Kanye West has lost his fucking mind in the last few days. Okay, to be fair, he may have lost his mind long ago, but this week’s Trump-loving Twitter rampage has made it apparently clear that our favorite genius is problematic and unstable. We’ve already gotten Kim Kardashian’s take on her husband’s tweets, but we’re still waiting to hear from lots of Kanye’s famous friends. Luckily, John Legend stepped up to the plate, and there’s a lot to unpack here.
Starting on Wednesday, John Legend started tweeting about his friend Kanye’s trash political views, but in a tasteful way that didn’t come across like a straight up drag. John went for my personal favorite internet format: the thought-provoking tweet thread. Without ever mentioning Kanye by name, he wrote about how people with privilege can’t just ignore racism and injustice and hope it goes away.
I imagine there's some comfort in imagining a future without racism and projecting that onto the present. Thinking if we just deny the truth, it doesn't exist. If history is erased, we don't have to deal with its consequences. However…
— John Legend (@johnlegend) April 25, 2018
John Legend also added after his masterful thread that you can’t really just say you like Trump but aren’t into racism. “The defining trait of Trump’s campaign and political profile was his embrace of white supremacy. He made it clear every time he spoke. Some serious cognitive dissonance to ignore that for the other x% you might find appealing. I guess I agree with >1% of anyone’s thoughts though.” This is so accurate on every level. Like, there are a lot of shitty people who like bottomless brunch just as much as I do, but that doesn’t mean I actually want to go to brunch with them. No racists allowed at my brunch reservation!
Because John Legend is obviously a solid friend, he reached out to Kanye about his views. And, because Kanye is in the sunken place the mood to tweet literally anything, we have the screenshots.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 26, 2018
Okay, first of all, John Legend is being literally so nice. He fully just called Kanye “the greatest artist of our generation,” and he is also an artist who would probably like to be the greatest. Meanwhile, Kanye sounds like a doomsday prepper who’s probably hours away from building a Kimmy Schidt-style underground bunker. Seriously, what is going on in this man’s mind?
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 26, 2018
Again, look at John Legend being an actual angel and bringing up good old fashioned concepts like empathy. And then, showing that he’s truly learned something from being married to Twitter queen Chrissy Teigen, he spots a golden opportunity to plug his latest single. Solid move, especially considering that I had no clue there was a new John Legend song *saves on Spotify*. Kanye seems very much not in the mood to accept advice from anyone, but maybe the wisdom of John Legend will embed somewhere deep in his brain. It might be our only hope at this point.
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Images: @johnlegend / Twitter; @kanyewest / Twitter (2)
