Kanye West’s Quixotic Quest
It would not be a story if a famous black pop star today—or anyone else for that matter, really—said on camera that Donald Trump doesn’t care about black people. There’d be no controversy. Not only is it evident that the president doesn’t really care about a great number of people, it is eminently fair to ascertain from his policies and comments that the president does not spare thoughts for the interiority of black lives. Such a claim against him would neither be revelatory nor would it be especially damaging for his political prospects. Such is 2018.
What to make of, then, the now-infamous defection of Kanye West, a man at least partially famous because of his racial critique of a sitting president, to the umbrella of Donald Trump? After the two had lunch this week, and West delivered a bizarre monologue in support of Trump, much attention has been paid to the inner workings of West’s own mind. Questions of his mental health, of his as Trump, and of his embrace of a hodgepodge of conservative-ish ideas have been the focus. But those analyses are mostly personal and quasi-psychological, often ignoring the currents of history that have propelled Trump and West to a lunch at the White House. Those currents
