Coonsville: The Curious Case of Kanye West

First it was Lil Wayne; now it is Kanye West. It’s true. Ignorance knows no color and stupidity sidesteps fame.

Hence, when a black has low self-esteem, soiled self-respect and little black pride, he will say anything and do anything. If a crow tells him to crow, he will crow. If while biking along a mountain path, he sees bear vomit on the trail or fox feces near a tree, he will ride his bike right through it.

Kanye West provides a good example of such fame.

The Kanye West Meltdown
West had a serious mental breakdown during the California part of his Saint Pablo concert tour in November 2016. He walked off the stage three songs into his Nov. 19 concert in Sacramento and canceled his Nov. 20 concert at the Los Angeles Forum three hours before show time.

At the Nov. 19 show, West ranted about a few longtime friends and acquaintances, including Jay Z, Beyoncé and Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg.

“I’ve been sent here to give y’all my truth, even at the risk of my own life,” he said. “At the risk of my own success, I’ll give y’all the truth. Jay Z, call me, you still ain’t called me. … Jay Z, I know you got killers. Please don’t send them at my head. Just call me. Talk to me like a man.”

In San Jose during a concert the week before that incident, West raged about racism and the Black Lives Matter movement. He mentioned that he did not vote during the presidential election; and that if he had, he would have voted for the racist and sex pervert Donald Trump. And he said that he might run for president himself in 2020, a threat he has made before.

As a result of his plunge into that psychological and artistic pond of mud, West was taken to a hospital as a precaution. But West’s family and doctors have had a tough time trying to explain the cause of his erratic behavior. His doctors have said he suffers from psychosis and paranoia and that he had not properly taken his medication during the tour. And a 911 call regarding West’s psychological condition was released as proof of his sad state of mind.

The Coon/House Nigger Question
Celebrities, acquaintances and some fans have wished West well and a speedy recovery. However, we wonder whether there are issues we cannot see, issues floating just beneath the surface of the obvious. We wonder …

Are West’s family, doctors and friends using his supposed mental illness as an excuse to cover up for his being a coon and a house nigger? Did West’s psychosis and paranoia turn him into a coon, or did the coon in him take him by the hand and, like a guide dog for the blind, guide him down dark, damp, winding stairs to the cellar of psychosis and paranoia?

If the psychosis and paranoia caused him to become a house nigger, then we urge appropriate treatment for his mental illness and empathize with his struggles. But if the house nigger in him caused his psychosis and paranoia, what he got he deserves, just as a flea deserves what it gets when it sucks blood from a pit bull wearing a flea collar.

Yet, we speculate about the cause of West’s mental instability cautiously, because to call a black man a coon or a house nigger can lead to horrible social consequences. It is a rap every black DJ hesitates to play on radio. It is a twine that twists around the notion of humiliation. It twines around the demeaning idea of treachery, until they form a single, morbid yarn.

But given rapper Lil Wayne's cooning about racism, the Black Lives Matter movement and not voting during his ABC “Nightline” interview on November 2, 2016, we too must ask hot, scorching questions.

Are we justified, then, in speculating that West may be a coon and a house nigger? Or, to be more precise, as alluded to previously, can we attribute West’s meltdown to his being a diehard coon and house nigger, as resolute as time, as consistent as the rise and fall of interest rates?

Constructive Criticism Is the Sweet Punishment
We can’t answer that question clearly. But we can say that West’s fans did not deserve to be subjected to his rants, to his tirades, to a tongue as coarse to the ears as dreadful graffiti to the eyes.

What's the lesson here? If you insult yourself, you can be scolded. If you embarrass your admirers, you should be mocked.

We should not, then, make excuses for speech stained with stupidity, as seems to be the case of those who present psychosis and paranoia as primary reasons for West’s rants and raves, so as to ensure, we assume, he remains marketable as a musician and able to bring in tons and tons of money regardless of his cold, torn demeanor.

And even if they are acceptable excuses, that does not relieve West of guilt or us of the right to be angry and bitter. Just because celebrities and friends empathize with a star does not mean fans should relinquish their obligation to, if necessary and compassionately, denounce him. Even Confucius, even the Quran have praised the wisdom of compassionate denunciation—that is, scolding tinted with constructive criticism.

Constructive criticism is waitress to a wise customer. She is a smiling, kind, courteous waitress, a waitress whose ears bloom in the springtime of the discerning diner’s wise counsel, advice and insights. We should all strive to be both waitress and customer to those we admire. Thus, we cannot simply excuse West’s rants and stupidity as psychosis and paranoia.

Consequently, we should proudly criticize West for his comments during his California tour. We should chastise him for not voting. We should condemn him for saying that if he had voted, he would have voted for the clown and pathological liar Donald Trump. And we should mock him for saying he might run for president of the United States in 2020.

West shot bullets from his mouth, and they turned on him and wounded him. We should, therefore, hold him accountable for his actions, just as we hold a grizzly bear accountable for peeing on the sofa. And that may mean that, in addition to those condemning actions above, we should refrain from buying, downloading and streaming his music.

The Final Insult
Expect nothing and you get nothing. If you expect nothing but excuses from West and his entourage of flatterers regarding his contemptible actions, shame will throw at you all the bricks, tire irons and hubcaps he can muster.

And now that West has flown to New York City and pow-wowed with (on December 13) the fuhrer-elect of the United States at the Trump Tower, perhaps we should ask the 120 or more black men, women and children hanged, burned, clubbed, stoned, stomped and drowned by a screaming, laughing, spitting mob of white racist workers and immigrants during the 1863 New York City Draft Riots, riots organized by Trump’s white, racist and wealthy draft-dodging predecessors …

Perhaps we should ask those poor, miserable, unfortunate black souls whether Kanye West is a coon and a house nigger.