Kanye West, one of the black community's most outspoken figures, has returned home to Chicago. This year has been full of highs and lows for West: he produced five albums, including his own, and he has been releasing more apparel from his Yeezy line, but he has also been in the media a lot more, often with negative press. West wore the MAGA hat, which is already a huge strike in the black community, but he almost lost his black card forever by going on TV and making comments about slavery being a choice.
Sometimes when life beats you down, you start to realize that there is no place like home. Upon returning to Chicago, West stopped by 107.5 WGCI-FM and, of course, there was so much to catch up on. One of the questions West was asked was in regard to Trump and the black community; the same question he was asked on Jimmy Kimmel, but wasn’t given enough time to answer.
About Trump, West said, "I feel that [Trump] cares about the way black people feel about him, and he would like for black people to like him like they did when he was cool in the rap songs and all this, and he will do the things that are necessary to make that happen because he's got an ego like all the rest of us … he knows that he can't be the greatest president without the acceptance of the black community,"
A rather insightful answer from Kanye West, there is an element of truth in his statements in about how Trump was viewed in the rap community prior to the 2016 campaign.
Now fast forward to Don Lemon's show, where he played the clip of West's answer. After the clip, he compared Kanye to Oswald Bates, a character from the TV show In Living Color who only used big words and was, at times, unintelligible. Lemon then went on to say, “It's like a word salad where you realize that Kanye West, entitled to his own opinion, but is not very bright and not very — he — when — I'm talking about this issue, not overall, but when it comes to these issues, he's not clued in."
The only reason Lemon stuttered or even attempted to retract his statement was because Angela Rye, who was one of the commentators, realized that he was totally wrong. His critique of Kanye West was not only overly harsh, but in some sense, unwarranted.
I was slightly disappointed in what Lemon had to say about West; the insult to the man's intelligence was not fair. Even if he attempted to take it back, it does not excuse the fact that he said it in the first place. Intelligence is not supposed to sound or look a certain way, and for years we as black people have had our intelligence questioned.
Not too long ago, the president called out Lemon and made reference to him and Lebron’s intelligence, only for Lemon to turn around and basically do the same thing to a member of his community. Granted, Lemon's response to West was coming from a place of comedic scolding, as apposed to Trump’s insult, which was more malicious.
We, as a community, have to do a better job in how we scold each other on these networks. If Lemon felt so strongly about educating West, then maybe he should have sent him some articles or news pieces instead of insulting his intelligence on national TV.