Should We Cancel Kanye? (PTM 207)

I have a few comments on this podcast, and this may get lengthy, but I feel it’s pretty important. First, I really appreciate that the Witness (Jemar and Tyler) finally took the time to address a pretty pivotal event that occurred almost a month ago now. And I’ll explain why its so pivotal.
However, I’m pretty disappointed in Jemar’s rationale against Kanye here as there are strong tells for cognitive dissonance including the lack of full context, which practically strawmans Kanye’s concept of “free thinking” and what he’s been driving at.

The podcast’s context began with the TMZ quote, but that’s not what drew all the attention initially to Kanye this go around. His validation of Candace Owens and Donald Trump did that. I was disappointed that this wasn’t discussed, because when Tyler made the comment that he didn’t know what “free thinking” was meant by, and then Jemar strawmaned its definition into contrarian thinking, the response to Kanye entirely fell into cognitive dissonance and not clear, right judgment.

Further, Tyler asked a good question regarding how does Jemar know he’s right and others wrong on this matter (paraphrasing). This was another key tell for cognitive dissonance. Jemar appealed to how it made him “feel”, how it “came across” to him, that he didn’t think Kanye really “thought deeply” about it, wasn’t knowledgeable enough (ignorant), and delved into questions on Kanye’s motivations with an album dropping. This is classic mind reader hallucination and fallacy. Anytime we project the depth of someone’s thoughts, their depth of knowledge that they have, or their motivation as a reason for dismissal especially from “far away”, it should be a major red flag to ourselves that we’re stepping into irrational conclusion and bias.

The concept meant by the term “free thinking” is pillared by the following in no particular order:
1. The capacity to recognize your own bias, dissonance, and the tells for your own irrational responses and thinking.
2. The capacity to reject group think as a rational argument (cultural, parental, ethnic, political, etc).
3. The application and capacity to love others, have relationship with, and converse ESPECIALLY when perspectives on matters disagree.
4. The capacity to afford equal nuance, depth, and value to other human beings as you do for yourself, ESPECIALLY when we disagree in debating hot topics.

Coming full circle, the reason Kanye’s validation of Candace Owens began a pivotal moment in history is because it exemplified #2. Over 100 million people were within that immediate radius of the West influence. He validated a black conservative young female. He doubled down on it with validating Trump, not his policies, but him as a person deserving of the same equality.
He put on full display how to love others, even when he may not agree with anything on their perspective. This hedges against irrational bias when we live this way toward others. It’s part of why as Christians that we are called to love prior to others repentance.

This is hard for all of us, and it’s displayed in this podcast when half the room wants to cancel Kanye. As fallen, broken, default irrational, biased human beings, we don’t know how to love others when someone displays affection for those we’ve deemed are acceptable for our hatred, diminishment, or inequality. We assume the dichotomy that they must agree with us. This is revealed in that a 400 year comment by Kanye is enough to justify it. It’s a “fake because”. Instead of giving him the same nuance, the benefit of the doubt, respecting his intelligence, and considering the broad context of his statement in light of recent actions, he’s devalued.
The irony of this is that this site portrays that there’s still a modern day, systemic prejudice and racism that abounds. That’s basically social slavery in the broad or loose sense right? Systemic oppression is basically an unofficial form of slavery. So why is it that we’d rather not find the common ground with Kanye here?
Even if we object that he’s solely talking in respect to politics, shouldn’t we consider the possibility of a mental prison for any demographic that is predominately one political party? This means both white evangelicals at over 80% and black Americans over 90%.
What he talks about isn’t a dismissal of those who have attempted to break slavery and oppression. It’s the lack of recognizing the continued manipulation of people for the betterment of those above them.

Regardless of Kanye’s intent and meaning though, agreeing with him or not, he gave you the opportunity to display what he already displayed, and that’s love for those we disagree with. And you failed that. You’d rather consider cancelling him. This exhibits that the log is in your eyes. That you are bound mentally and irrationally in this case. You began here with rejection, but not with the positives that were coming out of his actions.

Reality is this. Kanye’s influence is important. He just broke the mental prison of millions, and you’ll see some of that impact in the next election (black American vote will go up for Trump). He in the least has an excellent understanding of influence, persuasion, and capacity to make change, and not simply from his musical prowess. His willingness to treat others equally broke the internet. (He also validated and loved on John Legend, right?) More so he is above reproach at the moment because unlike anyone else here that has judged 80% of a demographic, has lobbied for segregation from that 80%, and assumed the worst of this country’s president, he took the time to actually MEET THE PRESIDENT. Guess who has the highest capability at the moment for influencing things for black Americans and the capability to bridge those gaps for real progress? KANYE. Especially if he’s right, having met Trump, that the narrative you believed is largely false. You haven’t. I’ll take him and the way he’s treating others right now, over these proposals at the Witness. Me, you, others judge from afar. We listen to one narrative or another. Being “free thinking”, breaking your own mental prison, means being highly critical of those narratives and meeting a person for yourself.
If Kanye’s words and actions are grounds for cancellation, how much more so the Witness? The grave sins of the Witness are the following:
-Promotion of a segregation on prejudiced assumptions about a demographic that is repeatedly uncorrelated and subjective. (Mind/heart reading fallacies abound).
-Teaching and influencing others to distance themselves from relationships with said demographic.
-Positing that repentance is a requirement for love and continued relationships with others, even Christians, which is never found like ever in the Bible.
-Pride
-Judmentalism

When will the Witness take a hard look at itself lately, listen to fellow brethren that are concerned with the above actions you’re taking, and consider that the log may very well be protruding from the Wtiness’ eye?

The question here shouldn’t be “Should we cancel Kanye?”, but what can we learn from Kanye on how to impact the world as Christians?