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TMZ Staffer Calls Out Kanye West to His Face for Suggesting Slavery Was a ‘Choice’

“I think what you’re doing right now is actually the absence of thought,” Van Lathan said to the rapper’s face.

Kanye West on Tuesday was confronted in-person by a TMZ reporter over his comments that “You hear about slavery for 400 years. For 400 years? That sound like a choice.” After the rapper ranted at the TMZ Live crew about how he is now “feeling free and thinking free,” reporter Van Lathan boldly stood up and said: “I think what you’re doing right now is actually the absence of thought.” He told the rapper that his recent pivot towards right-wing rhetoric has “real-life, real-world consequence.” Lathan continued, saying, “While you are making music and being an artist and living the life that you’ve earned by being a genius, the rest of us in society have to deal with these threats to our lives. We have to deal with the marginalization that has come from the 400 years of slavery that you said for our people was a choice.” He finished off the confrontation by telling West: “Frankly I’m disappointed, I’m appalled and brother—I’m unbelievably hurt by the fact that you have morphed into something, to me, that's not real.” West then approached him, saying that he was “sorry” he hurt him, to which Lathan replied: “Bro, you gotta be responsible man… Your voice is too big.”

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