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Kanye West suggests African-American slavery was 'a choice'

Dragonfly

Dragonfly

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Kanye West suggests African-American slavery was 'a choice' - BBC News

US rapper Kanye West has said the enslavement of African Americans over centuries may have been a "choice"."When you hear about slavery for 400 years ... for 400 years? That sounds like a choice," he said during an appearance on entertainment site TMZ.
"We're mentally imprisoned," the star added. He recently made headlines for his support for President Trump.
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Maybe, just maybe, people will finally start to recognize that idiots like Kanye (and his entire family, in-laws included) need to be completely ignored and forgotten.

I just can't believe how many friggin people continue to think this moron is relevant to anything.
 
Kanye, while being a despicable person, may be the spark that breaks black peoples loyalty to the democratic party...whose leaders visit their neighborhoods every 2, 4 and 6 years rallying their votes...then disappearing until the next election cycle. The plantation owners like Maxine waters are nervous to the point of telling him to "get his mind right!"
 
Sadly when you have millions in the bank you don't care what you say and its effects on people. It's a different way of getting your fifteen and a half minutes of fame no matter who you'll hurt. Being popular is being controversial to some people. A cheap attention getter for a "short" period of time.
 
itsforthekids said:
Kanye, while being a despicable person, may be the spark that breaks black peoples loyalty to the democratic party...whose leaders visit their neighborhoods every 2, 4 and 6 years rallying their votes...then disappearing until the next election cycle. The plantation owners like Maxine waters are nervous to the point of telling him to "get his mind right!"
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Not with stupid statements like that he won't. I don't agree with the continued victim claim of something that hasn't existed in this country for years, but to deny it did exist and to say it was a choice?? That's just plain stupid.
 
Dragonfly said:
Kanye West suggests African-American slavery was 'a choice' - BBC News

Maybe, just maybe, people will finally start to recognize that idiots like Kanye (and his entire family, in-laws included) need to be completely ignored and forgotten.

I just can't believe how many friggin people continue to think this moron is relevant to anything.
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Brother Kanye preached the truth.

Nobody honestly believes blacks were put on boats by their own free will. That is ridiculous and the lie CNN is spewing that Kanye said.

What Kanye meant is that slavery could have ended a long time ago. The blacks had the numbers but they became mentally enslaved often turning on each other. I often think of the movie Django Unchained and Stephen the butler.

Speak Kanye, speak Kanye.
 
PTF said:
Sadly when you have millions in the bank you don't care what you say and its effects on people. It's a different way of getting your fifteen and a half minutes of fame no matter who you'll hurt. Being popular is being controversial to some people. A cheap attention getter for a "short" period of time.
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You mean like Nancy Pelosi calling $1,000, crumbs?
 
Dragonfly said:
Kanye West suggests African-American slavery was 'a choice' - BBC News



Maybe, just maybe, people will finally start to recognize that idiots like Kanye (and his entire family, in-laws included) need to be completely ignored and forgotten.

I just can't believe how many friggin people continue to think this moron is relevant to anything.
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He's not wrong, you know.

There were blacks though who preferred to remain slaves - there were masters who treated their slaves humanely - because they felt accustomed and had adapted to their situation, that they probably saw freedom as a big unknown. That might be what he meant as "mentally imprisoned."

Why did blacks stay on in the south?


All of these people, and their descendants, continued to live in slave-holding Virginia, even during the Civil War. (Their part of Virginia would join the Union as the state of West Virginia in the middle of the war, but they had no way of knowing this when they decided to remain there, rather than flee.) Why didn’t my great-great-great-great-grandparents run away to safety in the North, rather than remain in the Potomac Valley region of slave-holding western Virginia, about 30 miles, as a matter of fact, from where I was born? Free Negroes headed north just as soon as they could, right? Didn’t my ancestors’ decision to stay put in the Confederacy run counter to what we all understood about the history of slavery?

I turned to Ira Berlin’s book for answers, and I was astonished to learn that my ancestors’ presence in the South and their decision to stay put during the war were not as uncommon as I had imagined.

Don’t believe it? You can now fact-check the numbers yourself on the U.S. Census Bureau website. Amazing, right? Even if, as Berlin illustrates in a companion table, 100 percent of the African Americans living in the North were free in 1860 (compared to only 6.2 percent in the South), it still is a puzzle to figure out why the majority lived below the Mason-Dixon Line. And here’s the kicker: At no time before the Civil War (at least not after the first U.S. Census was taken in 1790 and future states were added) did free blacks in the North ever outnumber those in the South!
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Why Did Free Blacks Stay in the South? African American History Blog | The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross



So.....it's gotta be a choice for those who stayed.
 
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Dragonfly said:
Kanye West suggests African-American slavery was 'a choice' - BBC News



Maybe, just maybe, people will finally start to recognize that idiots like Kanye (and his entire family, in-laws included) need to be completely ignored and forgotten.

I just can't believe how many friggin people continue to think this moron is relevant to anything.
Click to expand...

Kanye West is a dumbass, but he makes a good point here.

Understanding that people always have a choice in the direction their lives go is empowering.

And, he's not saying that individual slaves chose slavery, he's saying that they didn't stand up and fight soon enough.

And, he's using that as an example of why blacks must now choose not to be associated with the specter of slavery anymore.

This may be the first time I've ever Kanye make a lick of sense, but he's right on this one.
 
Of course the Trumpeteers are backing the Kanye statement.

This is the ultimate example of victim-blaming and it is pathetic. Apparently, Kanye is unaware of the numerous slave revolts throughout history. Slaves did not 'mentally imprison themselves,' slaveowners used psychological warfare to oppress the slave and take away their humanity.
 
HowardBThiname said:
And, he's not saying that individual slaves chose slavery, he's saying that they didn't stand up and fight soon enough.
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What are you talking about? Slave revolts occurred since the colonial days.
 
tosca1 said:
He's not wrong, you know.

There were blacks though who preferred to remain slaves - there were masters who treated their slaves humane
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'Humanely' treating someone who is your slave is an oxymoron.
 
Geoist said:
What are you talking about? Slave revolts occurred since the colonial days.
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And what Kanye doesn’t understand is they ended up bloody and with the slaves that revolted dead and their families punished or killed. Such ignorant comments from Kanye. Easy for him to say that when he’s raked in millions.
 
Geoist said:
'Humanely' treating someone who is your slave is an oxymoron.
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It is not. You prefer to brand them all with the same brush. Slave-trading is definitely wrong. We can beat that to death - but we're talking about people who'd been living in it.

Nevertheless, there were indeed some blacks who were fortunate to have had masters who'd treated them humanely.

Some of those who'd chosen to stay on in the south must've preferred their condition, to what to them is a big change (freedom), and an unknown.
 
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tosca1 said:
It is not. You prefer to brand them all with the same brush. Slave-trading is definitely wrong.
Nevertheless, there were indeed some blacks who were fortunate to have had masters who'd treated them humanely.
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There was nothing 'fortunate' about being a slave. There was just bad-to-worse. To have your freedom stripped is one of the worst indignities.
 
Geoist said:
Perhaps you could express your point instead of just posting a link.
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The point is on that link. You don't even have to click it. Read it. Why did Free Blacks stay in the South?


They're FREE, aren't they? Therefore......whatever the reason behind it, it's a choice!
 
tosca1 said:
The point is on that link. You don't even have to click it. Read it. Why did Free Blacks stay in the South?
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A question isn't a point.
 
tosca1 said:
They're FREE, aren't they? Therefore......whatever the reason behind it, it's a choice!
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Are you implying living in the South is the equivalent of choosing slavery? What on Earth is your point?
 
tosca1 said:
He's not wrong, you know.

There were blacks though who preferred to remain slaves - there were masters who treated their slaves humanely - because they felt accustomed and had adapted to their situation, that they probably saw freedom as a big unknown. That might be what he meant as "mentally imprisoned."

Why did blacks stay on in the south?



Why Did Free Blacks Stay in the South? African American History Blog | The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross



So.....it's gotta be a choice for those who stayed.
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If the choice is running with the good chance of being caught and killed, is a valid choice....I guess so. But for some, it wasn't. Especially if you had kids.
 
Geoist said:
There was nothing 'fortunate' about being a slave. There was just bad-to-worse. To have your freedom stripped is one of the worst indignities.
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There is........ if you have been taken by a kind master!

That's kinda like saying there is nothing "fortunate" about being crippled (even if you have a loving family who can afford to make arrangements that you'd still be fine, even after they're dead!) Compare that to an impoverished cripple who has no one!
Wouldn't you say the first one is fortunate to have someone?

Who wants to be a slave? No one. Same as no one would want to be crippled!
We're talking about a situation that's already there. How you live through it, is the difference.
 
tosca1 said:
It is not. You prefer to brand them all with the same brush. Slave-trading is definitely wrong. We can beat that to death - but we're talking about people who'd been living in it.

Nevertheless, there were indeed some blacks who were fortunate to have had masters who'd treated them humanely.

Some of those who'd chosen to stay on in the south must've preferred their condition, to what to them is a big change (freedom), and an unknown.
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And it was the unknown of whether the freedom would last. That doesn’t make them worse people for fearing that or make it consensual, nor does it make slavery a good thing.
 
Geoist said:
There was nothing 'fortunate' about being a slave. There was just bad-to-worse. To have your freedom stripped is one of the worst indignities.
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That's not what was said. No, it's not fortunate to be a slave. It was fortunate if you were a slave and had a 'master' that treated you as not a slave. Big difference
 
tosca1 said:
There is........ if you have been taken by a kind master!

That's kinda like saying there is nothing "fortunate" about being crippled (even if you have a loving family who can afford to make arrangements that you'd still be fine, even after they're dead!) Compare that to an impoverished cripple who has no one!
Wouldn't you say the first one is fortunate to have someone?

Who wants to be a slave? No one. Same as no one would want to be crippled!
We're talking about a situation that's already there. How you live through it, is the difference.
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You’ve basically just condoned dictators actions. Oh hey they didn’t kill you so it’s fortunate you had a dictator that didn’t kill you.
 
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