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So...more people have dropped Kanye West in the wake of his "anti-semitic comments" (it took more digging than it should have to actually see what he said - a few articles just leave it incredibly vague which is...problematic). In this case Anna Wintour/Vogue and CAA, both of which are hugely influential, even though CAA only repped him for touring.
To tie it into another recent trend: the Floyd family is allegedly thinking of suing him for suggesting Floyd died of fentanyl though I don't know on what grounds? I guess people have been emboldened by the Alex Jones verdict?
A while ago a rapper called DaBaby went through a similar thing where he refused to apologize until the consequences got too serious - I personally was interested in how far someone could take it. But the outcome proved that "cancel culture" isn't really a paper tiger that only works when people play along because they're too spineless. Nope, it'll work regardless.
This is an interesting test case because Kanye is basically as close to "uncancellable" as a person in a hugely PR-focused industry like music (and fashion) gets. He has a bunch of rabid fans who will buy his music or gear and he's already so vastly rich and famous that he'll likely always make waves. And , according to him, he has an ironclad contract with Adidas
Presumably he knew all this when he - once again - decided to say something he almost certainly knew would bring controversy. But, unlike the "slavery was a choice" or all of the other shit he did, this one is actually leading to the most serious consequences we've seen yet. Ironically for saying Jews cancel people who don't play by the agenda.
Recall also that Nick Cannon eventually was forced to apologize not for racist, Scientology-esque pseudoscience about white people, but specifically for annoying Jews.
It's a shame we don't have a way to see what the median person thinks about this (it's all just elite shunning and op-eds right now) because my first impression when I saw that happen to Cannon is "this is bad for everyone. White people are seeing this - they're basically seeing that anti-white racism is fine and the only whites you don't get to be racist towards are Jews". I wonder how black people will feel if this is what kills Kanye and not...y'know, going against the strongest racial partisan preference in the country.
What he said was basically paraphrasing Bob Marley's Redemption Song (which was basically lifted from a speech by Marcus Garvey).
Kanye was saying that 400 years of slavery is a choice, not that chattel slavery was. 400 years leads up to today. He's saying that people are mental slaves today, and you can choose to set your mind free.
Nick and Kanye are basically parroting a lot of Louis Farrakhan, Nation of Islam, Black Hebrew Israelites, and similar black supremacists. Did Malcom X have some controversial statements about the Jews that were in a similar vein?
Anyways, I think the root of this is that black people moving up in society start 'noticing' how many Jews there are at the top. When half of Hollywood and the media are Jewish, half the white people in Ivy league institutions are Jewish, and Jews only make up ~2% of the population, then it seems logical to a black person to wonder if maybe it isn't the 'white man' keeping them down, since whites are under-represented in the media, in Hollywood, in academia, etc.
And with how connected we all are, now black people (and gentile whites) can peer much further than before. Even the poorest, most oppressed black person in the US can pull out their phone (lol) and quickly discover that half the famous white people he's ever heard of are Jewish.
It's only going to get worse. This is an extremely popular and pervasive topic in the black community. Throughout 2020/21 there were a few organizations that ran into turmoil as the black activists tried pushing out Jews. I think the Woman's March was one. I think the attempts to censor Kanye, assuming he doesn't back down, will lead to more support for him in the black community. This could end up like when Morgan Wallen (country singer) got cancelled for dropping an n-bomb, and then became even more popular. I guarantee most black people hearing Kanye talk about Jews will think every institutional action taken against him is proof he's right.
Your steelman captures half of his point I think:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/01/entertainment/kanye-west-slavery-choice-trnd
It seems to me that he actually is saying that black people hanging around as slaves was a result of "mental enslavement." And that this enslavement continues today.
Which seems like something that is either true in a banal sense (if you are facing a larger and more technologically advanced civilization that will brutalize you for trying to escape are you "mentally enslaved" in any way similar to what we face today? Or are you just enslaved*) or just outright stupid (said technologically superior foe literally publicly mangling you if you try to leave makes it not a choice)
It wouldn't surprise me if Kanye actually had the quotes you're thinking of in mind and then jumbled it together with a bunch of whatever's flying in his head and gave us...this. The man is talented but he's an ultracrepidarian narcissist who seems to want to be recognized as an iconoclast who goes around saying insightful things but doesn't want to put in the work, so he settles for saying provocative things and then sees the negative attention as weirdly validating.
I mean, this isn't specific to black people. Everyone notices this.
I think the problem for black people is the radfem problem: Radfems were allowed to say all sorts of crazy shit about men by their side. Then transwomen came along. And they just...continued to say crazy shit about men (why would they change when their target hasn't?) but then had to learn very fast that not all men are equal.
Black people are given somewhat of a pass for saying crazy things about white people and have gotten accustomed to it (some of the things they say about whites are similarly deranged or weird). They look around and see a group of affluent whites and naturally start applying the same logic. This is, of course, a no-go. Not only is antisemitism a third rail but, if we're being cynical, there are benefits to claiming to be an oppressed minority (even when affluent) and so people are naturally defensive of someone trying to strip them of their cloak of victimhood in a country where it's currency.
Beyond that: can we just say that they picked it up from around them? Islam and Christianity both have had problems with Judaism, to say nothing of general antisemitism floating around and black people aren't an island.
* The gulf in tech between Rome and the leaders of the Servile Wars was infinitesimal in comparison yet no slave revolt succeeded and, in fact, Romans never suffered another one after Spartacus. A simple explanation is that it's just hard to pull off, especially without external help.
As the old saying goes, you get used to anything eventually. That's what I think he's saying, yeah they were brutally dominated and subjugated into passively accepting their fates, but as any student of the time will tell you, they weren't whipped into submission every day for hundreds of years. They were treated 'decently' if they behaved, and so eventually they all behaved. To the point that yes, there were black people who supported the confederates, there were slaves who believed it was the best they could get.
That is the mental slavery. And yes it absolutely continues to this day, and yes you are one of the slaves, so am I, so is everyone here. But we have never been free - truly free - and so we accept this crude facsimile we are given by the government and corporations and all those who profit from our misery. At least that's what I think he's saying. Maybe it is banal, but so is calling fire hot. People don't lose their shit when you tell them fire is hot though.
Getting used to literally being brutalized every time you try to rebel or run (and people did try) is not the same as getting used to...I dunno, whatever "slave" situation Kanye feels he and black people are today.
Sure, you could say they got used to both* but the means by which they were made resigned to their fate are vastly different and it's important.
If I look at the situation and think: "I hate the white man, I want to escape but I know so-and-so got lynched and that last rebellion was crushed brutally" that imo that is not some mental distortion or spell. That is a response to force, not a Jedi mind trick.
You might as well say that a conquered state is "mentally" enslaved.
Sorry, but to me, this falls into the "if it's true it's true in a banal sense". Lots of people are forced into suboptimal political situations. It's not inherently slavery, especially not slavery compared to actual slavery. This is why OP's original steelman assumed that Kanye meant it was like slavery, not that he actually made an equivalence between slaves and black people today. Because it would be ridiculous.
Creating an equivalence between black people who were literally brought to America in chains and black people today seems absurd to me. I find the mindset ludicrous and it leads to all sorts of weird nonsense like Kaepernick comparing the NFL to slavery
Is Kaepernick right? I mean...I guess he is correct that there is a power differential between owners and players. And players naturally are subject to health checks to make sure they are fit to play and they are "sold" but I don't think anyone actually thinks it's anything like slavery and, the sense in which it is like that is so nebulous..
People do say that. This is a common refrain among nationalists, and apparently enough motivation for them to put their lives on the line in rebellion.
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