Kanye West Meets with President-elect Donald J. Trump

                    Lynnette M. Booker

Kanye West visited Trump Towers in New York City on Tuesday morning to meet with president-elect Donald J. Trump. The reason for the meeting was undisclosed, but whatever it was about must have been highly remunerative and productive; because Trump does not like his precious time being wasted. That can’t be said for West.

For West. Maybe it was just his pigment in him that caused him to make “ign’ant” decisions, like this, but the pigment in me causes me to make moral and considerate decisions . 

West may blame his lunatic behaviors on his pigment as he versed in the song “Clique,” but he can’t blame his pigment for meeting with Trump–that was just an uber act of irresponsibility.

As a black artist whose music is intended to promote cultural responsibility and awareness in the black community, especially among black men, West possibly ruined his reputation  by meeting with a man who has promoted racism and sexism, and xenophobia.

I know that I couldn’t and wouldn’t stand beside a man of his character–no matter what deal he had made.

The Worst TIME Person of The Year: Donald Trump

                      Lynnette Booker

TIME named president-elect Donald J . Trump the person of the  year. In spite of his lack of popularity, Trump had the greatest influence on the events in 2016. People protested him and people praised him for being a disagreeable demagogue. Trump upended the propriety in politics by using divisive language to shape his campaign.

By selecting Trump for person of the year, TIME editors inadvertently endorsed Trump’s egregious behaviors. Trump alienated Muslims, tagged Mexicans as rapists, promulgated the denaturalization of President Barack Obama (also known as the birther movement), labeled Black Lives Matter protesters as criminals, and erroneously discredited Secretary Hillary Clinton’s years of public and benevolent services. 

The latter should have been a reason to select Clinton for person of the year. And aside from that, the credulous voters who hung onto Trump’s every words needed to be reminded of the facts, but who would have bought that story.

But the people who went, not all, out to purchase a shinning story of hailed leader Trump: white supremacists. Trump’s taboo-defying speeches appealed to a perverse subculture that has been hidden in the shadows until recently.

Some can be described as anti-semites and white supremacists and so on, but they disguised themselves within the alt-right movement. Formally known as alternative movement, alt-right is “set of far-right ideologies, groups and individuals whose core belief is that ‘white identity’ is under attack by multicultural forces using ‘political correctness’ and ‘social justice’ to undermine white people and ‘their’ civilization,” Southern Poverty Law Center described.

Trump probably caused an irreversible paradigm shift in race relations in America. Where in an enormous part of America’s history,  white people were superior to all other races, particularly the black race. And many like-minded people would like to regain cultural, economic, and political dominance. The alt-right has a new way of doing something, but they are incentivized by the old way of thinking.