Yesterday, rapper Kanye West made some inflammatory comments about slavery.
Hot off the back of his controversial Tweets about Donald Trump, that reportedly lost him millions of followers, the father of three has landed in hot water once more for some comments he made in an interview.
During a video appearance for entertainment site TMZ he said, ‘When you hear about slavery for 400 years ... for 400 years? That sounds like a choice,’ he continued, We're mentally imprisoned.’
Just to recap a little bit of history: Throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, men, women and children were shackled and forcibly taken from countries across Africa,and brought to America and other countries (including Britain, of course) to be sold into slavery.
Over 400 years, slaves were kept imprisoned through physical and mental abuse, such as shackles, beatings, torture and systematic rape. Mutiny was punished by lynching or much worse.
West has since tried to re-qualify his statement:
The husband of Kim Kardashian then compared himself to a slave, and even legendary slave-emancipator Harriet Tubman.
Black Twitter, however, has now responded to West's verbal diarrhoea. Refusing to take West's argument seriously, they have started the hashtag #IfSlaveryWasAChoice.
The Tweets poke fun at the ridiculous notion that black people had any choice in being chained, beaten and put to work without remuneration for hundreds of years.
Twitter has done a good job of making light of an extremely dark statement.
Daisy Murray is the Digital Fashion Editor at ELLE UK, spotlighting emerging designers, sustainable shopping, and celebrity style. Since joining in 2016 as an editorial intern, Daisy has run the gamut of fashion journalism - interviewing Molly Goddard backstage at London Fashion Week, investigating the power of androgynous dressing and celebrating the joys of vintage shopping.
