Hey Kanye, what's that on your shoulder?

Upon further inspection, it appears to be a huge racial chip. Kanye West is currently one of the top-selling hip hop "artists" in the country. What he says, my students internalize and believe. Just the other day, George W. Bush came up in conversation in class, and one of my black students blurted out in all seriousness, "He hates black people!" Gee, now where have I heard that before? Oh yeah:



The articulate Mr. West essentially said the very same thing during a televised fundraiser right after Hurricane Katrina made her visit.

Now, Kanye strikes again. He was apparently upset that he was completely shut out at the MTV Video Music Awards the the other night. Backstage, during a little tantrum, he was heard to yell, "That's two years in a row, man... give a black man a chance!" Notice how he just casually and superfluously throws the race card into the mix. If anyone has watched MTV, that network gives "a black man" plenty of chances. When they do show videos (which is practically never), plenty of them are of the hip hop variety.

"Give a black man a chance"? You mean like these black men who have won MTV VMAs in the past? - Michael Jackson (ahem), Prince, Living Colour, LL Cool J, OutKast, Lenny Kravitz, Will Smith, Usher, Li'l John, Ludacris, Timbaland, and... oh, look at this: Kanye West won a VMA in 2005 in the category of Male Artist of the Year for the video of his "song" Jesus Walks.

You could just pass this off as just another overpampered celebrity to whom we shouldn't give the time of day. I would love for that to be the case. Unfortunately, like I said earlier, when Kanye West speaks, my students listen. And what they hear is a bunch of paranoid race-card-pulling claptrap that too many of them accept as gospel.

But the night wasn't over for Kanye West. He hosted a party at his crib after the VMA show ended. At the party, the thuggish Suge Knight, who is the former head of Death Row Records, was, according to the article, shot in the leg by a "black male" assailant wearing a "pink shirt", and had to go to the hospital to have the bullet removed. Role models, all.

Good Day to You, Sir