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For Kanye to justify his commentary on approving
Trump's personality or style of politics begs the issue that
art can be politics and what artists say about politics can
have implications.
Political protest using art is not new. Picasso's
famous artwork titled Guernica was a bold statement
about the injustices of war when the German Luftwaffe in
1937 allegedly committed human atrocities by bombing a
Basque group in northern Spain.
The Black Panthers in their heyday regularly used art
depicting police as, "pigs" and Lenin and Stalin both used
artsy and fiery political posters to support their terrible
regimes in which millions of Russian peasants lost their
lives.
It bemuses me when an artist thinks that due to the
public's acceptance of his art, music or dress that he is
automatically endowed with intellectual and logical
facilities that now make their every utterance worthy of
note and discussion.
Kanye has every right to speak his mind about politics
and he has the right to embrace or associate with any
character he so chooses. That is a given. But what is not a
"gimme" or a "mulligan" is for that artist to try to hijack
public opinion that due to his or her support of a
personality, like President Trump, that such a person should
be viewed as normal, acceptable or beneficial.
Kanye must have been out grazing in the grass for the
past 20 months in order not to be present and accounted for
when President Trump continuously berated and denigrated
people of color including Muslims.
Somehow, Kanye must have had a brain freeze when
President Trump lauded neo Nazis in Charlottesville and
verbally pummeled black footballers for their stance against
police brutality.
In Kanye's way of thinking, those disturbing aspects of
a president spewing such vile and bitter hatred towards
minorities and the shaming of women and those with
disabilities, those acts should not or do not factor into
his decisions to withhold his syrupy support of Trump.
For Kanye to skin and grin with President Trump (as did
Omarosa and Ben Carson and others), it shows that he is
clueless about what it means to associate with a
pathological liar that will use him or others like him for
their own gain.
By now, Kanye should understand that his commentary
about loving all things Trump comes with the accompanying
baggage that he will be confronted by others who will see
him as a imposter using the images of he and Trump locked in
a perpetual mutual hug as simply being a means to sell
records and concert tickets.
And for Trump, he can smile and pimp off of Kanye's
reputation as Trump being seen as, "down with" black people.
What a joke!
Kanye has not issued any coherent press releases about
the genesis of his tender love for Trump but what he says
simply amount to head-scratching statements that have the
same benefit of putting used coffee grounds in one's
scrambled eggs.
I hope that no one takes Kanye seriously about Trump
being a character worthy of allegiance or someone to embrace
on the faulty premise that such an embrace will or may
somehow change Trump's malevolent character makeup.
For example, you probably have heard or seen the
footage of the shooting at the Waffle House outside of
Nashville Tennessee in which a black man single handedly
took down the white shooter after four were shot dead and
many wounded.
The black hero James Shaw Jr., saved many patrons from
a certain death but yet you have not even seen a tweet from
Trump about such heroics. Why? Because it does not fit into
his myopic view of such mass shooters being done by Muslim
or the shooter being radicalized by ISIS.
If the shooter was a Muslim and killed those four
Americans, Trump would be dizzy throwing out tweet after
tweet to show that his ban on Muslims should be affirmed by
the American courts.
For a black man to be a hero and risk his own life in
light of what Trump has said about black males (the NFL
remarks about they being, "SOB's") not worthy of been viewed
other than being born from a female dog, Trump thanking this
man would run counterintuitive to his racist rants.
Is and was Kanye totally blind to President Trump and
his outrageous statements about black people?
No. Tragically, some black people can be victims while
believing that if they can just touch the hem of Trump's
garment, they will be made whole.
The remarks about Trump coming from Kanye are not cool,
hip, or refreshing. They are simply the remarks of a
confused and politically adrift person who wants the
limelight and if that means kissy-kissy with Trump, well, so
be it.
The black community is ill served by those who can
command the national media spotlight where they spout a lot
of inane political gibberish; and when they face back lash,
it is because the back lash hopefully serves to educate the
errant speaker that what he or she said is without merit or
redeeming value.
Just because a person is black does not mean that their
utterances or actions are to be accepted without any
critique or a rebuke.
In the matter of Bill Cosby, already I am hearing talk
of a "legend" being destroyed or it was a conspiracy against
Cosby because he once tried to buy the NBC network; and thus
the criminal charges on being a serial rapist was a devious
plan. Hogwash!
Needless to state, we will never reach a consensus as
to the mindset of the artistic person who may delusionally
presume that their celebrity status equates political savvy.
But what we can do is not allow our senses to be
befuddled by entertainers who may want to parlay their
popularity as a means to lead others into their stream of
thought simply because they possess an Emmy or an Oscar.
That is opting for vain images as opposed to meaningful
substance.
Contact Lafe Tolliver at
tolliver@juno.com |
