I know that I need to update about where I've been the last couple of weeks, and I will, but there's something I would normally give three seconds of thought too that has been sitting with me. I find it cringe-worthy to be about to write more about this person, but I am feeling the need. As those of you who keep an eye on entertainment news already know, Kanye West had a concert recently. For those of you who don't already know to what I am referring, at this concert, Kanye demanded that every single person in the audience get on his or her feet. (Already obnoxious... these concert-goers are basically paying his salary, they should be able to sit or stand as they please). He then stopped his show entirely because he saw two people in the audience who remained sitting. It turns out that both of those two people were handicapped and that is why they did not stand. One person had a prosthetic leg and the other was confined to a wheelchair. Kanye then had his security go VERIFY with the person in the wheelchair that the person had proof of disability. First, I don't even know what that is. A wheelchair seems like pretty good proof to me. Second, he has already embarrassed these two people who paid money to go to his concert. And third, and this is what gets me, what would Kanye have done if there was someone there who had a disability or handicap or injury that WASN'T readily apparent to the eye? What if someone was in the early stages of pregnancy and feeling dizzy? Or recovering from knee surgery but off of crutches? What if this was a hemophiliac who didn't want to get too jostled by the crowd? Or, because this blog is all about me, had endometriosis. It didn't click with me how absurd this stunt was until I thought about if I had been in attendance at that concert.
I have endometriosis. That is not something that is easy to see. What if at the moment that Kanye decided to stop his show I was sitting because standing had become uncomfortable? Now, granted, I am fully capable of standing up long enough to appease his ego, but that's where the arrogance of this man and those who surround him finally kicked in inside my brain. My medical diagnosis is my own. It is private and I can share with whomever I am comfortable sharing. There are many more diseases than I could name that could be classified as a disability and yet leave a person pretty functional. What got me was that he said he wanted PROOF and he literally would not start the concert again until someone from his security team was standing next to the person in a wheelchair to confirm he or she was, in fact, handicapped. This is without even touching on the subject that people with the same condition may self-identify differently. One person may have handicapped license plates while the other refuses to call themselves handicapped. The audacity at this point is beyond the power of speech to convey. I do not travel routinely with my medical records. And I do not share personal details with crowds of thousands of people, nor with self-absorbed hip-hop stars. So what, then, was the endgame? Would I have been escorted out of the building even though I paid for the concert? Would Kanye have refused to play for the rest of the night? It is hard to imagine.
REALLY???
The next night, Kanye apparently refused to apologize for this whole debacle and stated that he "has a family and is a Christian man." That silence you are hearing is my lack of reply to such a nonsensical statement in the context of this incident. What worries me though is that Kanye West does not feel bad. He does not have anyone holding him accountable for his actions and he is incredibly uneducated about other people's handicaps, disabilities, etc. I am not going to link to the video of Kanye doing this because I do not want to give him publicity... it's as good as money. What I will do is link to an incredible article I saw on CNN which was well thought-out and states so concisely what the problem is with this whole situation. This article is titled Kanye West and proving your disabilities. I very much encourage you to read it. It is incredibly insightful and was fun for me to read after I had already written most of this post.
I normally make my choices about celebrities or athletes or entertainers my own. I can choose whether to support what a team or individual represents. I have seen people have every type of opinion when it comes to entertainers/athletes getting DUIs, abusing women/children/animals, arrested, shot, and the list goes on and on. I primarily choose whether I will continue to support that person/team/movie, etc. and move one because it is not worth my time to argue with anyone else about what society deems a personal decision. (I have my thoughts on how sad it is to read the list of excuses the public will give to someone who has just murdered a child, or abused a living thing, or whatever, but since I cannot accept certain rationales as at all intelligent, I have chosen to not support whatever I feel has failed my "morals standard". My point, essentially, is that I know there are other problems and issues with other "celebrities" and I am just choosing not to write about them because they didn't sit with me like this one did. Doesn't mean that they are not just as bad, if not worse.) Here, though, is an entertainer who is essentially bullying, in front of thousands of other people inclined to a possible groupthink scenario, a person into admitting they have a handicap. That is so publicly not okay. And this is so not okay publicly. I am constantly trying to think of ways to promote awareness and I find that Mr. West illustrates the need for a more pervasive awareness about invisible disabilities. If you can think of a way to show Kanye West that his behavior is not acceptable (a possibly impossible task), I strongly encourage you to do so. Until then, I will settle for passing on either this blog or the CNN article to spread awareness.
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