Carlos Santana stepped in it at his August 24th show at Red Rocks in Colorado with it being misguided cancer advice.
On stage as part of his “Oneness Tour,” the virtuoso guitarist gave what he probably thought was positive life advice, but maybe didn’t think the connotations all the way through.
“If you wanna make sure that in your life you never have cancer, it’s important that you remember this,” he told the crowd. “Grievances cause cancer . . . So it’s important that you let it go and forgive. Let go of that shit. Let it go, and you will be clean. I promise you, you will be clean.”
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Santana continued with a dubious anecdote, claiming, “A specialist on cancer, he said he never met anyone that had cancer that didn’t have grievances.”
That sounds awfully close to victim blaming, and Reddit users expressed their disappointment. A child with a terrifying and degrading disease doesn’t get it because of grievances to point out the obvious. Anyone who has had a close family member or relations will likely tell you that the guitarist was way out of his area of expertise with his statements.
To be fair to Santana, a lot of fans clapped and cheered at his advice, video showed, but they probably weren’t oncologists.
@stereogum