Kanye West Calls for End to Gay Bashing

Just wanted to share a "news story" that caught my eye today....

Kanye West Calls for End to Gay Bashing

AP - Kanye West says "gay" has become an antonym to hip-hop and that it needs to be stopped. During an interview for an MTV special, the 27-year-old rapper launched into a discussion about hip-hop and homosexuality while talking about "Hey Mama," a song on his upcoming album, "Late Registration."
West says that when he was young, people would call him a "mama's boy."

"And what happened was, it made me kind of homophobic, 'cause it's like I would go back and question myself," West says on the show, "All Eyes on Kanye West," set to air Thursday night (10:30 p.m. ET).
West says he changed his ways, though, when he learned one of his cousins was gay.

"It was kind of like a turning point when I was like, `Yo, this is my cousin. I love him and I've been discriminating against gays.'"

West says hip-hop was always about "speaking your mind and about breaking down barriers, but everyone in hip-hop discriminates against gay people." He adds that in slang, gay is "the opposite, the exact opposite word of hip-hop."

Kanye's message: "Not just hip-hop, but America just discriminates. And I wanna just, to come on TV and just tell my rappers, just tell my friends, `Yo, stop it.'"

West, whose debut disc "The College Dropout" won a Grammy for best rap album, will see his second record in stores on Aug. 30.

My personal opinion: I had the opportunity tonight to catch MTV VJay Sway's interview of Kanye West. The 30 minute interview covered interesting topics from his childhood growing up in a divorced home... to art school... to one question that caught him off guard.

Sway: Do you think siding with Jay [JayZ]... was disloyal and in a way of turning your back on Dame [Damon Dash] the person that discovered you?
Kanye: (after several minutes of silence and a dumbfounded look on his face) Yeah.... Yeah

Also in the interview, Kanye veryadamantlyy condemns the prevalence of homophobia in hip hop and encourages other rappers and his friends to stop the discrimination. He relates a story of how he became homophobic trying to distance himself from his 'momma's boy' image in high school, until he found out that his cousin and his friend he brought to Thanksgiving dinners was gay. Finally a celeb is not afraid to publicly take a stand.

It will be interesting to see what comes of this statement and this interview. Will othercelebritiess speak out? Will people distance themselves from his comments? Hopefully others will notdismisss these comments and take the ignorant view of Kanye's stance as a coming out of the closet. But for what it is an African American man realizing that bigotry and discrimination is pointless.

All Eyes on Kanye repeats several times this weekend on MTV . I definitely encourage you to check it out. And check out Kanye West - Late Registration (Def Jam) August 30th.