Perhaps inspired by Kiese Laymon's excellent essay, Kanye West took to Twitter yesterday to examine some of his more controversial language, particularly "bitch" and "nigga." This, of course, comes just three weeks after he released a Kim Kardashian-inspired song called "Perfect Bitch," but still, progress is progress. Here are Mr. West's tweets, in convenient paragraph form:

I usually never tweet questions but I struggle with this so here goes... Is the word BITCH acceptable? To be more specific, is it acceptable for a man to call a woman a bitch even if it's endearing? Even typing it in question form it's still feels harsh? Has hip hop conditioned us to accept this word? Do we love this word as much as we love the word NIGGA in an endearing way? correction, Here's the age old question, would we refer to our mothers as bitches? Would' we call our fathers niggers or better yet NIGGAS? If nigga is such a positive word, why do we feel so uncomfortable for white people to say it, even with a hall pass? Is it ok to use bitch as long as we put BAD in front of it? Like you a BAD BITCH. Perhaps the words BITCH and NIGGA are now neither positive or negative. They are just potent and it depends on how the are used and by whom? #FREETHOUGHT.

He also added "Stevie Wonder never had to use the word bitch to get his point across" and "I will admit that I sometimes go back an omit cursing from my records. I like to use profanity as a tool and not a crutch."

So, will Kanye change his lyrical ways? I'm going to guess no. But, it's nice he's thinking about it, and it's even nicer he's sharing his rambling contemplations with the world. Thanks, 'Ye.

[Image via AP]