Whats Up With Kanye?

Kanye West. If you don’t know the name, you do now. A mogul in the music industry, a fashion designer, and even forming the popular shoe company Yeezy. Kanye West was born on June 8, 1977, in Atlanta Georgia. He moved at the age of three after the divorce of his parents to Chicago, where his dad worked as one of the first black photojournalists at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Kanye began producing music as a child while programming video games, which was an early passion of his. As he got older, Kanye began looking at music as a career versus a hobby.

If you are active on social media at all, you’ve probably seen Kanye all over the headlines. Kanye has been in the spotlight for a while, but over the past 5 years, he gained some traction. From releasing his album, “Donda,” to announcing that he was going to run for president in 2024, Kanye has been all over the place. Lately, though, Kanye has been experiencing a lot of backlash for very harmful incidents that have occurred. Kanye has made anti-Semitic remarks in the form of tweets, podcasts, interviews, and more. Kanye tweeted that he was going to go “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.” Following this, his Twitter account was suspended until further notice. After the backlash from Twitter, Kanye began sharing Instagram posts with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and mentioned that he believed the rapper Diddy was being controlled by the Jewish people. After both these remarks, Instagram and Twitter have both banned him with no intention of letting him have free reign of their platforms again. That isn’t all, however. Kanye then made an appearance on the Drink Champs podcast, where he spread another conspiracy theory. Kanye said that George Floyd had taken the drug Fentanyl and that a police officer’s knee wasn’t even on his neck. In response, the mother of Floyd’s daughter sued Kanye West for $250 million. In this same interview, Kanye argued that he’d been “blocked by the Jewish media.” Kanye just couldn’t get enough though, and he appeared soon after these incidents on Piers Morgan’s TalkTV show on Wednesday, October 19th. He ended up calling Morgan “a Karen” when he was challenged on his antisemitic comments. After Morgan asked him about his “death con 3” comments, Kanye stated that he did not regret these comments at all. 

After his tweets, Instagram posts, and podcast and talk show remarks, the decision has been made by most of his sponsors, most notably Adidas, Balenciaga, and Vogue to drop Kanye with no intention of working with him ever again. Funny enough, even Skechers (my grandpa wears those shoes) had their own thing going on with Kanye, as Skechers security had to escort Kanye out of their LA office when he showed up unannounced.

During Paris fashion week Kanye and Candace Owens (a conservative political commentator) wore White Lives Matter t-shirts. This was very unexpected, even after his anti-Semitic tweets. White Lives Matter is a neo-nazi group, and the trademark is owned by Ramses Ja and Quinton Ward who are two African American radio hosts from Arizona. Whether or not Kanye believes that his tweets are influential to people all over the world doesn’t matter. A few days after his anti-Semitic tweets, a white supremacist group backed Kanye and his anti-Semitic actions by putting a banner over a Los Angeles highway.

David Schwimmer, an American actor, most notably appearing on the sitcom “Friends”, posted on Instagram, “Whether or not Kanye West is mentally ill, there’s no question he is a bigot. His hate speech calls for violence against Jews. If you interpret his words any other way and defend him, guess what? You are racist.” Schwimmer continued by saying, “If we don’t call someone as influential as Kanye out for his divisive, ignorant and anti-semitic words then we are complicit. Silence is complicity.” Other celebrities including big names in the rapping industry like 50 Cent have agreed that Kanye should step out of the spotlight and try to collect himself. 50 Cent stated very succinctly that Kanye should, “try ‘shutting the f*** up.” It is important to mention that Kanye was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder in 2016, but this should not excuse him for the horrible things he has said. Even after looking at the history of Kanye’s mental health issues and previous red flags, there is no instance where any person should try to disregard the offenses and social injustices he has committed.