known as the Lynching Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama.

But West is sickening and I doubt he'll find or even seek any motivation to redeem himself.

Thanks for posting this Coates article, OneGrassRoot.

[sheshe2]

21. A very worthy read.

Sad

And maybe this, too, is naive, but I wonder how different his life might have been if Michael Jackson knew how much his truly black face was tied to all of our black faces, if he knew that when he destroyed himself, he was destroying part of us, too. I wonder if his life would have been different, would have been longer. And so for Kanye West, I wonder what he might be, if he could find himself back into connection, back to that place where he sought not a disconnected freedom of “I,” but a black freedom that called him back—back to the bone and drum, back to Chicago, back to Home.

[sarcasmo]

22. Blind Klansman from the Chappelle Show.