Ever since Kanye West joined Twitter in July, many had been awaiting his inevitable rant about the infamous Taylor Swift incident. That moment finally arrived Saturday morning.
Like any breaking news moment, many were glued to their Twitter feeds, taking in West’s every tweet — more than 80 of them in about two hours. Coming just a day and a week before West, who has an album dropping soon, is scheduled to once again hit the VMA stage a year after the Swift incident, the tweet explosion couldn’t help but captivate.
As with most of West’s actions, who can truly pinpoint his rhyme and reason? Perhaps Saturday being Beyonce’s birthday got him thinking about the incident. At any rate, he started out innocently enough, tweeting about his latest song “Devil in a New Dress” in the wee hours of the morning as well as retweeting various accolades. Somehow, as the sun beamed in, West’s thoughts changed.
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After tweeting “Take in a movie. Have a nice lunch. Smile. Take your kids to the park. Walk your dogs. #LIFEISTHEEVENT …I’ll provide the soundtrack : ),” he followed up with “Man I love Twitter… I’ve always been at the mercy of the press but no more… The media tried to demonize me” and “They wanted yall to believe I was a monster in real life so you guys wouldn’t listen or buy my music anymore[.]”
That’s when he took the kid gloves off and really began his barrage. In between the tweets “Even now a lot of articles start there [sic] first 2 paragraphs about how much of an a**hole I am” and “I accept the idea (ideal) that perception is reality,” he tweets “Happy B day to sister B … I gotta dope a** gift for you” before delivering his real jaw-dropping tweets.
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Interestingly, Kanye West addressed his controversial statement “George Bush doesn’t care about black people,” which he made five years ago during his appearance on a Hurricane Katrina special broadcast live on NBC. “Even though the NBC telethon was widely praised yall didn’t think they was just gone let me get away with that did yall???!!!” he tweeted.
“With the help of strong will, a lack of impathy, [sic] a lil alcohol and extremely distasteful & bad timing … I became George Bush over night,” he continued. Adding, “How deep is the scar… I bled hard.. cancelled tour with the number one pop star in the world … closed the doors of my clothing office” and “Had to let employees go… for the first time I felt the impact of my brash actions … I felt the recession from an ownership side.”
Comparing his story to the Wicked Witch of the West from the play Wicked, West admitted, “Yes I was that guy. A 32 year old child.” He also stated that “When I woke up from the crazy nightmare I looked in the mirror and said GROW UP KANYE … I take the responsibility for my actions [.]”
As heartfelt as some of West’s tweets are, it is clear that he is very much a work in progress. Although he believes that “the media [sic] have successfully painted the image of the “ANGRY BLACK MAN’ The King Kong theory,” is that 100 percent accurate? At this point, is West perceived as an “ANGRY BLACK MAN” or simply a misguided one? Being self-absorbed differs greatly from being angry. Some in the black community have argued that West embodies all of the characteristics of the “baby boy syndrome” John Singleton attempted to examine with Tyrese Gibson’s character of Jody in his 2001 film Baby Boy.
Inspired by Dr. Francis Cress Welsing’s iconic The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors, a series of essays about white supremacy published in 1991, Singleton wanted to explore how white supremacy affected the development of black men. Baby Boy even opens with Dr. Welsing’s theory. Jody is a grown man, with kids, living with his mama who refuses to take responsibility for his own actions.
While West’s level of irresponsibility is not quite that dramatic, his perpetual victim status is. Even as he takes responsibility for his actions against Swift during his Twitter rant, he felt compelled to place blame on the media.
Let’s face it, even if Eminem or Madonna had done what West did, the media would have been all over it. White, black or otherwise, there is absolutely no justification for his action against Taylor Swift. Winning any award is a big moment for almost everyone and he destroyed it because he did not agree that she deserved the award over Beyonce. Imagine sitting at a graduation and someone comes on stage and interrupts the valedictorian to declare he or she undeserving, appall would be the only natural response.
It’s great that, once again, West has issued an apology to Swift. In fact, he ends his Twitter rant with “I’m sorry Taylor.”
But he still doesn’t completely get it. For many black men in the black community, being highly favored by mama has gone beyond being a “mama’s boy.” Where is the balance? As tremendously gifted as Kanye West is, he has long exhibited the signs of “overmothering.” It’s not okay to do anything that you feel and believe that it’s okay because you were being spontaneous and didn’t intentionally mean any harm.
Just say you crossed the line, mean it, and continue to work as hard at becoming the best person you can be — as much as you work to become the best music artist the world has ever seen, Kanye West. Then such Twitter rants, as entertaining as they are, will really be a thing of your past.