Genius, crazy, rich, antisemitic, controversial, chaos, egocentric, attention-seeking-These are all words that swirl around the name Kanye West. They’re also words that, if we’re being honest, have swirled around many of our names too, just without the a Kardashian and seven-part documentaries made about us.
There’s something strangely egotistic in me to even have the urge I felt to even write this. Whether it’s a futile attempt to educate, or just an exercise in reflection, here I am, offering a few words on a person who seems to provoke something in nearly everyone. Ye makes it’s hard to look away.
It was earlier this week—Monday and on to Tuesday—when news surfaced again about Ye. Or Kanye. Or Yeezy. You can read the article if you want to know the details. Personally I am still digesting the interview where he’s wearing a black White Supremest hood in a hotel room talking for 58 minutes about why he’s wearing the black hood in the first place. But that’s not really the point of this.
What is the point?
Maybe it’s this: despite all the controversy, all the confusion, this man keeps creating. Music. Fashion. Art. Controversy.
And we keep buying it. After all, he didn’t get to be No.4 on the all time Hip Hop sales list by sucking at his craft. We keep listening. Some of us still remember the first time we heard Jesus Walks. For me, it was right after basic training in the summer of 2004. That song wasn’t just music—it was a a light in an otherwise dark era of music. Literally a light too, making one of his first singles be about Jesus, very light-bearing.
But being good at a craft and rich doesn’t erase trauma. Creativity doesn’t cancel out pain. Nor does fame justify erratic behavior. But what happens when you start connecting the dots?
What happens when we hear that childhood trauma shaped much of this man’s life—long before he had a platform to express it?
What does that do to a boy, growing up and figuring out what it means to be a man?
Kanye shared that he found magazines in his mom’s closet—magazines that shaped his understanding of sex, identity, and self-worth in ways that were far beyond his years. And long before the headlines, there was that little boy trying to make sense of what he saw, of all that he experienced.
We all have experiences that shaped us, for better or worse. And here’s the kicker, we didn’t get to chose those experiences or decide how they affect us.
So when we rush to label, to cancel, to condemn—what are we really doing? Are we holding someone accountable? Or are we just distancing ourselves from the parts of him that remind us of the parts we try to hide in ourselves?
After all, isn’t pornography the bane of a young man’s existence these days? Are the adults now, failing to admit to themselves their own shaping of sex, relationships, what it means to be a man?
Empathy is the bridge to forgiveness.
Not because forgiveness means agreement. But because empathy allows us to see someone as someone—not as a headline, not as a cautionary tale, but as a human being formed by the sum total of his experiences.
If you zoom in on Kanye West, you can isolate any number of choices, some of which are difficult to defend. But if someone zoomed in on your worst moment—your ugliest thought—what would they find?
This isn’t a defense of bad behavior. It’s a reflection on how quick we are to misjudge when we don’t know the whole story.
In C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce there is a man Len, a spirit who was a murderer in life, but now reconciled with God and is in Heaven. Another man, the Big Ghost believes he is a “good man” despite evidence that he was not. the Big Ghost character would be that of a man today, maybe you who demand’s recognition for being good, for doing right. Meanwhile that man, the character Big Ghost fails to repent and rejects heaven in the process. Yes, the murder remained in Heaven.
Christ flipped the typical human narrative of what appears to be good may not be, and what appears to be distant or far from God may be the closest. Like Mr. West who has many faults, we too can choose to be the Big Ghost and cling to our own “goodness” and fail to relate to someone who is easy to categorize as a “bad” one.
No person is defined by a single act—good or bad. If we believe otherwise, then we’re condemning ourselves every time we fail. We’re erasing nuance, context, and the messy truth that people are often doing the best they can with what they’ve got.
To live with grace is to recognize that. It’s to understand that every decision is filtered through a complex web of history, beliefs, trauma, and identity. It’s not about excusing—but about seeing.
And maybe that’s what Kanye, in all his chaotic truth, mirrors back to us. Maybe that’s why his story unnerves us. Because in his rawness, we’re forced to look at our own contradictions. Our own judgments. Our own worst parts. And if we’re honest, maybe they’re not as far from his as we’d like to believe.
So the next time you’re tempted to judge—pause. Ask yourself this-is this about what they did, or what it stirred in me? Is this really about them—or is it about my own discomfort?
Because the truth is, we all carry things that others wouldn’t understand. And we all hope—deep down—for grace when we least deserve it.
From Where I Stand 
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