Kanye West sparks outrage on TMZ Live by saying slavery was a choice for black people

Slate

TMZ's daytime show got a special guest today: Kanye West, whose decision to appear with Harvey Levin and his staff resulted in perhaps his most bizarre statement yet, sparking an immediate Twitter backlash. "When you hear about slavery for 400 years—for 400 years? That sound like a choice!" he said. "Like, you was there for 400 years, and it’s all of y’all? It’s like we’re mentally in prison. I like the word prison, because slavery goes too direct to the idea of blacks. It’s like slavery, Holocaust, Holocaust, Jews. Slavery is blacks. So prison is something that unites us as one race … the human race." Longtime TMZ staffer Van Lathan, who is black, called out West: “I think what you’re doing right now is actually the absence of thought … there is fact and real-world consequence behind everything you just said. While you are making music and being an artist … the rest of us in society have to deal with these threats to our lives.”