On Saturday, October 12, 2019, many Howard students woke up to the beautiful voices of a choir singing that was heard all the way from the yard to East and West Towers, an upperclassmen dorm on campus. Other like me got the message of Kanye West showing up to campus through the students emails or word of mouth through their friends. Thankfully, I woke up just in time to see enough of the “Sunday Service” and captured a lot of great footage to look back on. I met up with my friends on the way and in the audience to share the wonderful experience together. Although Kanye is a greatly appreciated artist despite his Twitter rants, not everyone was happy to see or hear that he would be on campus. 

From Alumni, to faculty and students, there were conversations and “think pieces” given on whether or not he should have been there and why it wasn’t okay for the university to bring him here, and for Howard students to willingly attend. 

If you’re not intelligent enough to recognize that Kanye West is exploiting Black Christian culture AND Howard University to rebrand from supporting a racist, xenophobic con artist… please stay away from me.

— Ammon (@AmmonLyle) October 12, 2019

    For me, the celebration he does quite often is way bigger than him. Being in the audience, I could feel, hear, and see exactly what he’s trying to do with these services he does every now and then. It’s not even really about him or the ideas he might have and the things he’s said. It’s about bringing people together through good music, while sharing the love of God and the love we should all have for each other. I felt every single word of that as I stood in the crowd at 8:30 am that morning. It was something I believe everyone should experience no matter how you feel about Kanye West or his family. 

   Forgiveness was a big topic and issue this weekend as Howard students felt that others were wrong for attending and should not have entertained his presence on campus. I’ll go back in saying that this entire thing is BIGGER THAN HIM and is all about LOVE, GROWING, AND GOD. All of it. Doesn’t mean you have to or are forced to believe in a certain religion, you just need to learn to love one another and quit pretending like you’re a perfect human who has never said or did anything that wasn’t smart. Just because you’re in the spotlight does not mean that you don’t get the same opportunity to be a person and mess up sometimes. If everyone can take themselves out of the situation for once and stop making it about them, we could get somewhere.