Opinion: Kanye West — Slavery is a choice
Please note that this is an anonymous opinion piece and does not reflect the opinion of the party.
Kanye West sparked controversy earlier this month when he stepped back into the limelight, promoting his new album and coming back to Twitter. Honestly, apart from the Daft Punk song and Gold Digger, I’ve not had too much of a reason to listen or care about Kanye and especially the Kardashians, until now.
On TMZ Kanye West had the following statement to make:
“When you hear about slavery for 400 years … For 400 years? That sounds like a choice.”
The rapper went on to add:
“You were there for 400 years and it’s all of y’all. It’s like we’re mentally imprisoned.”
And as per usual, the leftist media went up in arms with the same headline that I have chosen for this article. Kanye West was right. His statement says (although less eloquently):
“Slavery ended 250 years ago, but you are continually mentally imprisoned by it. That sounds like a choice.”
You see, Kanye West is not a victim of any sort of slavery, he’s a successful individual that is aware of his celebrity but also of the society he is surrounded by. I don’t really agree with the coddling up to Trump that he is doing but he is right. Black people live under their own victimisation in the 21st century.
There is slavery in the world, and there is some sex trafficking and labour trafficking still present in America, but compared to the numbers of history these are outliers and the justice system views it as criminal activity. Racism and mean comments are shitty, but they are just words. There are some issues such as job discrimination that do need more attention, however, without removing the meritocratic nature of employment.
The healthy side of what Kanye said is that no matter what race you are, you have to live as an individual, unaffected and not imprisoned by the happenings of the past. When you victimise yourself, you forever live in a victimhood mentality. That’s true for anyone that was bullied or sexually abused, it is not just a black thing. You hold yourself back.
West failed to elaborate, probably because he was already put on the defensive when he realised he hadn’t thought about how to explain his point before saying it, and quickly had to defend himself without being able to elaborate further on why or what he he had just said.
And further from that, the left extends a guilty by association mentality. West congratulated right-wing thinker Candice Owens on “how she thinks”. Because a black person doesn’t conform to the way you think they should think because they are black, they are attacked for doing so, that is inherently racist in itself.
Next time you go around sharing these articles, do a little bit of research. It is the Pirate philosophy to question and rationalise and I’d hope that everyone would have the sense to know when slavery was abolished, and for how long it existed for. Kanye is waking up, just like many other individuals that are too afraid to speak.
The Pirate Party stands for freedom of speech. So should you. Instead of being able to explain his point of view, his opinions were attacked and he was shamed for having them. Debate is the key to persuasion.
