Specifically, we respond to Kanye West’s words on TMZ in May 2018—

“When you hear about slavery for 400 years . . . For 400 years? That sounds like a choice.”

So, we’ve been up for the past few months trying to talk Lady Tubman down, took one of those months just to get her to stop spinning. So, thanks for that. OK. Whatever, that’s not what we came to say—really, we only have two thoughts.

To begin with—

First is, linguistically, if a thing sounds like a choice, then a thing can’t sound like slavery. Linguistically, that’s a misnomer, so, it’s like impossible. Slavery pretty much eliminates the burden of choice. Of course, it requires a number of other burdens, and it’s not a fair swap at all. We mean, Choice—and we’ve talked to her a number of times since this issue first came up and she is not at all thrilled with the comparison BTW—Choice, when we hear her, she sounds like a leisurely stroll through the fields, casually picking random tufts of cotton, sipping from a tall, thin glass of ice cold pink lemonade, humming along with the insects who dare not invade her flesh. Whereas, Slavery? *sigh* He’s a wretched one—granted, we keep our distance, but even from here, from a hundred-fifty-years-plus in the past—he’s a hunched over, limping with a dragging foot, blood-coated tips of fingers, haul through the ditches of an endless field. When we hear Slavery, he sounds like a long, wobbly hair-raising scream that trails off into an exhausted whimper.

Furthermore—

Secondly, saying, “You were there for 400 years, and it’s all of y’all. It’s like we’re mentally imprisoned.” That’s fair—mental imprisonment—fair enough—if we’re talking vampires. We mean, linguistically, the way that sentence sounds, it’s like there was a group of people, whose average lifespan was 400 years, just hanging out in an intolerable situation without any attempts at self-help. Yes, if a tribe of vampires had spent their 400 plus years on Earth in Slavery and hadn’t managed to bite their way to freedom, we’d have to wonder. We mean, we tend toward giving even vampires the benefit of the doubt and would think, perhaps some virus led to massive tooth decay or . . . We’re not even getting into the fact that we existed, for real. So, you know, attempts were made by actual human beings to escape Slavery using us . . . Oh, oh mercy, she’s up again. We’re coming, Mama Tubman. Anyway. Awesome. Looks like we’ll be up for another month of Sundays. Thanks, man.