Preach It!

Here is a clip of the last moments of Kanye West's show at Madison Square Garden on August 5th. Among other things, Kanye does something that I've been yearning for someone in hip-hop to be man enough to do, speak out in defense of the gay community. It's not totally easy to hear what he's saying, but the jist is below... roughly translated by another blogger.

"Open your fucking minds. Open your minds. Be accepting of different people and let people be who they are. You know how many people came to me calling me gay cause I wear my jeans the fresh way? Or because I said hey, dude, how you gonna say 'fag' right in front of a gay dude's face and act like that's ok. That shit is disrespectful. Coming from Chicago, where if you saw somebody that was gay you were supposed to stay ten feet away. It should be time to break out of the instuitions that I was sayin', the stereotypes, or the fear, the backlash that I would get if you don't believe in what I believe in, acceptin' people for who they are...they're very talented and if they do something special in the world and they're discriminated. I've flown across the world y'all, and I've come back here to tell you — open your minds and live a happier life..."