Now last night Kanye West went on another twitter rant. Honestly nothing out of the ordinary right? But it wasn’t the rant per se that caused me to write this it was the response and backlash to it from a very vocal majority. For the record let me say I found Jimmy Kimmel’s satire very funny. But Kanye had a very Kanye response and with that came the normal hordes of people yelling for him to shut up, to be less arrogant and it kind of made me shake my head a bit.
Allow me to explain. Kanye suffers from a little reported disorder known as “unforgiveable blackness.” And guess what? Kanye isn’t the first rich black male to get the “you have to be humble” while speaking nothing of their white counterparts in popular culture; he may be the loudest of his generation to refuse to do so. And this again is nothing new. We see this all the time in the sporting world. Cam Newton is a remarkably confident young guy, and he is very good. He scores a touchdown and does the Superman gesture. He’s viewed as being this cocky asshole and he’s ruining the game.
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| "He's Confident in his abilities! Get him!" |
Johnny Manziel scores a touchdown and throws up the money signs and he is just a passionate leader. See what I mean?
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| "Let Johnny live!" |
And this happened all throughout the history of the United States. Jack Johnson who was boxing’s first black Heavyweight champion of the world. In an era where being the brash black man he was could get you killed Johnson refused to play the game. You don’t like Floyd Mayweather?
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| You want me to do what? Nah son. |
You’d HATE Jack Johnson. He’d kick your ass, give you a running commentary on how he was kicking your ass, and then steal your girl. You know what happened when he wouldn’t be “humble”? He was put in jail, claiming his lover was a prostitute (She wasn’t) and he was illegally transporting her (He wasn’t). There is always a punishment it seems for being unforgivably or unabashedly black in America.
Perhaps I’m just being too sensitive, I mean I did listen to the new Drake album this week, but it certainly is disheartening to see this consistent attitude of “well you’re great at what you do, now don’t talk about it because I’m not great.” You can call somebody an asshole but when some backs up his proclamations of greatness ain’t shit you can do but move to the side and recognize it. I’m not saying you have to like it, but damn it recognize greatness and try and do something with your life instead of hating on Lebron, Floyd Mayweather and Kanye.
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| KEEP HATING!!! |
