Kanye West has a new Defence for his Racist-Misogyny

photo of Kayne West is from here

If someone's mother has passed on, does that excuse their blatant misogyny, distributed for profit? I surely hope not.

But first, anything the AP puts out is in no way designed to challenge either white or male supremacy. Or anything else that might upset the status quo. So let's be clear about that. CRAP-loaded countries like the US are only about perpetuating warfare against poor people and people of color, against women across race and class, and about the dirty little businesses of genocide and ecocide, which are always intimately and atrociously linked. Watching the evening news is an experience of witnessing commercials--between commercial breaks--for racist militarism, corporate capitalism, misogynist and anti-Lesbian heterosexism, and so on.

Second, Kanye West is a sexist, misogynist public figure who is unapologetic in his male privilege and power to oppress and dehumanise women. And in his video Monster, which I've posted about before, he's demonstrating some racist-misogyny too.

I seriously doubt anyone who looks at him the wrong way is implying he's Hitler, but I'm not him and don't know what he's experiencing. And given how white supremacist the US is currently, does he mean to be implying that people are cheering him and encouraging him? Because US foreign and domestic policy is about as racist and genocidal as it gets without publicly declaring a war against specific ethnic groups who are not white. It's racist and genocidal in that the policies-in-practice are committing genocide globally against Asian, Brown, Black, and Indigenous people. Many people in the US do look at images of Hitler adoringly.

Third, Kanye West is a white het male supremacist without the white privileges and power that white het men enjoy and exploit. What really will it take for Mr. West to own up to the fucked up CRAP he's producing, selling, and mass-marketing? Can he really not see the misogyny in his video?

Kayne, please. Be honest with yourself and with us. And stop the misogyny-as-entertainment for the masses.

All that follows is from *here*. Or click on the title just below.

Kanye West Says People Look At Him 'like Hitler'

Posted Mon Aug 8, 2011 8:57am PDT by Associated Press in Stop The Presses!

 

The 34-year-old rapper known for his outbursts was the headline act at the Big Chill music festival Saturday night, where he ranted in the middle of his set about being misunderstood and underappreciated. "I walk through the hotel and I walk down the street, and people look at me like I'm (expletive) insane, like I'm Hitler," he said. "One day the light will shine through and one day people will understand everything I ever did."

West received light boos from the crowd as a result.

The performer also defended the music video for his song "Monster," which features cannibalism and girls hanging from their necks.

"Who saw the video before it got banned, before they took it down and before women's groups starting saying that a person that lost the most important woman in his life is now against women in some way?" asked West, referring to the 2007 death of his mother Donda West.

West, who started his set roughly 30-minutes late, apologized to the crowd for his tardiness, saying he needed to make sure his performance was great.

"Michael Jordan changed so much in basketball, he took his power to make a difference. It's so much (expletive) going on in music right now and somebody has to make a (expletive) difference," he said.

The multiplatinum-seller is known for his outspokenness, most notably his diss toward Taylor Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, where he grabbed the microphone from her as she accepted the award for best female video and said Beyonce should have won it. In 2005 he said "George Bush doesn't care about black people" during a Hurricane Katrina telethon.

At the music festival, West talked about some of his awards show drama, saying some of his sponsorships were canceled as a result.

But West closed his show on a positive note by paying tribute to Amy Winehouse.

West, who said he met the late singer a few years ago during Paris fashion week, played snippets of Winehouse's "Tears Dry On Their Own" and "Back to Black." He said it was "beautiful" to meet the performer and that she was "amazing."

Then, in Kanye fashion, he began to rant.

"Thank you for protecting your artists that are still here," he said to the crowd. "This is for McQueen, for Amy, for Michael and for all the media, can you lighten up on all your artists that are still here?" he asked, receiving a roaring cheer from the crowd and leaving the stage with his 3-man band and 20-something backup dancers.

Photo credit: AP