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I said it before and I’ll say it again, Kanye West is a genius. Many people might think he’s a racist, he’s mean, or he’s an angry black man….No! He gets it.

It could seem like ‘Ye went on the whitest show on television – SNL – and gave White America the finger, but that’s not the case. He’s just telling us things aren’t right.

While Kanye’s aversion to the media allows people to paint him anyway they want, I often wonder if the world will ever really understand this man’s brilliance. He makes observations about race that are so clear and real that people get scared and nervous, because they feel a certain way about his truths.

After Kanye’s latest pair of songs, “New Slaves” and “Black Skinheads,” scared white America, I thought it was time to take a look at some of Ye’s “quote unquote” racial moments. 

Before we start, we must point out that Ye is not a racist. “I actually don’t know a rapper before me that liked white people more than me,” Kanye West said. “I don’t know a rapper that collaborated with more white people.”

“I know what I did that made people put it in a box, but it never came from a place of that,” he continued. “I’m not going to dial into that but I will just say that in no way am I racist.” During a USteam in 2010 via CNN.

Kanye makes a joke about how rich white people spend their money during his final verse on “Clique:”

You know white people get money, don’t spend it/Or maybe they get money, buy a business/I rather buy 80 gold chains and go ign’ant/I know Spike Lee gone kill me but let me finish

Yeezy wasn’t too shy to state how he personally felt about the way MTV treats black people during his infamous backstage rant at the MTV VMA’s in 2007.

Remember Kanye’s old blog “KanyeUniversity”? Well, he was definitely known for going off in his posts in all caps, with a couple of them being more memorable than the rest.

One of his posts specifically called out one of his concert organizers:

“I’m typing so f___ing hard I might break my f___ing Mac book Air!!!!!!!!,” he responded on his blog. “Call me any name you want … BUT NEVER SAY I DIDN’T GIVE MY ALL!” He went on to blame the concert’s organizers for failing to grasp the awesomeness of his performance. “WE WERE OBVIOUSLY DEALING WITH F___ING IDIOTS WHO DIDN’T REALLY HAVE THE CAPACITY TO REALLY PUT ON THIS SHOW PROPERLY. THEY TRIED 2 GIVE ME A TIME SLOT WHERE IT WAS STILL LIGHT OUTSIDE … I HAVE A F___ING LIGHT SHOW DUMB A__, IT’S NOT CALLED GLOW IN THE DARK FOR NO REASON SQUID BRAINS!”

Ye understands that if it weren’t for racial collaboration, hip-hop would be a lot more boring.

“If it wasn’t for race mixing there’d be no video girls. Me and most of our friends like mutts a lot. Yeah, in the hood we call ’em mutts!” ~ Kanye West told Essence Magazine in 2006.

Kanye had to put the white people who called him racist and a piece of ish on blast, because he can’t be racist. Look at the way he dresses! 

“Even if they threw me in the racist box, I have to like white people more than any rapper ever, look at my pants. Look at the people I collaborate with.” 

To drive that previous point home even more, just watch this whole video. 

“New Slaves” points out two different types of racism: Rich nigger racism and broke nigger racism. But on The Throne’s “Murder To Excellence,” Ye acknowledges that it’s time to rethink how we do things: It’s time for us to stop and re-define black power. 41 souls murdered in 50 hours” 

Yeezy likes to remind people why we do what we do.

We shine because they hate us, floss cause they degrade us. We trying to buy back our 40 acres. And for that paper, look how low we a’stoop Even if you in a Benz, you still a nigga in a coop/coupe. ~ “All Falls Down”

Then there is the whole Bush saga…

There was the “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people” comment.

Then Kanye went and explained his comments and gave this little gem of an interview. 

Years later, George Bush wrote about the comment in his book and totally spazzed out, calling it the most disgusting moment of his presidency. 9/11. Iraq. Afghanistan. The economic crash. Kanye West is still the most disgusting moment of his 8 years in office… 

Then Kanye issued an apology to George Bush and George Bush accepted it.

Add in all of Ye’s lyrics from songs like “New Day,” “Jesus Walks,” “Power,” “New Slaves,” “Black Skinheads,” and a whole bunch more, and you realize that Kanye has a lot to say on the issue of race. But when is conversation ever a bad thing?