Content Warning: This article contains discussions concerning racism and antisemitism
Past
It’s no secret that Kanye West is problematic. In the past he’s pushed himself into the political sphere, supported controversial figures such as Donald Trump and convicted rapist Bill Cosby, and even gone so far as to claim that slavery seemed like a choice. However, in the past few weeks he has caught a particularly large amount of media attention, beginning in early October when West made models wear ‘white lives matter’ t-shirts down the runway in Paris Fashion Week all because he thought it would be ‘funny’. However, things took an even worse turn when West posted screenshots between himself as Sean Combs (who hit back at Kanye about the WLM incident), in which Kanye began making claims that Combs is being ‘controlled’ by Jewish people. He was subsequently banned from Instagram.
Kanye’s further antisemitism came to light via threatening comments toward the Jewish community, going to twitter (no surprise there) to state that ‘when I wake up, I’m going death con 3 on Jewish people’. His twitter has since been banned alongside his Instagram. When asked by Piers Morgan if he regretted his comments, Kanye merely responded saying ‘Absolutely not’.
Kanye then went on to continue his rant on the hip-hop community podcast Drink Champs (which has since been taken down), where he began spreading false information about the death of George Floyd, stating that rather than from police brutality Floyd was killed by due to a Fentanyl overdose.
In addition, CNN have reported that Mr West has an alleged history of admiration and ‘obsession’ with Hitler according to a former executive who worked with him – West would allegedly discuss the ‘great things’ the Nazi party did for Germany and even went so far as to proposing the idea of naming his 2018 album ‘Ye’ after Hitler (speculation).
Soon after these appalling series of events, Kanye’s corporate clients have been seen dropping like flies. His talent agencies, Vogue and even his own lawyer have since severed ties with West, alongside Footlocker and Gap who have begun removing Yeezy merchandise from their stores to prevent further affiliation with the artist. However, the most prominent loss for West has been Adidas terminating its partnership with him affective immediately. As a main source of income for the artist, he has subsequently hit a loss of $1.5 billion from his net worth – ouch!
Present
Despite West having now faced many of the consequences of his actions, his music career will probably still remain, he will continue to have a large fan base and remain to be the one of the most listened to artists in the world – in fact there has actually been an increase in streams on Spotify this week (2nd Nov) compared to last.
Unfortunately, the damage West has caused is irreversible. The issue of antisemitism didn’t start and end with Kanye West but has been a very real battle for Jewish people for years – and the implications of his actions has ignited further antisemitic sentiments in the form of protests from the antisemitic hate group Goyim Defence League, in which banners were hung from the 405 freeway in LA reading ‘Kanye is right about the Jews’ whilst using Nazi salutes signs. This demonstration was only one of many other incidents including the passing of fliers and spewing of racist rhetoric about Jewish and LGBTQ people. His actions in the past month have not only been reflection of his own personal ideologies, but also the dangerous repercussions of social media and the ability for one person with a platform to influence and ignite hate.
Future
The question we must ask is – how can we allow a controversial and quite frankly racist, threatening, antisemitic figure such as Kanye West to continue to have an influencing platform? The repercussions of his actions will not only provoke already harboured hatred from antisemitic hate groups but may go on to influence many others who look up to the artist. As a musician and influencer who has survived controversy for almost two decades, enough is enough.