Black folks kill me. When we support someone, we support HARD. Oftentimes, excusing behavior that shouldn’t be excused. Exhibit A, B, C and D….Kanye West. There’s not even enough room to list all that Kanye’s been in the news for lately….from wearing a White Lives Matter shirt, to spewing antiSemetic language, to losing 99.9 percent of his brand and sponsorship deals (that’s not official, but that’s what it seems like), to his school Donda Academy closing, then reopening, to his attack-apology-attack on George Floyd’s family…Kanye keeps the negative light shining on him.
But it’s his loyal supporters that this message is for. The “Y’all just don’t get Kanye, this is his strategy,” “Kayne is playing Chess while the world plays Checkers,” “Kanye wanted out of his contract from the white man holding him down” – folks who come up with any and every reason to excuse Kanye’s behavior.
Look, let’s call this what is….a brother spiraling out of control, with no one in his corner who has the ability to rein him in. Kanye has been vocal about having Bipolar disorder and everything about his behavior is classic Bipolar symptoms. I’m not a physician, so whether this is actually driven by mental illness or just a brother trying to “get the white man’s knee off his neck” as Kanye said, fans who excuse his behavior are contributing to the problem. And to those of you sending money to Kanye so he can get his billionaire status back, I don’t want to tell you what to do with your money, but really????
Will there be a Black exodus from Twitter?
Twitter is now in the hands of Elon Musk and he’s already causing some Black celebrities to toss in their bird. Black Twitter, a group of influential users whose tweets spotlight issues affecting Black people, is among those who have reason to be concerned about the direction in which Musk could take the app now that the sale is official. Those concerns were immediately validated after Musk fired the app’s top executives and let racists spew the N-word at insane rates (it got so bad Lebron James had to step in). And now he is charging for blue checkmark verification after firing the entire Twitter board and making himself sole director. Musk’s intentions for Twitter remained unclear. Shonda Rimes and Toni Braxton shared that they are stepping away from the platform since it’s now under Musk’s control, but will more Black people follow suit? If the current hate that’s spreading on Twitter is any indication, the answer is a resounding yes.
Calling all young people, have you voted?
Polls show early voting turnout in Harris County has decreased compared to the record-setting midterm election in 2018, and higher percentages of older voters are going to the polls so far this year. So all I want to know is where the young people at? (I know that’s grammatically incorrect but you get my point). We’ve got to get these young people to the polls.
In-person early voting across the county, which includes most of Houston, is down 17.5 percent compared to 2018 through the first seven days of early voting, according to data released by the Harris County Elections Administrator’s Office. That’s a favorable sign for Republicans, according to election officials, and so is the fact that Harris County’s early voters are skewing toward older age groups. Election officials say they have noticed increased turnout among older voters and a decline among younger groups, at least through the early stages of early voting. Usually, when that happens, it has an impact on the election turnout and election outcomes.
I get it, a lot of young people are less-than-enthusiastic about this election, but in the words of former President Barack Obama, tuning out and being cynical is “NOT AN OPTION.”