Kanye West has somehow caught the attention of almost every media outlet by wearing the red Donald Trump supporter hat. He has been known to try to attract attention just for the artistry of shocking behavior, but is there more behind his support of Donald Trump than just wanting attention? On one hand, this relationship feels like Dennis Rodman’s relationship with Kim Jong Un. However, on the other hand, you can draw a few parallels between Kanye’s grandiloquence and some ideas that Clarence Thomas has expressed in Supreme Court case opinions he has written.
The featured image for this article displays one of Kanye’s recent tweets, in which he explains that he’s acting as an independent thinker and that he wants to support/love everyone. Short tweets don’t really clear up Kanye’s intentions, but his recent song Ye v. The People does a better job of articulating his motives. Here are some of the lyrics:
[Verse: Kanye West & T.I.]
Bruh, I never ever stopped fightin’ for the people
Actually, wearin’ the hat’ll show people that we equal
You gotta see the vantage point of the people
What makes you feel equal makes them feel evil
See that’s the problem with this damn nation
All Blacks gotta be Democrats, man
We ain’t made it off the plantation
Fuck who you choose as your political party
You representin’ dudes just seem crude and cold-hearted
With blatant disregard for the people who put you in position
Don’t you feel an obligation to them?
I feel a obligation to show people new ideas
And if you wanna hear ’em, there go two right here
Make America Great Again had a negative perception
I took it, wore it, rocked it, gave it a new direction
Added empathy, care and love and affection
And y’all simply questionin’ my methods
What you willin’ to lose for the point to be proved?
This shit is stubborn, selfish, bullheaded, even for you
You wore a dusty-ass hat to represent the same views
As white supremacy, man, we expect better from you
All them times you sounded crazy, we defended you, homie
Not just to be let down when we depend on you, homie
That’s why it’s important to know what direction you’re goin’ now
‘Cause everything that you built can be destroyed and torn down
You think I ain’t concerned about how I affect the past?
I mean, that hat stayed in my closet like ’bout a year and a half
Then one day I was like, “Fuck it, I’ma do me.”
I was in the sunken place and then I found the new me
Not worried about some image that I gotta keep up
Lot of people agree with me, but they’re too scared to speak up
I get the idea that you have to forgive and be kind to overcome hate, but I’m not sure that being kind is more important to Kanye than gaining attention and relevance. If spreading kindness were really his main goal, I feel like he would figure out a more effective and less controversial way to do that.
Aside from that, there were a few lines that really stood out to me:
Bruh, I never ever stopped fightin’ for the people
Actually, wearin’ the hat’ll show people that we equal
You gotta see the vantage point of the people
What makes you feel equal makes them feel evil
See that’s the problem with this damn nation
All Blacks gotta be Democrats, man
We ain’t made it off the plantation
These lines remind me of one of the few Supreme Court case opinions authored by Clarence Thomas, a Supreme Court Justice nominated by George H. W. Bush. The opinion is hard to forget, as Clarence Thomas has written few opinions, and he is known for being silent on the bench. This New Yorker Article argues that Clarence Thomas has never written a landmark opinion. Instead, his influence on the bench has mostly been his vote siding with conservative policies.
The article notes some of the few opinions he’s written:
- Good News Club v. Milford Central School, in 2001, which found that a public school had to allow a religious group to meet on campus after hours.
- In a concurrence in Printz v. United States, in 1997, Thomas suggested that the Second Amendment confers on individuals a right to bear arms, which the Court had never before held.
- In McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, in 1995, Thomas laid some of the intellectual groundwork for the Citizens United decision and the Court’s deregulation of political campaigns.
The opinion that Kanye’s verses reminded me of was Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003). Clarence Thomas sides with Justice Scalia in that case, ruling that the University of Michigan’s Law School couldn’t consider race in it’s admission process. (Although, technically the ruling was that “the Law School’s racial discrimination should be subjected to strict scrutiny”). Here is a quick summary from oyez.org:
In 1997, Barbara Grutter, a white resident of Michigan, applied for admission to the University of Michigan Law School. Grutter applied with a 3.8 undergraduate GPA and an LSAT score of 161. She was denied admission. The Law School admits that it uses race as a factor in making admissions decisions because it serves a “compelling interest in achieving diversity among its student body.” The District Court concluded that the Law School’s stated interest in achieving diversity in the student body was not a compelling one and enjoined its use of race in the admissions process.
Basically, Thomas and Scalia think that it is unfair to consider whether someone is black, or any other institutionally oppressed race, when choosing students to admit to the school. Clarence Thomas explains to us, publicly, why he doesn’t think it’s a good idea to take race into consideration in his opinion, which you can read here. My interpretation of his explanation is that he thinks the the act of considering race for admissions is racial discrimination in itself. His other main point is that for black people to overcome the oppression of the past, they have to be scrutinized equally now. Along those lines, he also expresses that black people should not want sympathy. Here is an excerpt from the opinion:
Frederick Douglass, speaking to a group of abolitionists almost 140 years ago, delivered a message lost on today’s majority: “[I]n regard to the colored people, there is always more that is benevolent, I perceive, than just, manifested towards us. What I ask for the negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice….” Like Douglass, I believe blacks can achieve in every avenue of American life without the meddling of university administrators. Because I wish to see all students succeed whatever their color, I share, in some respect, the sympathies of those who sponsor the type of discrimination advanced by the University of Michigan Law School (Law School). The Constitution does not, however, tolerate institutional devotion to the status quo in admissions policies when such devotion ripens into racial discrimination. Nor does the Constitution countenance the unprecedented deference the Court gives to the Law School, an approach inconsistent with the very concept of “strict scrutiny.” No one would argue that a university could set up a lower general admission standard and then impose heightened requirements only on black applicants. Similarly, a university may not maintain a high admission standard and grant exemptions to favored races. The Law School, of its own choosing, and for its own purposes, maintains an exclusionary admissions system that it knows produces racially disproportionate results. Racial discrimination is not a permissible solution to the self-inflicted wounds of this elitist admissions policy.
Does that sound familiar? If you revisit the few lines I noted from Ye v. The People, you can see the similarities. Kanye seems to express what Clarence Thomas is also emphasizing: the importance of being scrutinized equally to be equal. Even if that means ignoring the context of any hardships people may have faced due to discrimination. Even if it ultimately means not helping people who are struggling due to being born into a country that is still suffering from past and ongoing racial oppression.
In my personal opinion, their idea is completely disconnected. Kanye and Clarence Thomas are in positions where they might not be as connected to the community as they once were.
