TV host Dr. Phil said on Wednesday that Kanye West’s recent comments about slavery being a “choice” have “empowered hate groups” and “white supremacists.”
“It does show a lack of impulse control, it shows what I would refer to as dysregulated thought. He doesn’t have a filter here. The things that he’s saying are irresponsible and ignorant,” Dr. Phil said in an interview with TMZ.
“Either this is attention-getting behavior because he’s got an album coming out or he wants to sell shoes, he’s wanting attention. Or he really has a problem pumping the break here mentally and emotionally,” Dr. Phil continued. “Either way it’s not okay because for whatever reason he does have a big pulpit, he does have a big platform. And so a lot of people are listening. A lot of people are being influenced.”
“And I’ll guarantee you he has empowered white supremacist, he has empowered hate groups with the things he saying here,” Dr. Phil said
Dr. Phil was responding to comments West made during a TMZ interview on Tuesday. “When you hear about slavery for 400 years. For 400 years?! That sounds like a choice. Like, you were there for 400 years and it’s all of you all? Like, we’re mentally in prison.”
West faced fierce backlash for his comments and later explained that he was trying to communicate the idea that people are too focused today on living in the past and are willfully keeping themselves in mental prisons of the past.
Dr. Phil, however, says West’s words “have got to be on the shortlist of the most stupid things” he’s ever heard.
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson
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