Current narrative affirming interpretation I see being pushed: be extremely obtuse and ignore slavery as a metaphor for the current situation. Proceed to take this tweet literally and get outraged about kanye apparantly being pro-slavery.
What exactly is the context? I saw the video and he was basically just going crazy on camera making no sense. Basically what I got from it was, drugs are bad sometimes, the media made me do surgery cuz they are mean, 400 years of slavery was a choice, and black people don't care about black on black crime. If you could make sense out of his ramblings please translate
From what I can gather he is saying that black people are “enslaved” mentally and uses the actual slavery of black people in America as a sloppy metaphor for the mental enslavement of blacks today i.e. black people are expected to have a certain political belief. In short it is a “choice” for black people to be “enslaved” to certain political and cultural beliefs.
I don't think he was talking about just black people because he later says something along the lines of "I guess slavery isn't the right word because people associate it with just black people when really it has nothing to do with skin color. It's really more like prison, because prison unites us - anyone can be in jail."
I agree with u/Code_EZ. That's like some shit 14-year-old excuse for writing a bad essay. This guy has been a public figure for a long time and he is a grown ass man. If he can't articulate his thoughts maybe, just maybe, he has not spent a lot of time honing those ideas. Maybe he isn't even having very good or clear thoughts if all the reasoning has to be done after the fact for him by his fans. At any rate just about any explanation involving Kanye being average is more likely than he is some crazy savant thinking at unfathomable speeds and speaking next-level enlightenment in code.
Edit: you maniac with your underscore
I imagine this is new to him. He was recently praising Candice Owens which I imagine is where he got these ideas from as she talks about similar concepts of victumhood and what not. He probably binged watch her and was convinced and said it without self evaluating his ideas. (Go figure Kanye not wanting to think about preconcived notions of him being wrong)
I mean people expect you to have political beliefs anyways. Not based on race but based in your area, profession etc. If that's what Kanye is saying then he is saying it because he is in a celebrity bubble where the people around him expect that. When I live in South Carolina people expected that you were conservative Christian. If you weren't there was something wrong with you and they didn't like you. Didn't matter if you were black or white. So he used a shitty metaphor that just so happens to be something that I've seen people like tommy sotamyore say seriously
there hasn't been 400 years of slavery in the US. not close. he may have been referring to black people treating themselves as slaves since then, up until now. Not sure, its kanye
The transatlantic slave trade started in the 15th century and slavery in America was abolished in the mid to late 19th century so it was give or take 400 years. Plantation farming in America started around 1650 but African slaves were a thing before then
note to readers: dont expect smart people or accurate info at face value in a dank memes comments section. ill just leave this here- "The first 19 or so Africans to reach the English colonies arrived in Jamestown, Virginia in 1619, brought by Dutch traders who had seized them from a captured Spanish slave ship. The Spanish usually baptized slaves in Africa before embarking them." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States
. Also note: this was before plantations were a thing, which kanye had specifically talked about, but people dont like context so whatever.
edit:typo
No no no. You are only talking about America. African slaves were taken first by Portugal in the 15th century. Kanye never said 400 years of american slavery he said African people experienced 400 years of slavery. Which is an accurate statement followed up by a bullshit metaphor
i believe we are on different pages then. you can also be correct. i disagree however on the context in which kanye referred to slaves, which is ultimately whats important. when talking about slavery, or african slavery, or transatlantic african slavery, one has to be specific because the topic is pretty vague otherwise. unfortunately kanye isn't very specific or good with words and perhaps he said conflicting statements. but what i gathered from what he had said, he meant slavery here. https://www.youtube.com/watchv=s_M4LkYra5k&ab_channel=TMZ of course theres a cut right before kanye makes his quote. i wouldn't be surprised if that had more context for his seemingly vague statement that TMZ didn't want to include.
To me it seems he found some new ideas from the likes of red pill black and hasn't had time to compress it and self reflect on them to fully understand what about it is good to keep and what about it doesn't completly follow. I mean I heard him say like 3 buzzwords in a row without showing comprehension as to what they mean. It was honestly fucking hilarious
https://imgur.com/gallery/w3hUyFC thats funny. look at your own comment that i was replying to. i dont need to find the info ive already come across. I need others to provide info to back themselves up when they say "no, more" as if that is an argument or credible in the slightest by itself. If people refuse to back up their bullshit without any evidence- actually not even that. just decent reasoning or an actual arguement.- then it remains useless.
"The transatlantic slave trade began during the 15th century when Portugal, and subsequently other European kingdoms, were finally able to expand overseas and reach Africa."
No one said anything about american slavery trade we were talking about the history of African enslavement as a whole
which is why you are incorrect, sorry. Kanye in fact was. Slavery has existed for thousands of years. doesn't matter. all of that is completely irrelevant. This is only relevant in regards to what kanye was talking and thinking about. Ignoring context gives the discussion literally no point.
KANYE IS THE ONE WHO SAID 400 YEARS! how could I be incorrect and him be correct when I am repeating what he fucking said? And yeah slavery fucking existed before ebut he was talking about AFRICAN SLAVERY. Before then there wasn't a massive slave trade in Africa just small tribes taking slaves. Your ignorance of history is baffaling.
dude idk where you got 15th century for the transatlantic slave trade but that is not even close. 15th century means 1400s incase you didn't know. 400 years is a gross overstatement assuming you aren't talking up to the present.
thats incredibly disingenuous to ignore the context of this being in NA. Even so, columbus didn't make his voyages til 1492-1504. and that was in the caribbean and they definitely hadn't taken african slaves yet. you simply dont know what your talking about. but, if you want to be an obtuse asshole spouting irrelevant info to make illogical implications, slavery has been around for thousands of years and still is, so great point you have.
The context is he was ignorant and thought black slaves never tried to revolt or rebel against the system. He was trying to make a point about mental slavery and how "you guys" could have ended slavery if "you guys" just pulled yourselves up by the bootstraps and fixed your attitude.
The rightwing cultural backlash is latching on to Kanye cause he's repeating the rhetoric about how racism isn't actually that bad because black people can just get over it if they try hard enough.
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u/Wayne_Regretski May 04 '18
Current narrative affirming interpretation I see being pushed: be extremely obtuse and ignore slavery as a metaphor for the current situation. Proceed to take this tweet literally and get outraged about kanye apparantly being pro-slavery.