When I was 16, I became obsessed with graduating from high school and going to college. This obsession was caused for some obvious reasons. A desire to lift myself from poverty, and of course as an escape from my environment (I grew up in East New York Brooklyn) but that was only half of the reasons I worked so hard. 16-year-old Stanley thought that if he could make it to college and graduate, he would then be able to surround himself with white people. To be surrounded and embraced by white people meant that I made it.

I grew up in a neighborhood that was ridden with drugs, poverty, violence, and suffering. It was also the only example I had for what black spaces should look like. I wanted nothing to do with that and was determined to leave it for something better. At the time, “better” meant white.

Everything I knew and had seen about white people and whiteness was pristine. Beautiful suburbs, a passion for education and history, strength, compassion, and love. The college would be my audition for that world and those people. From 16–24 I did everything in my power to be accepted by white people and embraced by white spaces. That embrace would mean that I arrived. All I had to do was be the best negro ever while embracing everything that defined whiteness, and rejecting all things associated with blackness. I took this mission so seriously, I stopped eating fried chicken, and disavow the community I few up in as a “hell hole.”

Then Trayvon was murdered, and my universe, along with that plantation thinking began to fall apart. It didn’t happen all at once, but I eventually realized that white acceptance was bullshit and didn’t mean shit. Stanley today, is in a constant pursuit to learn about and love his blackness. When I was still sunken, there were people that encouraged or pushed back on my pursuit to be embraced by white people and white culture. But when I finally got my shit together, it wasn’t because someone made me, it was my choice.

As Kanye continues to show his ass, by coming out in support of Trump and showing off his MAGA hat, people have begun to theorize on what changed in this once unapologetically black man. Some people blame mental health; that’s a lazy excuse and disrespects people dealing with all kinds of mental health issues. Kanye may have mental health and addiction issues, but people with bipolar disorder or anxiety don’t have a preference for nazi loving presidents.

Another set of people blame the Kardashians, specifically Kim. Let me be clear, Kim Kardashian is a trash culture vulture, she and her family have made a fortune by stealing from black, gay, and trans women, of color. And her greatest skill is the ability to weaponize her whiteness, but this ain’t her fault. Kanye, like most black people is suffering from post-traumatic slave syndrome. 

We all find our ways through it, sometimes we don’t. He didn’t, and he did that on his own. If you think about Kanye’s behavior over the last five years, it becomes clearer that he doesn’t really f*** with us. He’s deathly silent on social issues; the only time he talks to us is when he has an album coming out or a new pair of Yeezy’s. He criticizes our communities for our “love of consumerism” then sells plain white tee’s for hundreds of dollars. Pricing out the poor and low-income people that supported him from day one.

Kim is not the cause of this, she is a trophy, his symbol of the white embrace. The truth is, Kanye has always desired the approval from white people and white institutions, whether it be by his desire to be acknowledged by white fashion designers, or his temper tantrums when white-run media outlets denied him accolades. Kanye has always aspired to be acknowledged by and celebrated by colonizers because white acknowledgment to him, just as it was to me (and sometimes still does) equates to success.