Kanye West – Susan X Jane

What Kanye West Has in Common With Susan Collins

Yesterday Kanye pulled his struggle bus into D.C. for a stop at the White House where he proceeded to deliver a cringeworthy soliloquy where he asked Donald Trump to love him like the daddy he wished he had in exchange for absolute fealty and an iPlane. The bizarre moment was broadcast live, sometimes with a split screen of communities wiped out by Hurricane Michael because America. Kanye’s rant was so full of crazy soundbites it broke the internet like Kim K’s….nevermind. Clickbait? For sure. But don’t dismiss Kanye’s diatribe as meaningless. Kanye, clearly, is struggling with his recent bipolar diagnosis, but what Kanye is saying is actually a window into how the elite think as they play human chess with ideas, disconnected from the material effect of oppressive ideologies on you or me.

Kanye’s recent epiphanies about the black community aren’t crazy original, or even just plain crazy–they’re conservative talking points, Fox News’s daily mainline of ignorant and ahistorical bullshit regarding black people and the black community. Its the elite, not the Illuminati, that fertilized Kanye’s mind with fantasies of black people living high off the welfare hog. So before you cancel Kanye (wait till the end of the post) and erase all that he said, I suggest you take a listen to it, and a lesson from it. Everyone is lining up to condemn Kanye (valid) but Kanye is just cutting samples from the ideas that circulate among the wealthy and white–the people he is around every day.

If you can’t stomach–or follow–the long winding tale of the tape, here are some of the highlights of Kanye’s lowlights: racism is a liberal invention to foster victim mentality in black people–effective in Kanye’s word because “we are an emotional people”; blacks are overly reliant on welfare; black on black crime is the real problem of the black community; some stuff about the 13th amendment that even I couldn’t make sense of. Painting black people as poor, violent, and not totally deserving or able to be free is a page out of the Willie Lynch playbook.

Kanye also had a lot to say about the captains of industry and their mythic position as the heroes of America. He painted Trump as a lonely warrior on a Joseph Campbell-esque quest to make America great again. These are not the random musings of an outlier, this is the sacred text of America’s holy trinity of capitalism, white supremacy and masculinity.

What we’re hearing from Kanye is raw uncut American hegemony. Think of hegemony as the net of ideas that produces and normalizes the social, political, economic and cultural relationships and processes that make up the world we live in. In order for any culture to function, we have to have a shared understanding of what is happening, but what if someone decided to write the world in their own favor? One way that people in power remain in power is they set up the rules of the game for the rest of us–and ensure that they conserve the best resources for themselves. They hide the strings of the puppetry behind stories, myths ideas, and beliefs that normalize the structures we have as the only way that things could or should be. In a word, hegemony is the process that determines “just the way it is”.

But it’s not just the way it is. Science tells us every day of the expanding boundaries of our universe, a million stars with their own worlds. Developing nations around the world develop in ways different than the colonization process that sprouted our own country. In a world where Kanye West and Donald Trump are hugging over the Resolute desk in the Oval Office, we must concede that anything is possible. Hegemony is the factory where our current imbalanced and unsustainable systems to keep mashing up young black and brown men in the prison system, and where the response to #MeToo is ‘so what’ and where American dream is deserved only by the wealthy and not by the millions of Americans who generate that wealth with sweat and blood and time and life energy.

We don’t have to want that anymore. It is right and proper to reject people who parrot the tales of a dying empire built by slaves on land stolen from Native Americans and nurtured by women and wave after wave of immigrants. It’s cool to cancel Kanye (ready..now!). While we’re at it, let’s vote out Susan Collins who would rather vote for her senate majority masters than stand up and vote for her sisters. Like Kanye, she allowed her desire to align herself with power to be more important than standing in solidarity and unity with women across the country demanding justice free from patriarchy.

Kanye’s comments are mostly shocking because he is black, and not just black but George-Bush-doesn’t-care-about-black-people. We expect that all people of color are woke enough to know when their own interests are being trampled but that’s not true. Members of oppressed groups drink the same hegemonic kool-aid that everyone else does and have to do the work to free their mind from the ideas that bind them. Susan Collins is also speaking kool-aidese, her hour-long speech echoing of the statements of her male counterparts. Shocking because she is a woman. But both of them are seeking to be in close proximity to power, and it is power, not identity that drives their ~~madness~~ choices.

When we get angry at the paper tigers or dismiss them as irrelevant outliers we forget it is the hegemonic ideology they are spouting that is the real villain. Kanye is symptomatic of an elite celebrity class living disconnected from history and reality even as they cast the net for the rest of us. In addition to auditioning with Trump to be the mouthpiece of ‘Murica, Kanye is also a person who is struggling to accept a diagnosis, who needs the time and space to learn how to take care of himself. He doesn’t need cameras, he needs care. The kindest thing you can do for him is cancel him.

Anyone can ring the bell of hegemony–whatever your race or gender, you can parrot the ideas of a culture that oppresses people who look like you. But the reverse is also true: anyone can join the resistance and seek new ideas to build a better more perfect union. You can say no to the Davey Crockett version of Trump. You can tell people that it’s not just Kanye or Susan Collins, but the culture that they represent, the culture of power, and money, white supremacy and toxic masculinity, built on the backs of everyone that’s not them that creates these deplorable ideas. You can work with us to dismantle that castle in the sky, brick by brick. Call out every person who stands up for oppression. Vote them out. Stop buying their shit. Stop covering their antics. Don’t be their supporters. quit being their friend. Unfollow, block, delete. And of course, stay woke.

What’s Wrong with Kanye?

Just days before his new album drops. Kanye West has been trolling the world with a series of provocative tweets, comments, and hat choices. Whyyyy? First, in case he hasn’t been able to reach you with his blankets of bullshit, here are some highlights. He started off professing love and shared dragon energy with Donald Trump. This sounds like something Stormy Daniels’ lawyer should be in on, but Kanye promises us the love is real. Looking back, this really is some expert-level clickbait

His comments about Trump were enough to prompt Questlove of the Roots to wear a shirt that says “Kanye West Doesn’t Care About Black People,” a take off Kanye’s own comments about George Bush during the Hurricane Katrina crisis. Questlove sported the shirt this weekend in Montgomery, Alabama at the Concert for Peace and Justice celebrating the opening of the Equal Justice Initiative’s Memorial to Peace and Justice commemorating lynching in America–peak black excellence. Kanye’s cookout privileges have been revoked.

Not to be denied the right to scream from the sunken place, Kanye told a TMZ reporter that slavery was a choice.

Kanye West stirs up the TMZ newsroom over TRUMP, SLAVERY and FREE THOUGHT. There’s A LOT more that went down … and the fireworks are exploding on @TMZLive today. Check your local listings for show times. pic.twitter.com/jwVsJCMPiq

— TMZ (@TMZ) May 1, 2018

Wooooooooooooow. At this point, it seems like his Brittany Spears level meltdown is too crazy to be anything but an act, right? I mean he went to TMZ. He’s breaking the internet without even taking his pants off. Can it be that the person who called out George Bush and Taylor Swift has become race traitor numero uno?
There is another explanation, maybe less interesting but also more insidious. Kanye has been drinking the elite Kool-Aid and it has scrambled his brain. A lot of the hoopla is about these crazy words coming out of the mouth of Kanye West who, in case he forgot, is a black man in America. When so much of the black community is trying to get their passport stamped for Wakanda, Kanye West seems to have bought a one-way bus ticket to the heart of white supremacy.
Here’s the thing, being woke isn’t automatic. When someone *cough Kanye cough* is disconnected from their community and buys into the hegemonic ideas that the elite chomp on all day, they start to believe some crazy shit. Like a lot of other people in the 1% Kanye is driven to amass wealth knowing their business directly contributes to rising income inequality, especially among their target consumers. Kanye has no problem exploiting cheap labor to manufacture his overpriced clothes. Kanye has no problem marketing said clothes to young people who can ill afford it but are enamored of the lifestyle marketing he employs. The mindset that feeds on exploitation and degradation is the same mindset that ignored the brutality of slavery as profits piled up. It’s the same mindset today that ignores the demands of the resistance as the rich and powerful continue to reshape our democracy into an oligarchy for their own profit. Its the mindset that says sure Trump is a nightmare but hey, my taxes are great!
There were black slave owners. There are black people today who continue to believe in the ideology of white supremacy even though their skin is black. This small but real group remind us of the power of the lies the elite tell to maintain their ability to manipulate others for profit. You don’t have to be white to believe in white supremacy. Hmmm, maybe that’s what Kanye meant when he declared his right to free thought. He’s right–he has the right to believe in white supremacy and the lies it tells about black people and their history. He won’t be the first black person to believe it, and maybe not the last so check your cousins and them.

When I say stay woke, I recognize that staying woke is an intentional act, a place not of race but choice. A place anyone can decide to stand when they stop believing the lie that some people deserve more than others. So stay woke, no matter who you are. We’ll be here when you’re ready, Kanye

Your Awesome Blackface Costume: A Rating System

Its Halloween time, and nothing says Halloween like an Awesome costume. Lately the stupid PC police have been raining on everyone’s parade, talking about how your Halloween costume shouldn’t be disrespectful to women or latinos or blacks or whatever, but its just for fun so they need to stop being babies about respect .

Blackface is a classic. So what if blackface was the narrative that contributed to the oppression of blacks from slavery straight through Jim Crow, the makeup is cheap and your fun is worth perpetuating racism in the 21st century. Besides, no matter what kind of character you go as, if it includes blackface, your sure to get tons of attention. But how do you know which blackface costume is right for you? Picking the right one is a matter of taste–are you looking for something more subtle, maybe a socially acceptable black or are you a real risk taker? Here we’ll show you some of the boldest blackface costumes with our very own special level system from beginner to advanced.

Basic level

There are too many Awesome black people to not dress up as one. So what if you are a white person. Saying whatever you want is your first amendment right–no, as a matter of fact, it’s your privilege –so whats wrong with a little Halloween privilege? If people are staring at your Mr. T costume, its only because Mr. T is so culturally relevant, they wish they dressed as him too. Since you love Mr. T, you automatically are not racist. Pretty sure blackface is okay as long as you like the guy, right? So what if your friends tell you its not cool? What would they know about how cool shoe polishing your face for A-team greatness is?

Emmy Level

Dressing up as Crazy Eyes is totally okay because Orange is the New Black won an Emmy. The character is soooo cool, I mean sad too, and so she’s not a stereotype, right, a black woman in prison, so what’s the problem with that? Dressing as Crazy eyes wasn’t tone deaf–it’s tots relevant, just like my friend’s Michonne costume.

I mean, the Walking Dead won an Emmy and even though zombies are wicked gross, Michonne is a strong black woman and totally feminist so she can’t be off limits. These Michonne costumes are everywhere. They’re too popular to be racist. So what if your sorority may be featured in the local news, they just don’t know how cute your pixs looked on Instagram.

Intercontinental Level

Blackface isn’t really like blackface when you dress up as an African, because they’re, like, African. You know your history, and of course blackface was used to denigrate American blacks during the 19th and 20th century, but those were Americans, see? So dressing like an African, thats not racist because they’re Africans. So nothing wrong here, you world history buff. So what if your social media pictures spark international outrage, shaming your family on multiple continents. the outfit was too good to pass up.

Jeezy Level

Get creative with your reasoning: Only racist do racist things, so if you’re not racist, then racist acts become not racisct, get it? George Bush doesn’t care about black people, but you do, so you can’t be racist. Besides You’re so cool with black people, they might think it’s real! Don’t get mistaken for Kanye in this season’s hottest blackface costume. No one will mistake you for racist, just a clever consumer of all things TMZ, right? Besides, as an educator, you want to set a good example for the kids. If you’re going to do blackface, make sure you really commit to doing the hands too. Kanye’s awesome, and with your wife dressed as Kim K., your couple Kimye costume is worth ending up on the evening news. Its worth writing that apology letter. Its worth the employment consequences that come with Jeezus Level blackface.

White Hood Level

When offending people with blackface is just not enough, trade in the last of your human dignity for this halloween costume. Mocking the death of unarmed teens is sure to make you the talk of the town. So what if your costume is overtly racist, you have the right to act like a walking sack of shit by trading on death and injustice for a few seconds of negative attention. And if you lose you job and your friends because you just couldn’t resist, at least you know that white hate groups are still recruiting.

Remember, dressing up in blackface is always offensive, so definitely be prepared for all the comments you’ll get! Be sure to take plenty of pictures, and post them widely on social media–the internet loves to make blackface pictures go viral, ensuring your moment of racism lives forever. Level up by tagging your boss, your mother and favorite local community organization so they can tell you how proud they are of your ignorant racism, or cut you a final check before they ask you to leave. Whatever your blackface level, get your makeup on and get out there.

Black (Celebrity) Lives Matter (more)

Weeks of protests across the country have been missing lots of your favorite black pop stars, including one formally pink-haired princess. Nikki Minaj has been silent on the issue of police misconduct and brutality. Turns out, even though she has assured us that she is both a monster and a boss bitch, that she is worried about taking a hit in the pocket if she stands up for black lives. Not so tough now…

In a recent interview in Rolling Stone Minaj said that she feels like she can’t speak out about racism in society without her career taking a hit:

“I feel like when Public Enemy were doing ‘Fight the Power,’ we as a culture had more power — now it feels hopeless,” Minaj says. “People say, ‘Why aren’t black celebrities speaking out more?’ But look what happened to Kanye when he spoke out. People told him to apologize to Bush!”

Minaj must not have notices tens of thousands of people around the country participating in die-ins: laying on cold streets, in traffic, on highways, and across the sticky floors of malls. These people– many young people squarely in Minaj’s demographic–have been unafraid to speak out and to literally lay down to stop the world and make people hear their chants of black lives matter.

Some of these people left work or class to participate in protests risking all kinds of consequences. But most of the protesters are not famous, and few are likely to have a corporate record deal, so admittedly, most of us have a lot less to lose than our favorite rapper.

Then again, look at Macklemore who has made a career in rap speaking out. From celebrating thrift store swag to same sex rights, Macklemore has made millions, topping charts and hearts with his uber-unity rap. Even Eminem, the bad boy of rap, has spoken on on a variety of social issues like suicide and poverty. Em didn’t get black balled, he got put in car commercials .

What could possibly be different between Kanye and Nikki and Macklemore and Eminem? Black artists don’t get the same pass, don’t get to play the same parts that their white counterparts play, even in the land that blacks created–hip hop. Black artists can easily be labeled as radioactive for the same stances that we swoon to see white stars in. Bill Gates can dump money wherever he wants, but when Dr. Dre gave a massive donation to USC he was criticized for not giving black enough. Critics questioned Wyclef’s work in the wake of the Haiti earthquake. And of course, there’s Kanye.

Of all the spheres for black celebrities to orbit, hip hop was supposed to be the genre where black lives–and voices–really did matter. Truth is, there is lots of great hip hop talking about these issues, but to Minaj’s point, that is the game of mainstream media. Market forces determine the lowest common denominator for pop stars to aim at, hoping to please the bland palate of the masses while ignoring the issues of the smaller classes in the audience. the risk is real, but is that an excuse?

Despite having offered an apology to George Bush, Kanye persists. Despite the potential backlash, dozens of sports stars have made their voices heard. Despite the cold, Black Lives Matter Protests persist. So what’s up, pop princess? In the face of racism we each have to chose how we will respond. When we choose to sit on the sidelines and not risk what we have despite our best intentions, racism persists.

Minaj bemoans the hoplessness of these times–I feel her.

“[Kanye]was the unofficial spokesman for hip-hop, and he got torn apart,” she says. “And now you haven’t heard him speaking about these last couple things, and it’s sad. Because how many times can you be made to feel horrible for caring about your people before you say, ‘Fuck it, it’s not worth it, let me live my life because I’m rich, and why should I give a fuck?'”

We create these stars when we buy their shit, but they cannot be bothered to say in public that your life matters. Go ahead, Nikki and live your life, because fuck it, it’s true–you’re rich and why should you give a fuck. Selling out pays well. But if you ever want to see what a real star looks like, look at the bodies dotting the pavement. They’ll be out there, holding you down.

When Your Choices Are Someone Else’s

Recently I had the pleasure of taking a helicopter ride over Boston. Apart from being super fun, the trip, riding high above my usual haunts, gave me a different perspective on the world I live in every day. In my normal existence, I do things you might do: I go to work, I get the items I need to eat and live, and I make an effort to get off the beaten path and enjoy nature.

What I saw from the air was that every livable space was designed, pre-planned. Every place where I could take a step had been planned and designed for the movement of humans and human activity. There was no “free” space, no place that I could go that someone else–a thousand some one else’s–hadn’t already gone. I experienced my day to day world as a place where I decided where I would go, but in fact, my space, like my activities are programmed and structured by any number of systems and institutions around me. What I experience as freedom is really just a very large maze designed to engage me in pro-social choices, like going to work, buying consumer goods, and contributing to the tax base.

It was with this fresh in my mind that I read an article about black women’s bodies by the fab Gail Dines. The article is a solid review of the “issue” of the black booty, placing hypersexual images of black women’s backsides in a historical context. But Gail reports that the push back to her article comes from third wave feminists– women who care deeply about women’s rights and who believe it is a woman’s choice to use her body freely in any way she chooses, including using it in hypersexual displays, pornography, commodification, etc. Women do have the right to express themselves as they see fit. But critical thinking requires that we examine the result of that expression–especially when done in public for money.

Can’t you just break out it of the chains of narrative and do what you like? Of course you can. You can do anything that you want. But while you are yelling, “Yolo!” and waving your shirt over your head–why not? you have the right to!–consider that if you do it in public–say, on camera–and you do it for money you have gone from just expressing your self to being a part of the massive chain of production that is media. And you don’t get to decide alone how people who see your tape will make sense of it. Mass media uses all kinds of visual and verbal codes to tell stories, frequently shuffling out old ideas from history dressed in new duds. Just like those paths I saw from the sky, we should understand that media messages travel along lines planned out before we were even here, referencing–and reinforcing– history, symbolic codes and dominant ideology.

When it comes to Nicki Minaj, or any other recording artist for that matter, we have to remember that “she” is not simply the human born as Onkia Maraj , she is the commodified, processed version of herself, created by a multi-pronged corporate team and packaged for mass consumption in order to make a profit. Sure Onika is some part of that construction, but she and hundreds of other pop stars are part of a very large system, one designed for the primary purpose to make cash.

The surest way for the pop industry to make money is to stick to the low-hanging fruit–sex, scandal, salaciousness. We are cheeky monkeys after all. When we see Nicki posing butt out, its not because her label said, “We want you to explore the deeper aspects of your sexuality in a way that gives voice to your womanhood.” They said, “Sex sells.”

Her displays are calculated business maneuvers designed not by Minaj alone but by a team, one which she herself has said is mostly male. In fact, when the initial cover for her latest single Anaconda was released many were shocked, and Minaj tweeted out that the cover art would be changed. Hmmm, just like when Kanye West leaked his Monster video–where Minaj guest-spit–only to add a disclaimer to it after everyone was shocked by the content. Artistic freedom? Nope, just a clever marketing strategy to drive eyeballs pre-release.

No doubt Nicki is an interesting artist and we can’t dismiss all of what she makes as sheer profiteering–but that Roman phase, tho, dismiss dismiss! She is not always bubble gum barbie, and love her or hate her she is engaging to watch and super creative. Beyond the mass marketed hits we occasionally glimpse other dimensions to the character Nicki Minaj, some unexpected, like this sweet video off her upcoming album The Pink Print with The Game.

Most of what we see from Minaj, though is hip-pop designed to reach a massive audience for maximum profit complete with wild outfits and an over the top persona. What makes her popular is her mashed up expression of contemporary cultural tropes–sex, barbie and bubble gum raps

Think of this horrible idea for comedy: Russell Simmons produced this sketch where Harriet Tubman agrees to sleep with master in trade for cash. Hey, it was just an humorous expression playing with the narrative of slavery and redefining it, right? Nah. The skit was roundly condemned, and even Hustle had to apologize.

Propagating idea that slaves had agency in their own oppression via mass media is tricky to say the least: even if you have the artistic right to play on old tropes, to do so for mass entertainment in a era still so rife with racism, keeping the old narrative alive in new clothes, is calculated profiteering at best and racist at worst.

Leaving slavery days behind, we can look at our own ~~post racial~~ still racist world. Black women are free, have the vote, and are the fastest growing demo in college. Sounds pretty free right? The legacy of racial oppression in this country persists, despite the good news. Nickki Minaj is popular in part because she represents typical media representation of black women–hyper sexual, wild and unpredictable.

Few casual fans will even dig deep enough to find a more complex expressions of Nicki Minaj, leaving us simply with her most visible incarnation-a new era Jezebel. Even as she talks about her new natural look, she reveals the calculated way that she thinks about her image, and that her previous incarnations are not a reflection of her playing with power, but masking insecurities.

We black women are treading paths that have been set up in this country for centuries. Even as we choose new destinations, and walk with more power in our stride, we still live in a country rife with racial inequity. While many of us as individuals may have freed ourselves from slave mind, we live in a country where the image of blacks has been deeply carved in a fresco of oppression from slavery, through Jim Crow to our own modern, sublimated Jim Crow 2.0. We’re individuals and we live in a culture and are a part of democratic and capitalist systems at the same time. We can’t ignore the ways those levels constantly interact. While the power of the individual has primacy in our culture, taking the macro view to better understand the paths that we’re treading will allow us to move off the paths of the past and blaze a truly new future.