Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, has been known for controversy since his rise to fame in 2000. But over the last week, he has taken his outspoken remarks to a new level which has lead to accusations of racism and antisemitism.
At the Paris Fashion Week on October 3rd, Ye debuted a t-shirt for his fashion line which said “White Lives Matter.” This phrase has been used by white supremacists as a retaliation/response against the Black Lives Matter movement. The phrase has also been used when targeting people of color with violence.
Initially, Ye spoke with confidence in addressing backlash saying, “my one t-shirt took allllll the attention.” But the attention has not been exactly positive for his career.
On the same day as he debuted his new shirt, Ye’s account was restricted by Instagram. A spokeswoman from Meta, the company which owns Instagram, said it places restrictions on accounts that repeatedly break its rules.
Clearly, this has not been the first time Ye has been extreme on social media. But instead of taking a step back to apologize, he took his opinions to another platform: Twitter.
Early on Sunday, October 9th, he went on a Twitter rant describing his hate towards Jewish people. He tweeted that he would go “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.” According to the Anti-Defamation League, which tracks anti-Semitic behavior nationwide, there is a 34 percent rise in these incidents from 2020 to 2021. These incidents have also been linked to violence against Jewish people which only makes theses statements from Ye more serious.
Ye then, in a separate tweet, called out Mark Zuckerberg by accusing him of removing him from Instagram. In another tweet, he said “Who you think created cancel culture?”.
With a public figure such as Ye putting this type of content in the media, they are almost forced to remove his influence. Ye and his account were later locked for violating Twitter’s policies. While his account was technically “active,” the rapper/influencer was still unable to post. However, the ban was quickly lifted after billionaire Elon Musk bought Twitter on October 27th.
Elon tweeted in response to Ye’s outburst saying “Welcome back to Twitter, my friend!”
While Elon has said he had no roles in bringing Ye back to Twitter, he did give an update on the situation. “Talked to Ye today and expressed my concerns about his recent tweet, which I think he took to heart.”
While Elon has seemed to forgive Ye for his comments, the rest of the world is still on edge.
Adidas, one of the biggest clothing brands in the world, has terminated its partnership with Ye. Their deal made Ye a billionaire which began with an apparel line in 2013 and then the infamous Yeezy Boost 750 in 2015.
On October 25, 2022, the Adidas Group released a statement detailing their departure from Ye: “adidas does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech. Ye’s recent comments and actions have been unacceptable, hateful and dangerous, and they violate the company’s values of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness.
In addition to his Adidas fallout, Ye also was dropped by Gap, and then Foot Locker, who said they would immediately remove Yeezy products from their stores.
Gap shut down YeezyGap.com and Foot Locker said, “It would not be supporting any future Yeezy drops.” Both of their statements echoed the previous Adidas statement about Ye’s comments.
The final straw for Adidas came after Ye said on an October 16th podcast “I can say anti-Semitic things, and Adidas can’t drop me. Now what?” This prompted a change.org petition I set up by the Campaign Against Antisemitism which urged Adidas to end its partnership with Ye.
When they finally dropped him, the Anti Defamation League made sure to release a statement saying “In the end, Adidas’ action sends a powerful message that antisemitism & bigotry have NO place in society”.
While Ye has been dropped by other companies as well such as Balenciaga, Vogue, and JP Morgan, that hasn’t stopped people from taking his words and running with them.
There have been demonstrators giving Nazi salutes on an overpass in Los Angeles. They let a banner hang over traffic that read, “Honk if you know Kanye is right about the Jews.” There have been fliers found across the city with anti Semitic ideas and conspiracy theories about Jewish and LGBT people.
While these events are sporadic in comparison to the work that is being done to combat it, Ye still won’t be coming back to work with Adidas or Gap anytime soon.
He has however issued an apology. He said he recognizes that God did not call for him to alienate or hurt people, and he wanted “to give a sincere apology to the Jewish people.” He also admitted that, “causing people hurt is not helping.”
While apologies and self awareness are an important step in the right direction for Ye, people are still wary to be affiliated with him, especially because of his outburst earlier this year on Instagram about executives at Adidas.
Many people want Ye to get the help he needs and it seems he is at least recognizing that he could benefit from a break from the media in general.
