Last week, I denounced Kanye West, who formally changed his name to Ye last year, as a peddler of racism and hate after he chose to don a shirt bearing the phrase “White Lives Matter.”
This wasn’t an impulsive response. In fact, I provided a list of behaviors to demonstrate his history of anti-Blackness, which can very often denote more widespread bigotry.
As it turned out, Ye appeared on Fox News with Tucker Carlson shortly after my post published on Thursday.
Racist hatemongers in the GOP lost their minds over my post decrying Ye’s legacy of racist hatemongering. Their cries were futile attempts to dissuade me and others from correctly assessing these behaviors as hateful. But the list of white apologists, to say the least, helped make my point that Ye has allied himself with a white supremacist movement.
This is what you call pathetic. Kanye went on Tucker Carlson to speak his mind and did so eloquently.
— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) October 7, 2022
Since he spoke out against the “godless agenda” that the media is pushing, they now pull out the old “hatemonger” attack. https://t.co/EgHQdHZPVT
Fox News also joined in the hysteria with this article claiming I “attacked” Ye, which hilariously required two authors to merely regurgitate my work.
I don’t trust opinions from any of these people, especially on anything related to racism, hip-hop and Black culture.
And what do you know? Within 24 hours of their breathless tantrum, Ye himself proved me right. On Friday, he posted screenshots to Instagram of an alleged text exchange with media mogul Diddy, who is also Black. According to the screenshot, Ye suggested Diddy was being controlled by “Jews” in the media. Instagram deleted the post for violating its guidelines.
Amid backlash, Ye leaned in on the antisemitism with a Twitter post using violent rhetoric to overtly target Jewish people.
Here’s the tweet, which was removed by Twitter on Saturday for violating it guidelines against hateful conduct:
I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE The funny thing is I actually can’t be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda
As some people were quick to note, Ye’s phrase was an apparent misspelling of “Defcon,” which refers to a military defense strategy. So it’s unclear whether he was saying Jewish people should die or declaring his warlike posture toward them.
By Sunday, Fox News hosts who were all-in on the “White Lives Matter” shirt were trying to distance themselves from the antisemitic comments — even though the remarks all stem from the same conservative bigotry.
In one particularly awkward reversal, “Fox & Friends Weekend” hosts Will Cain and Pete Hegseth walked back their breathless defenses of Ye after they learned of the antisemitic tweet. Clearly, these people are accustomed to making fact-free arguments.
“Unfortunate,” Hegseth said.
“Pretty ugly,” Cain agreed, with Hegseth adding, “It’s ugly.”
Hegseth went on to argue that Ye’s interview with Carlson made him “a target” before conceding that Ye brought the target” with his tweet about Jewish people.
Fox Business Network host Maria Bartiromo tried to split hairs between the shirt controversy and the antisemitic remarks, too.
"The 'White Lives Matter' shirt, I don't have a problem with, but what is this tweet?"
— The Recount (@therecount) October 10, 2022
— Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo following Kanye's suspension from Twitter (also Insta) for tweeting about "going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE" pic.twitter.com/BKts1w2GQx
Indiana GOP Attorney General Todd Rokita evidently didn’t read the room, however. On Sunday, after West was derided for antisemitism, Rokita still reposted my post in a tweet defending West for so-called “independent thinking.” When he was dragged online, he claimed to have a record of support for Jews and Israel.
The constant hypocrisy from the media is at an all-time high. They have now gone after Kanye for his new fashion line, his independent thinking, & for having opposing thoughts from the norm of Hollywood. https://t.co/MfHBjiUDjn
— AG Todd Rokita (@AGToddRokita) October 9, 2022
All the backtracking is worthless at this point. Ye has positioned Jews as his enemy, which coincides with the racist “replacement” conspiracy theory that animates many conservatives today. Recent polling has suggested more than half of Republicans believe the white nationalist lie, which alleges rich and powerful Jews are plotting to replace white Christians with migrants and nonwhite people.
Ye is a self-styled and widely lauded spokesperson for a bigoted conservative movement. This was abundantly clear before his antisemitic comments — yet GOPers caped for him anyway.
Now, he’s echoed one of the far-right’s most vile tropes and removed any plausible deniability they thought he may have had.
If they won’t take my advice, perhaps Republicans will take advice from Ye himself and “run away fast as you can.”
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.