Kayne West, fashion designer and hiphop mover, recently interrupted his San Jose, California show to tell his audience that Trump is a Genius.
Amid boos from his fans, Kanye spent about 20 minutes discussing the election and current events. Kanye said he supports Trump’s non-political history and his communication style. He also suggested people need to focus less on racism.
If you read the headlines and Twitter reactions, you’d think Kanye had joined the KKK. People think that Kanye no longer believes racism is a problem. Their cognitive dissonance is showing:
Kanye 10 years ago: GEORGE BUSH IS RACIST! #Kanye 2 years ago: THE FASHION INDUSTRY IS RACIST! #Kanye now: STOP TALKING ABOUT RACISM!
— Illest (@trillest_snake) November 18, 2016
Of course, the headline is never the true story. It’s an emotional hook — you click because you can’t believe that’s really what happened. And it’s not.
Kanye told his audience that our nation, our system, has built-in racism. It’s not gone away. It’s systematic. None of the presidential candidates could have changed that with their election.
Instead, Kanye is looking past the sale and suggests that we need to work together to move past racism. He’s suggesting we need to change the script we’re telling ourselves. We need to stop focusing on the negative. No one is perfect but together we can build something better than what we have — he’s appealing to our better selves.
And West’s “Trump is a genius” comment? Trump is incredibly persuasive. He knows the tools and tricks that we’re learning here. Trump spent one-half the cash of Clinton‘s team to win the presidency. Rather than focus on facts and figures, Trump listened to people (pacing) and used their own words to shape his candidacy (leading). A non-politician used his persuasion skills to win. Seems pretty smart to me, and now Kanye knows that it’s possible.