Kanye West made a statement on October 3 at his unexpected Yeezy fashion show by wearing a black hoodie with the words “White Lives Matter.” Some fans and his colleagues in the entertainment industry were outraged, accusing him of wearing a racist outfit.
In response to the Black Lives Matter movement, founded in 2013 in the aftermath of George Zimmerman’s fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, fashion models in the rapper’s show wore clothing with the message written across it, as if oblivious to the implications of such.
Candace Owens, a right-wing commentator, posed with West, 43, dressed in a ‘White Lives Matter’ shirt, and North West, Kanye’s nine-year-old daughter, was also present.
This is West’s latest attempt to distance himself from black politics’ mainstream. West made international headlines in 2005 when he said during a telethon for Hurricane Katrina victims, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”
Kanye has since allied himself with right-wing figures such as Owens and President Donald Trump, regularly wearing a Make America Great Again baseball cap in public. In a May 2018 interview about his support for Trump, West stated that racism is not a deal-breaker for him.
Twitter users are disgusted, with some even going so far as to attack his Bipolar disorder.
West said:
“I am Ye, and everyone here knows that I am the leader.”
“You can’t manage me.”
It is not the first time Ye has incited racial tensions. In 2018, he stated that 400 years of slavery “was a decision.”
Previously, the Anti-Defamation League declared “White Lives Matter” a hate slogan. The Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist organizations have previously used this slogan to attack the Black Lives Matter movement and Black people in general.
Following the virality of the WLM shirt, the always-outspoken Boosie attacked Ye, accusing him of abandoning his race despite the historical challenges African Americans have faced. Boosie claims that Ye doesn’t care about any Black deaths at the hands of White people, but Ye has yet to explain his most recent racist stance.