Kanye’s Heil Hitler Song Fires Up Conservatives and Infuriates Everyone Else

Recently, Kanye West released his track “Heil Hitler”, and it has the country fighting. In the song, Kanye declares that “all of my niggas are Nazis.” For clarity, the Nazis are the ones who killed over 6 million Jewish people during the 1930s and 1940s. Some are disgusted by the song, while others argue it’s just a song. Either way, club owners are apologizing for the song, and influencers are being dragged online. So, what’s the song really about, and what’s the problem?

Kanye’s Grievances

At the beginning of the song, Kanye’s heavily autotuned voice cries,“Man, these people took my kids from me. Then they crushed my bank account. I got so much anger in me. Got no way to take it out.” He doesn’t specify who “these people” are or if “they” are the same people who “crushed” his bank account. He basically says, “I’m a dad, and someone has kept my kids from me. Someone also caused me financial harm.”

Alone or together, those are hurtful situations for any man to face, and Kanye knows this. It is a pathos, emotional, way of arguing to bypass the defenses of the listener. By stating these things first, he primes the listener to accept his later reaction as justified. His was reaction was to “become” a Nazi or at least embrace the implications of the label.

Kanye says, “Niggas see my Twitter, but they don’t see how I be feeling. So, I became a Nazi. Bitch, I’m the villain.” Here, Kanye flips the script, making himself a victim who’s been painted as a villain. He’s saying, “I might as well be what you called me.” On a nuanced level, he isn’t calling himself a Nazi. He’s calling himself a person who’s been called a Nazi, a person exhausted so much by the misrepresentation that he embraces it defiantly. On a grander scale, he’s saying all Black men (“all my niggas”) he knows are “Nazi’s” (“bad guys”) in the eyes of America. Taking a step back, if this is his point, is it not true? What does history tell us?

Strange Fruit and Black Bodies

Up until the 1950s, you could check your newspaper for local lynchings of Black people. The ad told you to “bring your family, some snacks and a blanket.” And when you showed up, dozens or hundreds of others were there as well. Together, you, your kids, spouse and other families watched wide-eyed as a Black man was lynched and burned. You reveled in the smell of singed human flesh and elbowed others to pack your satchel with bones, skin, teeth and other body parts. That was decades ago, but the attack on the Black male identity has only intensified.

In 2013, George Zimmerman was found not guilty after killing a 17-year old boy. After beating the case, Zimmerman mocked the family and sold the gun. His actions after the case didn’t show a regretful man who had sadly acted out of self-defense. They showed a psychotic racist who had gotten away with murdering an unarmed boy. It showed a system that acted the way it was designed to.

In a stand your ground defense, it typically doesn’t cover stalking a person. It was revealed that Zimmerman had called 9-1-1 call to report Trayvon as “suspicious.” He was explicitly warned not to “follow” Trayvon. The moment he did, he lost all claims to self-defense. A person can’t create the danger and then claim self-defense. But to a jury, the Black boy eating Skittles is a bigger threat than an armed adult male following him. Because of that, Trayvon was on trial not Zimmerman. With this in mind, Kanye’s song is a nuanced piece because Black atrocities have been entertainment for others.

Nazi Germany was not a joke for Jewish people, and neither was any America before 1965 for Black people. That might still be the case. Still, during World War II, Black men fought beside the rest of the world to end Hitler’s Germany. At the same time, some Jewish actors like Moe Howard of The Three Stooges was wearing blackface and participating in mock lynchings. Why was the torture of Black people so readily accepted and promoted by some within an equally-oppressed group? Where is the empathy? Is there none because Black people are viewed as “the bad guy” or “Nazi”? What would Emmett Till‘s mother have to say? If Trayvon Martin himself could answer that question, what would he say?

The Takeaway

Kanye’s song is a comment on how Black men are misjudged and leans into the bad guy label, but it misses its mark. Any man who’s experienced what Kanye claims about his kids understands Kanye’s anger. They’ve felt it before, and maybe they’ve embraced the bad guy persona in the past. But they didn’t crawl into Nazism. They didn’t kneel for a weak, murderous regime that sterilized people who looked like them and barbarically murdered millions of Jewish people.

Most men would agree that they don’t like people messing with their bank accounts, but they wouldn’t say, “Heil Hitler.” They wouldn’t put on a white hood and burn a cross, not that Kanye has. As Kanye did, they would vent but with names not identities, religious or otherwise.

FOLLOW the author Jermaine Reed, MFA for his controversial but real hot takes.