Kanye West was back at it again on Sunday, continuing to enrage left-wing musicians and supporters with his steadfast refusal to turn his back on Donald Trump and embrace the Democratic Party. At a Sunday service event in Utah, the rapper told thousands of fans that it was nothing less than “mental slavery” for black people to continue to vote Democrat simply based on the color of their skin.
Just after performing the hit song “Jesus Walks,” West told the crowd that it was the Republican Party – not the Democrats – who freed the slaves in the 1860s. Of course, he is absolutely right. Lincoln was a Republican, a fact that makes modern Democrats (who were also, incidentally, the party of Jim Crow laws and segregation) massively irritated when you bring it up. Still, the truth is the truth, and West has proven that he is unafraid to speak that truth, even if it means getting shunned by the liberal establishment.
“That’s the Republican Party that freed the slaves,” said West.
The rapper said he wouldn’t apologize for supporting the president.
“It’s my right,” he said. “And we got the right, right? We got a right to our opinions, right? You’re black, so you can’t like Trump? I ain’t never made a decision only based on my color. That’s a form of slavery – mental slavery.”
West has attracted controversy before for his musings on slavery. In an interview with TMZ earlier this year, the rapper said that there were elements of the “400 years of oppression” narrative that bothered him looking back at it.
“When you hear about slavery for 400 years – for 400 years?” he said. “That sounds like a choice. Like, you was there for 400 years and it’s all of y’all? It’s like we’re mentally in prison. I like the word ‘prison’ because slavery goes too direct to the idea of blacks.”
It’s never easy to tell how much of West’s rhetoric is him looking for buttons to push and how much of it he really believes. It may be some combination of the two. He strikes us as a guy who enjoys thinking outside the box, though – not necessarily just to “get a reaction,” but to actually explore ideas and mindsets that are too often put in a box and labeled BAD without any real thought behind it. West wants the freedom to think what he wants and say what he wants, and he is asking his fans to realize that they have the same right.
When you don’t just go along to get along, you’re bound to get some things wrong and you’re definitely bound to step on some toes. West doesn’t care, and as far as we’re concerned, that makes him a true American original.
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