Photo Credit: Chance the Rapper/Instagram
Chance the Rapper shook the internet this morning by showing support for his friend Kanye West for President. It all started with him sharing a video Kanye did as a tribute to his mother where he quote captioned it with “And yall out here tryna convince me to vote for Biden. Smfh.” It all went downhill from there. But he made some good points. He asked if people were more pro-Biden or just anti-ye. The topic of being an anti-vaxxer came up to which he said he wasn’t but that people should look into the history of blacks being test subjects in medicine.
Are u more pro biden or anti ye and why? I get that you’ll want to reply that you’re just tryna “get trump out” but in this hypothetical scenario where you’re replacing Trump, can someone explain why Joe Biden would be better??
— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) July 13, 2020
So what did Chance do? He broke a number of unspoken rules and decided to pull everything from under the table to discuss. He challenged the two party system, specifically asked why Biden was a better candidate than Trump which of course, isn’t allowed and talked about prison abolition. And hey, at the end of the day, mass incarceration and oversentencing have both been things both parties have agreed as being problematic and given how we incarcerate arguably the most people in the world, should we change our prison system, it likely will lead to prisons closing.
The particular skills the job has required in the past include a stomach for war crimes, an indifference or adherence to white supremacy and the intention of keeping things status quo. Andrew Jackson is still on our money and we’re well aware of his special set of skills pic.twitter.com/IboeLIAFtF
— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) July 13, 2020
I also always felt a way about people using the word “presidential”. Like a nigga acting or not acting presidential. Was Andrew Jackson acting presidential??
— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) July 13, 2020
At one point someone accused Chance of searching his own name to see what was being said about him responding to random tweets that way. In actuality he was trending as “Chance,” and likely clicked on it responding to people that way. But it was obvious that he was having a genuine non-serious conversation. He said he didn’t plan on trending and given the fact that he was trying to get honest answers about his friend, he shouldn’t be nailed to a cross over this one. And did I mention they were friends? What did anyone expect him to do seeing his friend being crucified in the press? And why would he not support his friend? People are taking this entirely too seriously.
Ok this is me slowly trying to get down from this hill without falling and dying:
Whoever you vote for I hope they abolish the prison system as we know it, honor black reparations and all treaties with Indigenous folk and lastly end homelessness. Whomever that may be God bless em— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) July 13, 2020
One person that came to Chance’s defense was John Legend who told him, “Love to you, my brother. Let’s keep fighting for all of this. Presidential politics is very unsatisfying when you’re trying to push for radical change and they’re trying to put together a majority coalition. Either way, let’s keep fighting for it.” And this is significant given how rabidly anti-Trump he is and there was that moment Chance tweeted that you don’t have to be a Democrat that people construed as support for Trump. Either way, he saw what he was trying to do and decided to offer him a little older advice. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Everything doesn’t have to be a fight and every perceived disagreement doesn’t have to be a war and we commend him for the civil discourse with his younger counterpart.
Love to you, my brother. Let’s keep fighting for all of this. Presidential politics is very unsatisfying when you’re trying to push for radical change and they’re trying to put together a majority coalition. Either way, let’s keep fighting for it.
— John Legend (@johnlegend) July 13, 2020
