The Kanye controversy
If there’s anyone who’s been marred by controversy over the last few weeks, it’s been Kanye West. After sharing several hateful and racist messages, the American rapper has experienced his downfall.
It started at the Paris Fashion Week in early October when West sported a t-shirt bearing a hateful message towards the African-American community. West attempted to shrug off this controversy. His actions were met with condemnation from several activists. Wendy Osefo, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Education and political commentator, said West’s actions are“not only intellectually dishonest, it’s irresponsible and borderline dangerous”.
It didn’t stop there. A few days later, West shared posts on Instagram and Twitter promoting dangerous conspiracy theories against the Jewish community. Following these inflammatory posts, he was suspended from both platforms. A few days later, Vice shared unaired segments of an interview with West by Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson. This revealed West making even more racist and antisemitic comments that Fox edited out of the original interview.
West’s antisemitic comments were met with widespread condemnation. The Holocaust Museum invited West for a private tour, saying, “The Holocaust started with only words that sadly begat stereotypes, racial and religious tropes and blaming others and led to the murder of six million Jews. At Holocaust Museum LA it is our mission to commemorate those who are murdered, educate on the Holocaust and all genocides… and inspire a more dignified and human world.”
In the wake of West’s harmful statements, West lost virtually all of his sponsorships. Gap, Adidas, Vogue and Balenciaga ended their collaborations with West. His talent agency, Creative Artists Agency, also ended its relationship with West. Following these terminations, West lost his billionaire status, as these sponsorships were estimated to be worth about 1.5 billion dollars.
There is a very valuable lesson to be learned from this entire debacle. Hate speech is extremely dangerous and causes immense harm and suffering for the marginalized communities it targets. The backlash West’s comments received is a testament to the fact that hateful rhetoric is something that cannot be tolerated in our society today. Kanye West’s comments were irresponsible and harmful to a community that continues to experience racial violence to this day. We as a society cannot continue to allow famous people that influence many people to do these things and continue to have a platform.
By: Evan Majors