Kanye West has been no stranger to controversy, especially lately. After expressing his "love" for President Donald J. Trump in a series of tweets earlier this month, the formerly heralded musician arguably sparked more outrage and disappointment than ever before on Tuesday, May 1.
In an appearance at the TMZ headquarters, West said 400 years of slavery "sounds like a choice." He added, "You were there for 400 years and it's all of y'all. It's like we're mentally imprisoned."
Many on social media swiftly lambasted West for his comments and applauded TMZ's Van Lathan for confronting West inside the TMZ newsroom.
"You’re entitled to believe whatever you want, but there is fact and real world, real life consequence behind everything you just said," Lathan said in part. "And while you are making music and being an artist and living the life that you’ve earned by being a genius, the rest of us in society have to deal with these threats to our lives."
Dr. Blair L.M. Kelley, an associate professor of history and the assistant dean for interdisciplinary studies and international programs at North Carolina State University, took to Twitter to break down West's comments and its implications.
Kelley wrote that West's comments are made by "uninformed people all the time":
Haven’t watched the whole Kanye event today, working my way up to it. I will say, that a milder version of the “slavery is a choice” argument is made by uninformed people all the time. I’ve had young men in my courses say “they never would have enslaved me.”
— Blair LM Kelley (@profblmkelley) May 2, 2018
People aren’t aware of the alienation of people ripped from their homes, abused, walked hundreds of miles across Africa, sometimes so far they ceased understanding the language spoken around them…
— Blair LM Kelley (@profblmkelley) May 2, 2018
The professor discussed the unspeakable brutality Africans endured in slave castles, the Middle Passage and throughout the Americas:
People don’t know the brutality of the slave castles were people were held on the coasts, branded still holding out hope for escape, or reconnection with loved one….
— Blair LM Kelley (@profblmkelley) May 2, 2018
Could they have survived the devastation of the middle passage, packed less humanely than animals below the deck of the ship, chained to people who were sick and dying?
— Blair LM Kelley (@profblmkelley) May 2, 2018
Could they have survived being sold like a good at market by people in a foreign land speaking a foreign tongue? Could they have survived torturous work, in scraps of clothing eating the food that was unwanted?
— Blair LM Kelley (@profblmkelley) May 2, 2018
Not only did my ancestors and Kanye’s ancestors survive, they managed to make a way to make a new culture, remake family and faith. And in the process, make a culture so formidable that it continues to change the world.
— Blair LM Kelley (@profblmkelley) May 2, 2018
Slavery wasn’t their choice at any step. We know that freedom was always their choice, resistance was their choice when they couldn’t escape.
— Blair LM Kelley (@profblmkelley) May 2, 2018
Kelley concluded her thread by adding, "Denigrating their lives at this point for attention and spare change is such an embarrassment."
Many on Twitter also criticized West's comments for suggesting black people did not rebel and resist slavery, despite the hundreds of slave rebellions cited throughout history.
Author and professor Marc Lamont Hill argued on Twitter that black people had resisted slavery throughout history:
There has NEVER been a moment in history when Black people didn't resist slavery. Some did it by jumping off ships. Some killed masters. Some ran away. Some did it through everyday forms of resistance. Slave masters didn't retire. Our resistance led to our freedom.
— Marc Lamont Hill (@marclamonthill) May 2, 2018
