Kanye West Compares Himself to Hitler: Really Kanye?

Kanye West has made a name for himself by being controversial. Some think it's an act, an affectation put on by the performer to get more publicity. Others think he's every bit the antagonist that he portrays himself to be. On Saturday, at England's "Big Chill" festival, West went into a tirade about his treatment, at one point comparing to how people viewed Adolf Hitler.

Godwin's Law is known on the Internet that every argument at some point will take itself into the territory of discussing Nazis, Hitler or the Holocaust. Maybe West was just playing his part for Godwin's Law. What's clear is that Kanye West, or whoever advised him to go off on that tirade in England over the weekend, has no idea how completely off-base and insensitive that comparison is. Maybe it's best if I address Kanye directly.

No Kanye, you are nothing like Adolf Hitler. You're not the mastermind behind the genocidal slaughter of millions of people. Maybe millions of people think of you as suffering a bit from "Foot in Mouth Disease." However, I'd be willing to bet copious sums of money that you are in fact not viewed as the leader of the Third Reich by just about anyone in the world.

What makes comments like yours so cruel and insensitive is that it down-plays the importance of the Holocaust in general. When things so trivial as how Kanye West is perceived by people are compared to the worst atrocity perpetrated in modern times, it dilutes the bigger message that Nazis, Hitler and The Holocaust carry with them. In order to say that those millions of innocent lives were not lost in vain, there has to be an acknowledgement that nothing is as terrible as what took place then.

I'm rather a big fan of Mel Brooks. A Jewish man who thanked Adolf Hitler in an acceptance speech for teaching him to "have a sense of humor." So I get that there can be some unforeseen bi-products of the Holocaust. However, your rant last Saturday doesn't show that you're deep or sensitive to how you are portrayed. Rather, it just demonstrates a tragic lack of perspective and abundance of ego.

Kanye, no one thinks you're as bad as Hitler. There's only been one person as bad as Hitler; his name was Adolf Hitler. People may think of you as being a loud noise that has very little substance behind it. People may be overly harsh in their criticisms of those loud noises you make. What people are not doing, I assure you, is comparing you to Adolf Hitler.