When myself and others declared in 2019, before the release of Jesus Is King, to pump brakes about anointing Kanye as this savior of subverting pop commercialism to preach the gospel of Jesus, it wasn’t just because we knew he’d take this full-on pivot to white Christian nationalism (the seeds were planted, sure, but this is to the extreme). It was because when you tokenize someone more prone to brokenness than cheap porcelain, you will find yourself reckoning with a decision completely preventable: propping them up in the first place. We shouldn’t do this to anyone as they walk this journey with Christ. Falling on your face is an inevitable part of that journey. A million witnesses to your weakness is not.
That being said, the reality is that Kanye’s existence was weaponized against people like myself, Black folks adjacent to white Christian spaces who openly lamented about the state of being Black in this country. Crying out about a President who got more racist and sexist by the second and the 77% of white evangelicals who voted for him in the first place. Those who, with clear intention, voted for someone because of ‘the unborn”. Folks who, for the first time, are being questioned about their racial biases and racist sentiments.
“They don’t like Kanye because he has a different political opinion.” This isn’t a disagreement about taxes or how to allocate money to schools, damn. This is about a clear discrimination and hatred of people. A violence that stormed the Capitol on January 6th. And if we’re being honest, these folks use Kanye to mask their own prejudices and blindness to race.
“I can’t be racist — or have racist thoughts or ideas — if this Black guy agrees with me!” Yes. You still do. If you openly ignore the pain of others to satiate your own peace, you are part of the problem. If the Black people around you disagree, it’s probably best to not be dismissive of their thoughts. Or think they are the problem. You don’t know Kanye. You know me but my ‘me’ wasn’t enough to convince you that something is really wrong.
That shit continues to break my heart.
Kanye is a parrot for current white evangelical political thought. A thought so pervasive that it damn near re-elected Trump to the Oval Office. Kanye stood next to that man in a time when that man’s presence drove people, like myself, out of racial reconciliatory Christian spaces. Unfortunately it took a knee to George Floyd’s neck, a shotgun blast to Ahmaud Arbery’s back and gunshot wounds on Breonna Taylor’s body to wonder where the hell we went.
Like I’ve said, he’s their problem to solve. That’s their man. But as you can see, the public adoration from influencer Christian pastors is all but gone. He isn’t of use anymore. Or he’s too broken to fix. He isn’t too broken for Jesus. That’s who he needs more than anyone else.
ciara roslyn-james 