Don’t look now, but Donald Trump may have another scandal on his hands.
A big one. A bad one. A racist one.
OK, to set the stage for this latest monstrosity, let’s remember that Kanye West has been vocal about his support for Donald Trump these past few months.
In a concert shortly after the election, Kanye revealed that while he skipped out on voting this time around, if he had voted, he would have voted for Trump.
Then in December, Kanye met with Trump in New York for … reasons. We really don’t want to speculate too much on what could have gone down between those two.
Afterwards, they posed for photos, and Trump claimed that he and Kanye have “been friends for a long time.”
Kanye later tweeted a photo of a gift that Trump had given him: a copy of the Time’s Person of the Year issue featuring Trump that he’d signed “To Kanye: you are a great friend.”
Now that all that nonsense is fresh in your mind, let’s also remember that poor Donald had a hell of a time finding artists to perform for his inauguration.
Eventually he managed to book 3 Doors Down and Toby Keith, along with a few other acts.
There’d been some speculation that he could have gotten Kanye to perform, since they’re besties and all, and since Kanye is one of the very few notable artists willing to publicly support him.
But now, the chair of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, Tom Barrack, is explaining the issue with Kanye performing for Trump.
And it is going to get ugly in here.
Good ol’ Tom says that while Kanye has “been great,” and while “he considers himself a friend of the President-elect,” it’s imply “not the venue” for the rapper.
And that’s because “It’s going to be typically and traditionally American.”
If you deduced that Kanye wasn’t asked to perform because he’s black, well, you’re not alone on your assumptions.
Over on Twitter, people are ripping this statement apart.
“What’s traditionally American?” one person asked. “WHITE?”
“This guy isn’t even aware of how racist he sounds,” another commented.
One Twitter user pointed out that “Rap/hip hop is American music. ‘Traditionally American’ is code for not ethnic/black/urban,” and another asked “Uh, you guys know which country invented hip hop?”
“That’s a scary level of racism right there,” someone stated. “And you can tell he doesn’t think it’s racist.”
In closing, one more Twitterer said “In other words, they don’t want ya black as there lmao!”
And honestly, is there any other way to interpret that statement? Because if there is, we’re having trouble coming up with it.
Dark times ahead, everyone. Look out.
