Track: In a spark of Kanye West’s recent controversy I wanted to get some thoughts on the things he’s doing and thoughts on his White lives matter movement and I was able to ask a Baruch student, Saad his thoughts on the matter.
Act: Saad: The nuance that people don’t get about the shirt needs to be talked about is yes, that’s a problematic statement to make because it’s not predominantly white people getting violently killed by police it’s a predominately black issue. So, in of itself its problematic, the nuisance is, if you saw Kanye’s interview with Tucker Carlson he made a point to say it was about all lives but if it was about all lives why did you explicitly wear a shirt that says white lives which he does to be contrarian for the sake of being contrarian which is what Kanye always has been. People getting outraged by what he says is what he wants but that doesn’t excuse how like he has a point to make but he makes it out the wrong way it doesn’t take away that it’s problematic but I think people need to see the nuance he wants to say but I still think he’s going about it the wrong way.
Track: I also asked Saad his thoughts on Kanye’s recent tweet which could have come off as a little anti-Semitic so I asked for his thoughts on the matter.
Act: Saad: There was a tweet that he made which was “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up, I’m going death con 3 on Jewish people the funny thing is I can’t be antiemetic because black people are actually Jew, also you have been toying me and trying to blackball anyone who doesn’t follow your agenda”. There’s a lot to unravel here so the first thing is the death con 3 remark which had people up in arms about it because he mentioned death con which is a security system, but I think it’s a figure of speech like he didn’t mean it that way. And the “I can’t be antisemitic because black people are Jewish” is similar to the I can’t be racist because I’m black it doesn’t hold any weight to it but i will say a lot of people don’t understand the nuisance of Judaism and if you look at the story of Moses that takes place in the Nile River in Egypt, so I think that’s what he’s referencing. So, the third part of the statement where he says you guys could be a bit problematic because he doesn’t specify but it’s so vague so we can’t really tell. But it could be referencing the stereotype that Jewish people own everything and its always so vague so I can see how people see it as problematic. But I think that anyone who knows Kanye knows that he can be controversial just to be controversial but there’s also the flip side of the coin, so people think he’s being stupid to be stupid which I disagree with this because I think he’s pretty smart and knows what he’s doing and there is context to what he’s saying it’s just that its misplaced.
Track: Well, no matter what the intention was for the tweets or wearing the shirt none of us can really say except for himself. And with that, I’m Justin Espinal and I’m signing off.