TMZ staffer Van Lathan confronted rapper Kanye West for having an “absence of thought” after the rap artist suggested slavery “sounds like a choice.”
“I think what you’re doing right now is actually the absence of thought,” Lathan said while West was in the TMZ newsroom. “And the reason why I feel like that is because, 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 that you just said.”
“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 continued, according to video shared on social media. “We have to deal with the marginalization that has come from the 400 years of slavery that you said, for our people, was a choice.”
Kanye West stirs up the TMZ newsroom over TRUMP, SLAVERY and FREE THOUGHT. There’s A LOT more that went down … and the fireworks are exploding on @TMZLive today. Check your local listings for show times. pic.twitter.com/jwVsJCMPiq
— TMZ (@TMZ) May 1, 2018
Lathan was reacting to West’s statement about slavery during an interview on “TMZ Live.”
“When you hear about slavery for 400 years. For 400 years? That sounds like a choice,” West said in the interview.
“Like, you were there for 400 years and it’s all of you all? You know, it’s like we’re mentally in prison. I like the word prison ’cause slavery goes too — too direct to the idea of blacks,” he added. “So prison is something that unites us as one race, blacks and whites being one race. We’re the human race.”
West has been in the news this past week after he tweeted support for Turning Point’s Candace Owens and President Trump. West said that although he doesn’t agree with all of Trump’s actions, “the mob can’t make me not love him [Trump].” West also posted images of himself wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat.
His recent tweets have drawn backlash from fellow music artists, friends, and others.
