This post was originally published on Defender Network
By Aswad Walker
Ye, a proud “free thinker,” has proven once again that “free thinker” usually translates to “A negro who wholesale believes any and all garbage worshippers of the myth of white supremacy say.”
West is now asserting that George Floyd was not murdered by officer Derek Chauvin whose knee was planted in the neck of Floyd for over nine minutes. West is taking this position even though the coroner, the person educated to make such determinations, determined the trauma inflicted upon Floyd’s neck was without question the cause of death. West, however chooses to believe it was a Floyd drug overdose that ended the life of the former Jack Yates Lion.
And what is the “free thinking” West basing his opinion on? Science? Facts? Video evidence? Here’s Kanye in his own words.
“I watched the George Floyd documentary that Candace Owens put out,” West said. “One of the things that his two roommates said was they want a tall guy like me, and the day that he died, he said a prayer for eight minutes. They hit him with the fentanyl. If you look, the guy’s knee wasn’t even on his neck like that.”
Yes, you read that right. But for those who missed it, Kanye’s guide to truth is another “free-thinking,” anti-Black individual–Candace Owens. The same Owens who accompanied West a few weeks ago as the pair wore sweatshirts with matching “White Lives Matter” messaging.
West made his comments about Floyd while appearing on an episode of the “Drink Champs” podcast last weekend. During the show, West stated that Floyd’s death was caused by a drug overdose, rather than from the Minneapolis police officer Chauvin choking him.
The family of George Floyd is considering taking legal action against West over those comments.
Lee Merritt, the civil rights attorney who represented Floyd’s family, made a statement about West’s comments on his Twitter page, saying that the family was contemplating filing a lawsuit against the 24-time Grammy Award-winner.
“While one cannot defame the dead, the family of #GeorgeFloyd is considering suit for Kanye’s false statements about the manner of his death,” Merritt wrote. “Claiming Floyd died from fentanyl not the brutality established criminally and civilly undermines & diminishes the Floyd family’s fight.”
George Floyd’s brother, Philonise Floyd, is the one who informed Merritt about West’s comments and asked about pursuing a defamation suit against him.
Though a defamation suit isn’t legally possible because George Floyd is dead, Merritt suggested there may be other ways to achieve the same ends.
“I have put together a working team to investigate [West’s] statements and to investigate the source of those statements,” Merritt said.
According to CNN, Dr. Andrew Baker, Hennepin County’s chief medical examiner who performed Floyd’s autopsy, testified that fentanyl and heart disease were contributing factors in Floyd’s death, but they were not the direct cause.
Baker said that Floyd died because of “cardiopulmonary arrest” brought on by “law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression” by former Minneapolis police officer Chauvin. In layman’s terms, Chauvin’s knee made it impossible for Floyd to breathe, thus he choked to death. Slowly. For over nine minutes. Caught on video,
Chauvin was convicted of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in Floyd’s death. He was sentenced to 22-and-a-half-years in prison.
Kanye may or may not be able to be sued for his white nationalist-tinged “opinion” about Floyd’s cause of death. But he is guilty of sunken place-level anti-Blackness.
