Who can save a man who believes self-hatred is the way of salvation?
I remember the first time I wanted to be white.
It was Easter Sunday. The California sun brightened the insides of the church that sat on a hill in Monterey. The lights were dim as the
pastor walked across the stage, asking the congregation who wanted to be baptized.
I raised my hand as the music played, a soft mellow bounce between bluegrass and cultlike chants. They immersed my body in the
baptismal pool. When I came up, stripped of the “blackness” of my own soul (or so they thought), the whole congregation clapped. I
had become new. I’d given up the old things — the Holy Ghost-powered sweaty praise breaks; the long, erotic sermons that blended
liberative jeremiad and Jesus; the mothers of the church passing a dollar here or there; the stories grandaddy told of Black country
people defying the worst of white country hatred.
I was free of it all. I prayed.
When I went down in that cold water, I never noticed a curious thing about that day: I was one of only two Black men in the
congregation of at least 100. When I came up “new,” I was not Black – I was Christian, they said.
A few days before I’d decided to be born anew, I called my mama to tell her about my decision. “Hey, ma,” I said, excitement rubbing the insides of my throat. “I think I want — … I think I’m going to get baptized again.”
I could feel her confusion jump from South Carolina all the way to California. “What do you mean?” she said.
“Ma, all that stuff we were taught as kids was wrong,” I said. And by all that stuff I meant all those Black sermons and Black praise breaks and Black recipes after Sunday services and the Black culture that was the backbone of our church. “I’m not Pentecostal,” I told my mother. “I’m reformed. I’m getting baptized again.”
Funny thing is, neither of us knew what that really meant — but we knew what it did. How letting go of my Black faith tradition made me change the way I talked, the way I dressed, the way I walked, the way I worshipped, and the words I said. I did more than go down and come up wet and white as snow. I turned my back on my ancestors’ traditions and on all the ways the Black South loved me.
When I hung up the phone, my mother was hurt and angry. Still, I was determined to be with white people, to do what they did, and to have what they had — power, protection, privilege. And they gave it. And I had it. Until I lost it.
That’s what haunts me about Kanye West.
Ihave been thinking a lot about Ye, as he calls himself now, lately. After weeks — years, really — of being forced to endure yet another iteration of his foolishness, I want to ask him: Bruh, is it really worth it?
When Ye rolled out “White Lives Matter” shirts at his Paris fashion show earlier this month, I shook my head. While some thought he was trolling, I saw the stunt as an example of self-hatred and shame. Then came the interviews. Ye spewed his anti-Blackness, antisemitism, and misogyny to anyone who would listen, from Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News and Drink Champs to British broadcaster Piers Morgan and MIT research scientist Lex Fridman. After watching his erratic and dangerous ramblings, I wondered, “Can he survive this?” But then, almost as quickly, I asked myself, “Do I actually want him to?
After all, in an attempt to “win” and gain power and influence, Ye has weaponized hatred in the same ways some white men (see: former President Donald Trump, conservative talk show host Sean Hannity, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, etc.) have weaponized hatred to win. In an rambling appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored, Ye said that he empathized with straight white men because “nobody gets judged more” than them.
Though Kanye is losing right now — according to him, to the tune of $2 billion — let’s be clear: As a Black man, he has been able to get away with things that Black women and LGBTQ+ people couldn’t, because Ye lives in the “right” body and they don’t. Thanks to his stunts, many Black people did stop supporting him. But others didn’t — which may be one reason Ye’s anti-Blackness and misogyny were not the straws that finally broke the camel’s back. He was a wealthy Black man in America, singing songs in the name of Jesus, and therefore, like so many Black men, untouchable and unmoved.
“So what do you think about Ye?” my barber asked me recently, wondering if I thought he was mentally ill or a genius, or both. “What do you think about what he said?”
If I’m honest, there is a part of me that wants Ye to lose, to be brought low and humbled. Maybe then he’d stop talking so recklessly. I told my barber that I don’t think anybody who builds their platform on hate should win. Those who traffic in antisemitism or racism or misogyny or anti-gay bias shouldn’t be able to gain anything in this world, nor I don’t think they should be able to profit from other people’s pain. I don’t think racists or anti-gay people should be able to eat without being shamed, and I think they deserve to be booed wherever they go until they realize that you cannot cause harm and move about the world unscathed.
People like Ye shouldn’t be able to make antisemitic statements that encourage Nazis to praise them like they’re the second coming of Christ. Nope. Not now. Not ever. Let’s be clear: Hatred is not just about what you do. It is also about who feels empowered by what you say. And when you empower people who hate, you should lose, and lose badly, and in ways that make you change.
After losing deals and lots of money, Ye has found out that no matter how proximate you get to whiteness, you can never really fully be accepted into its power (unless you’re someone like Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas — whom writer Mitch Jackson calls the most powerful Black man in America). While Ye has turned into the personification of mess around and find out, white folks (such as Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville or billionaire Elon Musk) who traffic in hate continue to thrive.
But Ye scares me. He scares me because I know just how powerful a tool a hurt and hateful Black man can be for the white racist agenda (just look at Senate candidate Herschel Walker). Despite his claims, Ye is not free. His slavery is an actual choice. His hatred is an actual weapon. And whatever version of Ye this is, I don’t want it to survive — though I want him to get the help he truly needs.
“A straight white male can’t say, ‘My wife hurt me today,’ because people will say you’re hurting women. A straight white male can’t say, ‘A Black employee didn’t come in to work on time,’ because people will say, ‘You’re racist.’ A straight white male can’t speak on a homosexual person because people will say you’re homophobic,” he droned on.
Despite Ye’s insistence that straight white men are the most maligned group in society, he said he still wants what they have always had: power.
Conservative political commentator Candace Owens (left) and rapper Kanye West (right) wear “White Lives Matter” shirts at his Paris fashion show on Oct. 3.@REALCANDACEO/TWITTER
Though Kanye is losing right now — according to him, to the tune of $2 billion — let’s be clear: As a Black man, he has been able to get away with things that Black women and LGBTQ+ people couldn’t, because Ye lives in the “right” body and they don’t. Thanks to his stunts, many Black people did stop supporting him. But others didn’t — which may be one reason Ye’s anti-Blackness and misogyny were not the straws that finally broke the camel’s back. He was a wealthy Black man in America, singing songs in the name of Jesus, and therefore, like so many Black men, untouchable and unmoved.
“So what do you think about Ye?” my barber asked me recently, wondering if I thought he was mentally ill or a genius, or both. “What do you think about what he said?”
If I’m honest, there is a part of me that wants Ye to lose, to be brought low and humbled. Maybe then he’d stop talking so recklessly. I told my barber that I don’t think anybody who builds their platform on hate should win. Those who traffic in antisemitism or racism or misogyny or anti-gay bias shouldn’t be able to gain anything in this world, nor I don’t think they should be able to profit from other people’s pain. I don’t think racists or anti-gay people should be able to eat without being shamed, and I think they deserve to be booed wherever they go until they realize that you cannot cause harm and move about the world unscathed.
People like Ye shouldn’t be able to make antisemitic statements that encourage Nazis to praise them like they’re the second coming of Christ. Nope. Not now. Not ever. Let’s be clear: Hatred is not just about what you do. It is also about who feels empowered by what you say. And when you empower people who hate, you should lose, and lose badly, and in ways that make you change.
After losing deals and lots of money, Ye has found out that no matter how proximate you get to whiteness, you can never really fully be accepted into its power (unless you’re someone like Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas — whom writer Mitch Jackson calls the most powerful Black man in America). While Ye has turned into the personification of mess around and find out, white folks (such as Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville or billionaire Elon Musk) who traffic in hate continue to thrive.
But Ye scares me. He scares me because I know just how powerful a tool a hurt and hateful Black man can be for the white racist agenda (just look at Senate candidate Herschel Walker). Despite his claims, Ye is not free. His slavery is an actual choice. His hatred is an actual weapon. And whatever version of Ye this is, I don’t want it to survive — though I want him to get the help he truly needs.
But as it stands, Ye is no arbiter of Black freedom. He is a provocateur of white supremacy.
He is no liberator or lover of Black people. He is a weapon and worshipper of white retaliation.
He doesn’t just want to live in whiteness. He longs to disappear inside of it.
And who can save a man who believes becoming white is the way to become free?
