Kanye West faced heavy backlash Saturday after he shared praise for Candace Owens, a conservative commentator known for her opposition to the Black Lives Matter movement, among other controversial views. "I love the way Candace Owens thinks," he wrote. It wasn't long before fans and academics alike spoke out against what read like an endorsement of her views from West, including rapper Azealia Banks.
The rapper has now shared a few more tweets which appear to be in response to the backlash over his original tweet about Owens. In them, he brings up the concept of the "Thought Police," who he feels are "suppress[ing] freedom of thought."
"People demonize people and then they demonize anybody who sees anything positive in someone whose been demonized," he continued. "People respect people for following the general trend and consensus... there was a time when slavery was the trend and apparently that time is still upon us. But now it's a mentality. ... self victimization is a disease."
Read his tweets below.
Kanye's initial tweet about Owens has caused further attention to fall on the right-wing pundit and her recent appearance at UCLA where she spoke of a "victim mentality versus victor mentality" in regards to Black Americans and said that those who bring up slavery must "like being oppressed." Azealia Banks has spoken out about her rhetoric. "How could you try and minimize the sufferance of your fellow black Americans and the entirety of our ancestry just to promote even more baseless social ideologies??" she said. "Black people are the ONLY people in the world who are forced by overly articulate “logic” to forget about the past and this is only done to make sure we have no plans for the future aside from adhering to more prescriptions of life from white supremacy."
Read further thoughts from fans who feel Kanye's praise for Owens is irresponsible here.
