Hot 97 Blasts Kanye's Right-Leaning Tweets: "Cooning for Cash"
Kanye West gave black Twitter a case of the sads over the weekend. His sudden right-leaning tweets have driven people bananas. Not CNN bananas, but still pretty crazy. You would think Kanye tweeted that Colin Kaepernick could have handled things differently. Or that Beyonce was overrated. Maybe that he was a DC Comics fan. You know, super triggering stuff beyond the pale of politics.
Most of the anger was displayed on Hot97 (where hip-hop lives, kid). Host Ebro Darden claims to have spoken to Kanye over the weekend and relayed his side of the conversation.
We went back and forth about a number of things. I told him I thought he was cooning for cash. Being in the lobby of Trump Tower, I thought that was a coon move, cooning for cash. And he was like, “Why, you think I’m gonna make more money because I’m saying the things I’m saying?” I said, “Yes, because the bankers and the executives and the right-wing folks and the audience that wants to hear a black man say these things, to separate himself from other black people will celebrate that…Then he said, “I do love Donald Trump.” Kanye West. Quote. “I do love Donald Trump.”
I agree with one point in that, I think this is all because Kanye has new music coming out. I know some on the right like to rally around anyone remotely famous who says things they agree with. But we're talking about Kanye West here. Don't act surprised in a week or two when he's retweeting David Hogg.
But we've seen what happens to black celebrities when they say something about Donald Trump other than "f*** you" (see CNN Throws Race Against Trump. NFL Legend Jim Brown Has None of It! and Steve Harvey Says He’s Encouraged by Donald Trump. Leftist Mobs Burn his Village…). Not that it's limited to just black celebrities. Country singer Shania Twain was cyberbullied into apologizing for saying she would have voted for him. But when someone who comes from one or more of the left's marginalized groups has the slightest right-leaning thought, it's scorched earth time. The disdain these hosts had for anyone who has a different opinion than them was biting. If not at first, it was after you got smacked in the face by the race card.
Also, you can't say people like Kanye or Jim Brown "got played" by the president when black unemployment numbers are at an all-time low (see Stats Show Black Unemployment Levels Just Hit a Record Low… and BET Founder Praises Trump Economy: ‘Bringing Black Workers Back Into the Labor Force’). Yes, Trump tweets and says dumb things. His comments on Charlottesville were disappointing at best to a lot of people. Even a lot of us on the right. But results matter more than Twitter rants. At least they should. And I'm definitely not saying Melania shouldn't replace Trump's iPhone with a squeaky toy.
I totally think a lot of this is Kanye looking for publicity. But even so, while he's claiming to challenge people to "think differently" and open lines of dialogue with people, I'm his ally.
