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Dear Kanye West

Allison Li and Ashley Lee

Dear Kanye West
a poem by Allison Li and Ashley Lee

Dear Kanye West,


We heard that you were running for president.

We saw your tweet, saw

“#2020VISION,”

saw our future crumbling to pieces,

saw the doubt and distrust in your God’s words,

saw the quilt of our nation tearing apart, thread by thread.

Here’s our 6 precedents on why we won’t vote for you.


Dear Swag King Cole,

Dear Christian Genius Billionaire Kanye West,


You hold countless names for yourself, yet the list only goes on,

“The cure for cancer,” or “the number one human being in music”,

“The greatest artist that God has ever created”

How badly do you crave attention?

It seems as if you need the world’s eyes on you to live, to breathe,

Study me closely, praise me, worship me,

God,

Drown me with your compliments

Until I am satisfied.


Dear Konman,

Dear The Louis Vitton Don,


Does basking in your own spotlight spark joy?

In your Bible, does Jesus tell you to ruin women's lives,

Does Adam whisper for you to give yourself credit because

“You made that bitch famous?”

Did King David advise you to feel bad for Bill Cosby,

You are the only image you hold in your mind,

Held to the tallest pedestal, the highest power

Power that was handed to you

by God


Dear Malcolm West,

Dear Martin Louis the King, Jr.,


When you talk, not tweet, about how your ideas are not valued, it's because

pain has no currency.

No credit card can regain thousands of lives, can amount to the tears soaked into the soil of America.

Your sheer disregard for the hurt, anger, and vengeance people feel after their

fathers’ fathers’ fathers’ fathers

are ripped from their lands to pick cotton for your 500 dollar torn shirts makes even Lady Liberty want to journey back to France.

So when you say slavery is a choice, that 400 years of people worked without pain, you are paying off the freedom song you sing.


Dear The LeBron of Rhyme,

Dear K-Rock,


When you speak for God, sing for God, you cry “Hallelujah,”

when in truth, all you are praising is the outline of a light born of riches and aesthetics.

The lyrics you chant represent barrels and mountains of hope,

but when it comes to you, we must ask permission to be in the presence of your “God”

God seems to be a business to you,

where you can trademark His love,

slap it on souvenirs and sell it in his name.

Because we all know it is easier to earn money than faith.


Dear Omari / 'Mari,

Dear Evel Kanyevel,


As Americans, we want need a strong leader. The current one has dropped his compass deep into the ocean floor.

Blindly, he reaches and claims that the south is good,

but not too far down south.

But can you, a false prophet, remagnetize that compass?

Because,

north somehow is west and Chicago is now west as well.

We need leadership where left is left and right is right and northeast doesn’t contradict with southwest.

How can we follow you when you drift from institutions that carry meaning to us and have rallied our beliefs into parties. These parties where

the champagne of democracy is served in red solo cups because you have not partaken in the democracy you want us to hand to you.


Dear Mr. West,


It’s always stories like yours that make it to the screens

It seems that the screams of the protestors and young leaders who fight

For a shift in the status quo always seem to face shellacking,

A result that you have caused,

You and your torrid moves that play politics like a game of Monopoly,

You and your “Happy Birthdays” that mortgage our citizens welfare,

So no.

You are the only one celebrating.


ye.

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