Kanye West talks the talk in the Oval Office

Larry Horist

8 years ago

&&num;8220&semi;&NewLine;To use the vernacular of the inner cities, Kanye West talked some real sh&ast;t during his Oval Office meeting with President Trump&period;&nbsp&semi; He was joined by an icon of the Black community, football legend and actor Jim Brown&period;&nbsp&semi; But it was West&rsquo&semi;s show from start to finish&period;&NewLine;The meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office was a press availability prior to a private luncheon&period;&nbsp&semi; Scores of reporters, photographers and videographers gathered in a four-person deep arch around the presidential desk&period;&nbsp&semi; That alone was yet another example of Trump&rsquo&semi;s giving the press accessibility to meetings and discussions unlike any President since television was invented&period;&NewLine;West&rsquo&semi;s celebrity &ndash&semi; and his historic willingness to buck Black orthodoxy &ndash&semi; resulted in the session that was broadcast live on both CNN and MSNBC&period;&nbsp&semi; There sat West directly across the desk from the President of the United States &ndash&semi; a President all those more interviewed Black Democrats despise&period;&nbsp&semi; West was wearing the iconic &ldquo&semi;Make America Great Again&rdquo&semi; red baseball cap&period;&NewLine;Sensing a dramatic moment, I grabbed for the pen and the &nbsp&semi;notepad&period;&NewLine;Trump opened with rather perfunctory remarks, expressing is long and close friendship with the civil rights leaders &ndash&semi; and yes, I do consider West and Brown to be working to advance civil rights&period;&nbsp&semi; At one point, Trump asked West how he liked being in the Oval Office&period;&nbsp&semi; No surprises&period;&nbsp&semi; West loved being there&period;&NewLine;But &hellip&semi;&nbsp&semi; But &hellip&semi; At one point West took off like a skyrocket on Independence Day&period;&nbsp&semi; He did what rappers do best&period;&nbsp&semi; He rapped&period;&nbsp&semi; West said his MAGA cap made him feel like a superman &ndash&semi; his favorite superhero&period;&NewLine;West saw no reason that Blacks should feel obligated to vote for Democrats&period;&nbsp&semi; He made a pretty good case that the Blacks &&num;8212&semi; trapped and impoverished in those Democrat -controlled segregated inner cities &&num;8212&semi; have not gotten a lot of good results from their loyalty to the Democratic Party&period;&nbsp&semi; He did not plead for more welfare &ndash&semi; like all Black Democrats do &ndash&semi; but for jobs by creating industry in those high-unemployment Black communities&period;&nbsp&semi; He railed against the break up of the Black families that have left millions of kids without a father-figure, male role models&period;&nbsp&semi; Apparently, West has not bought into the &ldquo&semi;toxic male gene&rdquo&semi; theory of the radical feminists&period;&NewLine;West opened with praise of Trump for his initiative with North Korea&period;&nbsp&semi; &ldquo&semi;On day one you solved one of the biggest troubles&period;&rdquo&semi;&nbsp&semi; Okay, &ldquo&semi;solved&rdquo&semi; is a bit generous, but he made a good point&period;&NewLine;West took up the cause of the Second Amendment by saying, &&num;8220&semi;&&num;8221&semi;Illegal guns is the problem, not legal guns&period;&nbsp&semi; We have the right to bear arms&period;&&num;8221&semi;&&num;8221&semi;&NewLine;When West appeared on Saturday Night Live wearing a MAGA cap, he said the staff tried to scare him into not wearing it&period;&nbsp&semi; He went on to criticize the show for its portrayal of Trump&period;&NewLine;After his appearance on SNL, a lot of the folks associated with the show were upset by West&rsquo&semi;s pro-Trump &ldquo&semi;rant&rdquo&semi; at the conclusion of that episode&period;&nbsp&semi; (Hmmmm&period;&nbsp&semi; I am trying to think of a time that the Hollywood set got upset over those ubiquitous anti-Trump rants at every awards program)&period;&NewLine;West took particular sharp aim at his hometown of Chicago &ndash&semi; referring to it by Hollywood producer Spike Lee&rsquo&semi;s movie title &ldquo&semi;Chi-Raq&period;&rdquo&semi;&nbsp&semi; While West did not oppose the kneeling during the National Anthem, he suggested that counter demonstrations by players would be appropriate&period;&NewLine;West brought up his one-time diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder&period;&nbsp&semi; It was a misdiagnosis due to sleep deprivation, he said&period;&nbsp&semi; That did not sink in with the Trump-hating press as you will read below&period;&NewLine;As I saw the event unfolding, I imagined a lot of out-takes appearing in Republican political advertisements&period;&nbsp&semi; Here was a very famous and therefore powerful figure pushing back on all the false political stereotypes that are currently the mainstays of the so-called dialogue on race&period;&NewLine;When Trump jokingly said he did not mean to put West &ldquo&semi;on the spot,&rdquo&semi; West responded that he was happy to be on the spot&period;&nbsp&semi; And to prove it, West got up, walked around the desk and gave Trump a &ldquo&semi;yuge&rdquo&semi; hug &ndash&semi; setting off a cacophony of shutter clicks&period;&NewLine;Trump then called an end to the Oval Office gathering, noting that he and his guests would be heading into that private luncheon&period;&NewLine;Then came the CNN and MSNBC analyses&period;&nbsp&semi; As expected, they did not share my view of the event&period;&nbsp&semi; Recognizing &ndash&semi; as they always do &ndash&semi; that only a very small fraction of Americans will have actually seen the meeting, they took advantage to spin their biased interpretations that will be played over-and-over for the next 48 hours in the most condemnatory manner possible&period;&NewLine;CNN brought in American Urban Radio Networks&rsquo&semi;s April Ryan in for their analysis&period;&nbsp&semi; If you follow her reporting, you could have scripted her response&period;&nbsp&semi; She said what we saw was Kanye West &ldquo&semi;in the raw&rdquo&semi; &ndash&semi; whatever that meant&period;&nbsp&semi; She claimed that, contrary to West&rsquo&semi;s comments, Blacks are moving away from Trump&period;&NewLine;Ryan&rsquo&semi;s throw-away line also runs contrary to both anecdotal and statistical data&period;&nbsp&semi; I recall an interview with a young Black man protesting against Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, saying that people &ldquo&semi;should not assume that the Black communities are &lsquo&semi;No Trump Zones&period;&rsquo&semi;&rdquo&semi;&nbsp&semi; Trumps vote in the Black community was a tad higher than Romney&period;&nbsp&semi; &NewLine;Despite West&rsquo&semi;s denial of ever having Bipolar Disorder, Ryan shamelessly alluded to West&rsquo&semi;s mental condition as an explanation for his behavior&period;&nbsp&semi; She missed no point that could be spun to the negative &&num;8212&semi; even criticizing his attire and some of his bleeped language as being disrespectful in the setting of the Oval Office&period; (Allow me to digress&period;&nbsp&semi; If you follow the behavior of the press corps in the Oval Office, you would see what disrespect really looks like)&period;&NewLine;One of CNN&rsquo&semi;s premier propagandists, Gloria Borger did not spin her interpretations&period;&nbsp&semi; She invented them&period;&nbsp&semi; She said that she was &ldquo&semi;stunned&rdquo&semi; by West&rsquo&semi;s performance and that Trump was obviously &ldquo&semi;uncomfortable&rdquo&semi; with what was described as West&rsquo&semi;s monologue&period;&nbsp&semi; Borger assured the audience that Trump &ldquo&semi;did not expect this performance&period;&rdquo&semi;&nbsp&semi; The President may not have expected it, but he seemed to be enjoying it so much that one might suspect it was scripted&period;&nbsp&semi; The fact that Trump never interrupted is strong evidence that he was loving it&period;&nbsp&semi; Borger had to dig deep in the bag of bias to come up with her interpretation&period;&NewLine;Flipping over to MSNBC which featured the Velshi &amp&semi; Ruhle program&period;&nbsp&semi; Ali Velshi seemed seriously stunned &&num;8212&semi; dumbfounded&period;&nbsp&semi; The normally rapid-mouthed commentator spent most of the time in dazed silence as Stephanie Ruhle took on the moderating job&period;&NewLine;Ruhle could not resist bringing up a pet false narrative to declare that West&rsquo&semi;s bringing up Chicago was Trump&rsquo&semi;s way of getting back at President Obama through his hometown&period;&nbsp&semi; Wait a moment, while I ponder that&period;&nbsp&semi; Wasn&rsquo&semi;t it West who was talking in detail about HIS hometown of Chicago&quest;&nbsp&semi; Oh well&period;&nbsp&semi; Spin is just spin&period;&NewLine;Their insider outside contributor was Almiche Alcindor of the Public Broadcasting System&period;&nbsp&semi; She did not hold back&period;&nbsp&semi; She accused West of engaging in negative stereotypes of the black community&period;&nbsp&semi; I thought that was the currency of people like David Duke&period;&nbsp&semi; And what precisely were those &ldquo&semi;negative Stereotypes&quest;&rdquo&semi;&nbsp&semi; Fatherless families&quest;&nbsp&semi; High crime rates&quest;&nbsp&semi; Welfare dependency&quest; Poor quality education&quest;&nbsp&semi; No jobs&quest;&nbsp&semi; These have all been established by endless studies resulting in real statistics&period;&NewLine;Assuming much too much, Alcindor reported that people &ndash&semi; like all of us &&num;8212&semi; are &ldquo&semi;appalled&rdquo&semi; by West&rsquo&semi;s behavior&period; In her own version of &ldquo&semi;dog whistling&rdquo&semi; &ndash&semi; a term I actually hate &ndash&semi; Alcindor several times described West&rsquo&semi;s behavior as &ldquo&semi;bizarre&rdquo&semi; in what seemed to me to be an allusion to his disputed Bipolar Disorder&period; There goes that old left-wing narrative again &&num;8212&semi; that if you disagree with them, you have a mental problem&NewLine;Like April Ryan on CNN, Alcindor also claimed that West will not help Trump with Black voters&period;&nbsp&semi; It seemed more like wishful thinking than serious analysis&period;&nbsp&semi; She even presumed to claim that it would not even help with conservative Black Republicans&period;&nbsp&semi; To that, I say au contraire&period;&NewLine;Ruhle criticized the absence of any discussion about criminal justice and prison reform&period;&nbsp&semi; She might have a point if the meeting had ended with the press availability in the Oval Office, but there was that private luncheon in which anything could be discussed&period; &nbsp&semi;It was all on the agenda&period;&NewLine;As they came to the end of the segment &ndash&semi; deciding that the devastation in Mexico Beach, Florida might be a bit newsworthy &ndash&semi; Velshi was able to at least suggest that it all needed more analysis &ndash&semi; obviously more than he could muster up in the moment&period;&nbsp&semi; He left off saying that it was all &ldquo&semi;weird&period;&rdquo&semi;&nbsp&semi; I suppose in the world of Velshi &amp&semi; Ruhle, seeing a black celebrity seeming to favor Republicans over Democrats and actually praising Trump is &ndash&semi; well &&num;8212&semi; weird&period;&nbsp&semi; I can only say to them, it may not be as weird as you think to the folks in fly-over America&period;&NewLine;Perhaps I should close as Trump and West closed&period;&nbsp&semi; The President said &&num;8220&semi;&&num;8221&semi;I tell you what, that was pretty impressive&period;&nbsp&semi; That was quite something&period;&&num;8221&semi;&&num;8221&semi;&nbsp&semi; &&num;8220&semi;&&num;8221&semi;It was from the soul&period; I just channeled it,&&num;8221&semi;&&num;8221&semi; West responded&period;&NewLine;&&num;8221&semi;&NewLine;