KANYE WEST’S NEW ANTICS ARE CROSSING ALL BOUNDARIES
Kanye has been freaking out on social media for many years and voicing controversial thoughts, but now he’s caught up in one of the biggest scandals of his entire career. Because of his anti-Semitic statements, many world brands refused to cooperate with him.
Kanye West’s scandalous behavior may result in the rapper being completely “canceled” in show business and the fashion industry. The Balenciaga brand, which previously maintained friendly relations with the performer, now seems to be distancing itself from him and getting rid of everything that reminds of cooperation.
Adidas, which has also been cooperating with West for a long time, has already announced a decision to “reconsider the partnership” — this happened after the T-shirt scandal in Paris. The rapper in response reproached the sports brand for “stealing” the design he invented, but later, as usual, deleted the post.
After that, the public learned about Kanye’s communication style with the Adidas management. He posted a video on his YouTube channel showing footage from one of the meetings. There, the performer shows the stunned top managers of the brand a porn video on his phone, although they ask him to stop doing it. It turned out that West just saw in the plot some parallels with the relationship between himself and Adidas.
But the million-dollar question is why this didn’t happen a long time ago, given West’s history of making anti-Black statements.
Recall that the inscription on Kanye’s T-shirt that “White Lives Matter” caused a scandal: the act was criticized online, the rapper was condemned by many colleagues. The musician aggravated the situation by saying that the movement for the rights of black people Black Lives Matter is a hoax. In addition, Kanye was sued by the family of George Floyd, whose death marked the beginning of the movement: West said that Floyd died not because of police brutality, but as a result of an overdose.
In social networks, Kanye’s account was blocked after a series of posts that were perceived as anti-Semitic: in particular, the rapper accused his colleague Sean Combs, aka P. Diddy, of being supported by some “influential Jews.” After closing his accounts, Kanye said that he was “blocked by Jewish media.”
However, West insulted the Jewish community before his empire, which includes music, fashion and tennis shoes, began to crumble.
Author and Washington Post Magazine contributing writer Damon Young told CNN that the situation is a more nuanced discussion than it sometimes seems on social media.
“Because they reduce it to ‘Okay, well Kanye saying this anti-Black thing didn’t get any repercussions, but he said this antisemitic thing and he did,’” Young said. “So it, obviously, must mean that anti-Blackness didn’t move the needle, but antisemitism did. And while that may be true, I think that there were other things happening.”
Young said that companies led by predominantly white executives, for example, often have a hard time responding to anti-Вlack sentiment.
“When a Black person says things about Black people, it’s like, ‘Okay, what do we do? What do we do with that?’” he said. “It’s an easier sort of conversation and easier sort of path to consequences when you start talking about people that you’re not a part of.”
Najja K. Baptist, an assistant professor at the University of Arkansas, told CNN that West was given a lot of leeway in dealing with the black community that had rallied around him at other times in the past, such as when he said in 2005 that then-President George W. Bush “didn’t care about Вlack people.” after Hurricane Katrina and when he talked about his mental health problems.
“The reason we never really completely shut Kanye down is because we are hanging on to this essence of what he used to be,” Baptist told CNN.
Ilya Davis, a professor of philosophy at Morehouse, said that the pain and injuries of all people, regardless of which community they are part of, should be treated with love and compassion, including West, who, according to him, needs to be corrected and held accountable.
“I think that it’s very important for us to somehow include the idea of how do we express love, even in the face of contradiction,” he said. “So as contradictory as this brother may seem, we have to love him, yet rightfully so critique him and criticize him when he’s gone amok, when he’s gone off course this way.”
Davis said West “thought his class would preclude any critiques of his making anti-Jewish remarks.”
“I think he’s a victim of his own arrogance,” Davis added.
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Мain sources: CNN, The Washington Post https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/29/entertainment/kanye-west-antisemitism-anti-black/index.html
