Ima keep it short!
I grew up on Nick Cannon, I like his personality and have always had a great deal of admiration for his business acumen and the level of success he’s created for himself. He seems focused as well as easy going and positive. He’s tapped into the culture and has the potential to really be around forever.
But there’s another part of his persona that deals heavily with shit that I find questionable. I am invested in Black awareness and the proliferation of knowledge and consciousness— but his take on it has always been sort of half baked. He’ll rant about politics for an hour and then conclude by telling folks that he doesn’t vote and votes don’t count. I couldn’t rock with a lot of it.
I didn’t think it was anti Semitism that was going to get Nick into a world of shit but I knew it was going to be something. I’ve tuned into his esoteric outlet before and listened to him haul off into some non sensical rants and then throw a big sloppy pro blackness sticker on it. Sometimes he made some points and sometimes he didn’t. Some of the rhetoric was on par with the Black Israelites that would stand in the streets of New York raging and ranting! I didn’t buy it from them so why would I be buying it from Nick?
He recently gave me further pause when he created that beef with Eminem and then tried to stick Black Women on him to finish his fight by finding an ancient Eminem track and playing a line of at as a chorus. It didn’t end up paying off.
Those Black Israelites standing on the corner had nothing to lose but Nick does. He has a longstanding relationship with Viacom. I need to understand how he thought extending his platform off to some random noteps with fake history would serve him?
The Jewish community doesn’t fuck around. Trafficking conspiracy theories constitutes as anti Semitic to folks that don’t play about who they are as a people and where they come from. It’s that simple and it was grounds for termination.
Nick’s G rated, Nickelodeon roots may be the reason he felt so compelled to speak out these past few years, it also might be a very real reaction to the fuckery and racism he’s seen and experienced over the span of his Hollywood career. Why not just address that directly though? Because he knew what was at stake. In this instance he didn’t. I wonder about that. He allowed himself to explore thoughts and ideologies that were offensive to a group of people— but he’s subject to contracts and stipulations. AKA he got shit to lose.
Im sure this has taught Nick that he needs to be more mindful of his space and platforms. He also needs to take it upon himself to be informed and knowledgeable, all around.
Know your stakes!
