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Talon Marks

Cerritos College • Norwalk, Calif.

Talon Marks

Cerritos College • Norwalk, Calif.

Talon Marks

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Kanye West’s call to freedom from thought

Kanye+Wests+call+to+freedom+from+thought
Rachel Tully

Over the past few weeks, Kanye West has been tweeting and making public statements which are objectively insane and has been doing so under the guise of being a free thinker.

What does he mean by this? It would be more accurate to say that he isn’t a free thinker at all, if anything his words are indirectly advocating to be free from thought.

Exchanging one political position for another with the primary reason being that skin color makes the idea different.

Rather than discussing the idea itself, what’s being talked about is the skin color of people holding the idea.

This sort of thinking ought to be combated with the philosophy of individualism, and bury the racial collectivist nonsense on both sides of the political isle.

At a TMZ live stream event, Harvey Levin and Charles Latibeaudiere interviewed West.

Upon which, came the poorly said and infamous line from West saying, “when you hear about slavery for 400 years, that sounds like a choice. You we’re there for 400 years and it was all of y’all?”

Now, a whole lot was said during this interview, but it was this quote that made headlines.

Another crucial moment was when West turns to the TMZ employees and said, “Do you feel that I’m being free? Do you feel that I’m thinking free?”

A TMZ employee by the name of Van Lathan stood up and clapped back at West by answering his question saying, “I actually don’t think you’re thinking anything. I think what you’re doing right now is actually the absence of thought and the reason I feel like that is because you entitled to an opinion, you’re entitled to believe whatever you want, but there is fact and real world, real life consequences behind everything that you just said.”

Lathan went on to talk about the distinction of West’s life as a wealthy black man and those who are not wealthy and what they go through.

Though one can discuss class distinction when speaking about black lives in America, let us instead tackle how West thinks or should we say, lack there of.

All this started with a black conservative by the name of Candice Owens and West tweeting how he likes the way that she thinks.

Just to give you an example of how she thinks here’s the pinned tweet on her twitter page.

“Now that I’ve been free, I know what a dreadful condition slavery is. I have seen hundreds of escaped slaves but I never saw one who was willing to go back and be a slave” -Harriet Tubman

“I’ve seen black liberals go conservative, but never seen a black conservative go liberal.”

Owens quotes Harriet Tubman not to combat physical and legislative slavery, but to combat what she believes to be a form of idealogical slavery within the black community.

This is what what West is tackling when he speaks of being a free thinker, or so this is what his defenders are saying.

Political defenders of West say that he’s is a free thinker because his not toeing the line in the way democrats or the political left want him to.

Owens echoed this by calling Jay-Z and Beyonce slaves to the democrats.

If you happen to disagree with conservatives while simultaneously being black, then you’re automatically a slave to the democrats. An absurd notion and a hypocritical one as well.

What happened to being a free thinker? Can’t black people not think on their own? Owens and West are becoming that which they are highly critiquing.

Any form of dissent towards the ideology that is preferred automatically makes you a slave to the other side.

Ladies and gentlemen, this isn’t freedom of thought as Owens and West would have you suppose, this is freedom from thought. Or as Lathan puts it, “the absence of thought.”

This must be fought against in any form that it’s in. Holding a specific opinion while being a person of color should not make one guilty of being an ideological slave to the opposing view.

This is betrayal to the philosophy of individualism that Martin Luther King. Jr spoke of when he said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

West and Owens robbed the idea of individuality that King spoke of and turned it on its head for the worse.

To assume that the black community is enslaved to the democrats embraces the idea that they can’t freely think for themselves and to break the ideological chains of the democrats, is to assert the opposing ideological position, what hypocrisy.

West, you might claim to be a free thinker, but in your own battle you’re exchanging ideological chains for another.

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  • J

    John BasenMay 9, 2018 at 10:31 am

    Dude, no is calling anyone a slave to the other side and your entire piece proved absolutely nothing about those two not being free thinkers. Whether or not their beliefs are correct, they are still free thinkers because they try and see things not as they are presented. If you believe everything your told and hold the exact same political belief as everyone, doesn’t that make you not a free thinker.

    Reply
    • D

      David JenkinsMay 9, 2018 at 11:32 am

      Candace Owens does call other blacks who don’t see things her way as slaves. See here;

      https://twitter.com/realcandaceo/status/982265732384763910?lang=en

      She even calls MSNBC contributor Joy Reid as a “plantation-supervisor”, see here;

      https://twitter.com/RealCandaceO/status/951992222173589504

      She falls into the same trap she’s accusing others of doing. Which may be valid, but defeats the point when she herself themselves does it.

      As for Kanye being a “free thinker” Van Lathan said it best when he told Kanye;
      “I actually don’t think you’re thinking anything. I think what you’re doing right now is actually the absence of thought…”

      There’s no thinking involved, just saying things into the ether without rational thought isn’t free thinking at all. It’s the absence of thinking.

      If you like John, we can have a one on one discussion about this on a podcast. I also wouldn’t mind discussing the ideas that Owens holds and how she leans more to opportunism more than she does anything else.

      Reply
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Kanye West’s call to freedom from thought