Judge of Characters: We’re Not Laughing at Slavery, We’re Laughing at Kanye

Kanye West’s name has been on most of our lips throughout the last week as he slides from digital rant to in-person rant and back again. Even when you want nothing more than to avoid all that Kanye’s been spewing, it’s tough to do.

Perhaps his most damaging statement is simplifying 400 years of slavery to a choice that enslaved men and women were just far too lazy or simple-minded to opt out of. I’m sure by now you’ve seen the TMZ clip. I take it all as one big, ignorant publicity stunt to sell albums, even though I think that’s the worst idea ever.

It’s hard to explain why Kanye is on this “free thought” world tour, so I won’t continue trying to. I’m not even really here for Kanye. I am here to show appreciation to Black Twitter for taking the harmful statements he makes and flipping them into humor.

Kanye’s “slavery was a choice” moment sparked #IfSlaveryWasAChoice, and I don’t think I’ve laughed this hard at a hashtag since #NiggaNavy or #BowWowChallenge. While some people think it’s insensitive for Black Twitter to make jokes about slavery, many of us realize that we often use humor to deflect pain and that’s OK; it’s therapy, even. And let’s be real—after all this Kanye poison, we could all use a little bit of therapy. Hell, he could use it, too! This is what happens when you use the world as your therapy.