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Kanye West Just Said Slavery Was A Choice But TMZ Staffer, Van Lathan, Was Having None Of It

May 02, 2018

Kanye West is no stranger to controversy and the rap star has made headlines the past week for being vocal about his political views. This time however, a TMZ staffer thought he was taking it too far.


Business Insider

Aside from fully backing up Trump, wearing a ‘Make America Great Again’ cap, slamming former President Obama and causing quite a stir on Twitter, Kanye had an interview at the TMZ offices in Los Angeles on Tuesday and expressed his thoughts on slavery.

“When you hear about slavery for 400 years — for 400 years? That sounds like a choice,” said Kanye. “You were there for 400 years and it’s all of y’all. It’s like we’re mentally imprisoned.”


TMZ

And it looked like nobody from the TMZ office was happy to hear his ideas on ‘free thinking’, especially TMZ writer Van Lathan.


TMZ

As the rapper asked the newsroom about what they thought about him “being free and thinking free”, Van Lathan stood up and spoke his mind.

“I actually don’t think you’re thinking anything,” said Van Lathan.

TMZ

“I think what you’re doing right now is actually an afterthought.

“Kanye, you’re entitled to your opinion, you’re entitled to believe whatever you want, but there is fact and real-world, real-life consequence behind everything you just said.

“And while you are making music and being an artist and living the life that you’ve earned by being a genius, the rest of us in society have to deal with these threats to our lives,” Lathan said.

 “We have to deal with the marginalization that’s come from the 400 years of slavery that you said for our people was a choice,” Lathan said.


TMZ

“Every day we have to walk into that truth while you choose to say things that, to be honest with you, dog, are nonsensical.

“You want to think freely, that’s fine, I’ll combat your free thought with my free thought because mine is grounded in a reality that I have been living and a reality that I am going to change, but I’m not gonna do it by pretending that the enemies are on the same team as me.”

“And frankly, I’m disappointed, I’m appalled, and brother, I am unbelievably hurt by the fact that you have morphed into something, to me, that’s not real,” he said.


TMZ

A TMZ source said that the employees at the newsroom were all surprised when Kanye started to address the room, but they were even more shocked when Lathan stood up against the celebrity.

No one expected that to happen, and it was clear on Kanye’s face that he didn’t either.


TMZ

Kanye wasn’t done though. “Black people have a tendency to focus and march when a white person kills a black person or wears a hat,” said Kanye, “But when it is 700 kids being killed in Chicago, it’s ok. It’s ok for blacks to kill blacks!”

To which Lathan replied with, “That’s a lie!”

After that, Kanye approached the staffer to further discuss things, but initially asked, “If I come over there, you’re not going to fight me?”

“I am not going to hit Kanye West on TMZ,” Lathan replied.

Lathan then told Kanye, “You gotta be responsible. Your voice is too big.”


TMZ

“There are people dedicating their lives to working throughout the problems of black people. There are black people everyday, boots on the ground, they are all over the place working towards this,” he said. “The narrative that black people don’t care about black lives until a white person takes them is false. That is not true.”

When word got out of what Lathan said to the rapper, netizens on Twitter lauded the staffer for speaking out against Kanye.

Others just want this whole thing to be over.

One thing’s for sure though, Kanye got wrecked in the school of free thinking.

TMZ

The post Kanye West Just Said Slavery Was A Choice But TMZ Staffer, Van Lathan, Was Having None Of It appeared first on Pulptastic.

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