When Kanye West condemned a Republican president after Hurricane Katrina smashed New Orleans, Democrats and their media biscuit eaters weren’t all that upset.
Many were overjoyed that West, the megastar from Chicago and internationally known hip-hop artist, was on their side.
“George Bush doesn’t care about black people,” West said.
And after he said it, this is what the media did not do: They did not call Kanye a “house negro” or say he was mentally ill. They did not say Kanye was illiterate. They did not say he was acting like a dancing minstrel show. And they did not withdraw his “black card.”
He served their politics, and they loved him for it.
But as most of you know, Kanye met with President Donald Trump at the White House the other day. He wore a red MAGA hat and praised the president. He hugged Trump.
The reaction from Democrats and their handmaidens of the Democratic Media Complex wasn’t love. It was slobbering rage.
“For those keeping score at home,” tweeted Tom Bevan, publisher of Real Clear Politics, “in the last 24 hours folks on CNN and MSNBC have called Kanye: 1) dumb 2) mentally ill 3) a house negro 4) a token 5) a minstrel 6) a white supremacist.”
One of the attackers was African-American academic Michael Eric Dyson. “This is white supremacy by ventriloquism,” said Dyson, sputtering in rage on pro-left MSNBC. “A black mouth is moving, but white racist ideals are flowing from Kanye’s mouth.”
And CNN’s Don Lemon said: “What I saw was a minstrel show today — him in front of all these white people … “
There was another African-American in the room with Kanye to support Trump: Jim Brown, the NFL Hall of Fame running back, the greatest athlete of his time, a man who was strong, indomitable, proud, and now humbled by age and using a cane.
But cane or no cane, I’d pay real money to see Lemon and Dyson accuse Brown to his face of being part of a minstrel show or a ventriloquist dummy.
Brown’s reaction would be fascinating. But I bet Lemon and Dyson wouldn’t like it.
Kanye’s long monologue, carried on national television, was a bizarre stream of consciousness. Some of it was wacky.
Kanye talked about parallel universes, and alternate realities, and his hope that Trump would pardon notorious Chicago Gangster Disciple gang leader Larry Hoover to help stop the killings in Chicago.
But Kanye also talked about the Democratic welfare state that has destroyed the black family, leaving generations of young men to grow up alone and fatherless.
Kanye also said he’d met with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s money man, Michael Sacks, who urged Kanye to encourage Trump to abandon White House support for stop-and-frisk policing.
Since the Oval Office meeting, we’ve heard a lot of irrational screaming about West and how he’s insane for speaking his mind.
One thing is certain. Americans make too much of celebrities. Hollywood stars endorse Democrats for president and it is considered normal behavior.
But Kanye embraces Trump — and gives him a hug — and Democrats hate him.
Why?
Because there is nothing so threatening to the Democratic Party than a prominent African-American like Kanye straying from the Democratic plantation and embracing a Republican.
This they cannot abide. Democrats use racial identity politics to herd voters and keep blacks voting Democratic. Without black votes, there is no Democratic Party.
The shaming of Kanye West is very much like the shaming of white suburban women who won’t put gender first, as Democrats demand.
Similar shaming techniques have been tried on other African-Americans, from brilliant writers such as Shelby Steele; from famous economists Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell; and from Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas to former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Each of them, in one way or another, had their “black card” revoked by the high media priests or priestesses who decide such things. Each was reviled, his or her authenticity questioned, condemned by some as race traitors.
But in the process, the inquisitors reveal themselves.
Because it becomes clear that what’s important is not the content of one’s character, but how the color of one’s skin determines how one must vote. Those who use skin pigment to inform their politics are threatened by Kanye.
This ugly business of deciding who gets to keep their “black card” of authenticity reminds me of another young political figure in Chicago.
Kanye may remember him too.
Years ago, this other young African-American, a Democrat, dared to challenge a South Side politician, U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, for re-election.
Rush had been a former Black Panther militant. But as he aged, Rush became a go-along-get-along guy, a soldier Cook County Democratic organization controlled by two white guys: then-Mayor Richard Daley and Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives Mike Madigan.
The young politician was a threat to Rush, and as such, he was deemed not black enough. In essence, his “black card” was revoked by the Democrats. The young politician lost the election.
His name?
Barack Obama.
John Kass is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Readers may send him email at jskasschicagotribune.com
