We don’t often find ourselves on the side of Kanye West. But the rapper strikes us as the wronged party with regard to the $250,000 he’s agreed to pay out to a young man whom he slugged.
It all started in mid-January, when West’s fiancée, Kim Kardashian, was trying to flee from paparazzi in Beverly Hills. An 18-year-old man initially came to her aid. But after he dropped a number of racial slurs to describe the photographers, Kardashian asked him to refrain from such language.
At which point, according to TMZ, he reportedly said, “F- - k you, b- - -h . . . Shut up [N-word]-lover.” When Kardashian then called West to tell him what happened, the man again dropped the N-word so West could hear. West then caught up with the man outside a chiropractor’s waiting room and gave him a walloping.
Now, with an ego the size of Mount Rushmore, Kanye West has a history of public boorishness himself — from insulting President George W. Bush during a Hurricane Katrina charity event to upstaging Taylor Swift during an awards ceremony. But it’s hard to blame him for this one.
We’re not saying people should go around hitting others. But we do note that what Kanye West administered to this young man is exactly the rough justice gentlemen for centuries have meted out to those who have insulted women. But back in the day, the lout would not be rewarded for his bad behavior with $250 grand.
Yes, we know: These days, the proper course of action is to have the guy charged with a hate crime. But it still strikes us that sometimes a good punch in the nose is exactly the justice that’s called for.