I’m on a roll with this rant thing, so it’s only appropriate to talk about someone famous for his own rants, Kanye West. One of the biggest names in hip-hop, West rode to the top of the charts through his acclaimed music, but is also almost just as famous for his sporadically offensive public behavior. As I write this column with a burned pinky finger from a cooking accident, I’d like to talk to you about the most recent Kanye West incident, and why I think it’s been blown way out of proportion.
    If you’re a regular reader of Facebook, Twitter or tabloid news, you likely read several statements like this in the past week or so: “Kanye West demands wheelchair-bound fans to stand up,” “Kanye West halts show and berates disabled fans,” “Kanye West doesn’t care about handicapped people.”
    These are pretty damning claims. Even though the hot wrongdoing of the month is domestic violence, any kind of negative act towards disabled people – even if it is not an act of violence – is still pretty bad publicity.  And this is especially true for a celebrity with a reputation like Kanye West.
    Let’s step back a bit and see some examples of why Kanye West has such a negative image in the public. His first big public blunder was way back in 2005, when West was a guest celebrity speaker for a Hurricane Katrina relief concert aired live on NBC. Presenting prepared speeches with other celebrities, the rapper broke from the script to claim, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” West’s microphone was immediately cut off and the camera cut away from him. He later apologized, saying he was in a moment of high emotion, but the damage was already done.
    West was also outspoken at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards, which gives some background to his 2009 incident at the awards show that would be his greatest rant of all time. But first, let’s get one thing straight: Kanye has a big ego. If there was anyone even close to reaching Bono’s ego, it’s him. Kanye West is among the greatest who have ever lived, and Kanye West deserves to win everything. At the 2007 VMAs, West lost in all five categories in which he had beem nominated. He was visibly upset after the show and said he would never attend the VMAs again. Furthermore, when talking about Britney Spears opening the awards show instead of him, the rapper said, “Maybe my skin’s not right.”
    After saying he will never attend the show again, West was in attendance at the 2009 VMAs with four nominations. Young country star Taylor Swift had just begun her acceptance speech for winning Best Female Video, when… Kanye West comes onto the stage? In one of the most egregious events in award show history, West grabs Swift’s microphone mid-speech and says, “Yo, Taylor, I’m really happy for you and I’ma let you finish. But Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time… One of the best videos of all time!” The crowd then began booing West, who promptly flipped off the crowd before leaving the stage. The video he was talking about was Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” which was also up for nomination, but lost to Swift. People thinking Kanye West’s reputation could not get any worse were flabbergasted. I understand some people have their opinions, but to have the gall to go up on stage and interrupt the winner to protest, shows absolutely no respect to your peers.
    And Kanye West’s tirades still have not stopped. Even just at the end of 2013, West described during a radio interview that it is hard for Obama to push his policies in Washington because he doesn’t have rich, Jewish connections. “That’s because [Obama] ain’t got those connections,” West said. “Black people don’t have the same level of connections as Jewish people... We don’t got family that got money like that.” West later backed off of his comments, but still said, “I thought I was giving a compliment, but if anything, it came off more ignorant. I don’t know how being told you have money is an insult,” proving that he never understood why his comment was ignorant in the first place.
    Now it’s time to come back to the most recent Kanye West situation. After all of this criticism, it would seem to be clear that I would be grabbing my pitchfork as well to torment West for being so rude to those disabled fans he insulted at his show. But you would be wrong.
    Kanye West was not insulting the wheelchair-bound fans at all, and did what he did in an attempt to make everyone a part of the show.
    I’m not saying what he did was perfectly OK, but let me tell you the real story without any tabloid twist and you can decide for yourself.
    At a recent concert in Sydney, Australia, West stopped his performance and urged everyone in the crowd to stand up. He even specifically stated that fans didn’t have to stand if, “you got a handicap pass and you get special parking and ****. I’ma see you if you ain’t standing up, believe me, I’m very good at that.” And he was right, as he continued to halt the show because only two fans were not standing. West then said, “This is the longest I’ve had to wait to do a song, unbelievable,” before sending his body guard to check if the two fans were handicapped. They were, and West then went back to the show.
    That’s it. He didn’t insult the fans for being handicapped, complain that they were ruining the show, or anything like that. It was an honest mistake that was blown up by the media and ignorant Twitter followers. Should he have sent his body guard to check if they were disabled? Of course not, but that’s Kanye. “At my concerts, I make sure everybody has as good a time as possible,” West said in a later interview. He legitimately thought the fans had the ability to stand up and wanted them to be a part of his show and enjoy themselves to the fullest extent. Was his process absolutely misguided? Yes, but thus is the curious case of Kanye West.