Kanye West’s pro-President Trump tweets have sparked many Twitter responses, including a lengthy commentary on racism from John Legend.
“You don’t have to agree with Trump but the mob can’t make me not love him,” West, who memorably visited Trump Tower in December 2016, had posted to his running Twitter feed. West has been consistently posting on the social media platform in recent days, but it’s his pro-Trump messages that have elicited some support (from Trump himself) and much backlash. Even wife Kim Kardashian West has had to jump into the conversation to clarify her own beliefs when it comes to her husband’s politics.
After West and Trump’s Twitter-fest, Legend took to his account on Wednesday to say “artists can’t be blind to the truth,” though he didn’t mention West by name.
“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,” Legend began in a series of posts. “However… Far too many people don’t have the luxury of closing their eyes and ears. They feel it in their lives and can’t act like what they see and know doesn’t exist.”
He continued, “They know their family was destroyed by deportation or incarceration. They know their loved one was denied safe harbor because of their religion. They know their son or daughter was shot because their skin color evoked fear. They see the statistics about black applications for real estate or loans or employment being turned away because their name was Jamal and not James.”
Concluding, he wrote, “I love that great, brilliant artists have the power to imagine a better future. But artists can’t be blind to the truth.”
Legend later tweeted that the “defining trait of Trump’s campaign and political profile was his embrace of white supremacy.”
Legend also texted West offline, as the Life of Pablo singer posted a conversation between himself and a person labeled as “John” in his phone. West said of sharing the text after, “I tweeted the John text to show that there are people around me that disagree with me and voice their opinion. I respect everyone’s opinion but I stand my ground.”
West’s decision to make the private conversation public apparently sparked Legend’s wife, Chrissy Teigen, to weigh in.
“Everyone keeps asking me to comment on shit,” she wrote. “Comment on psycho Tami Lasagna, whom I refuse to give the joy to, say something about RHOA, speak up about Kanye. When it comes to people we know, we DO speak up. To THEM. Not on Twitter. And sometimes, I guess it makes it to Twitter.” (She later jokingly asked Kardashian West if they were still on for dinner.)
Once Legend saw West’s Twitter feed, he continued to text West, joking, “Since you’re posting texts, let me add that I have a new single out.”
West then replied by promoting Legend’s single and explaining, “I really appreciate this dialogue with John Legend because I’m actually very empathetic. I’m still the kid from the telethon. I feel when people think of MAGA they don’t think of empathy. This is year one. We can’t add empathy to MAGA by hating. We can only add empathy with love and time and truly hearing all sides.”
See Legend and West’s text conversation, courtesy of West, below.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 26, 2018
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 26, 2018
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