Along with canceling musician and entrepreneur Kanye West for his antisemitic messages, we need to cancel him for his anti-Blackness. The question is, why was he not canceled sooner considering the multitude of anti-Black statements he made during that same time period? 

For reference, here is just a brief timeline that covers his overt anti-blackness:

In 2013, he sold merchandise featuring a Confederate flag on his Yeezus tour, a shock-value antic that promotes the normalization of anti-Black hate symbols.

In 2015, in an interview with Clique TV, West expressed, “Racism is a dated concept. It’s like a silly concept that people try to touch on to either … to separate, to alienate, to pinpoint anything. It’s stupid.”

In 2018, he denied the atrocities of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, claiming that slavery was a choice; “When you hear about slavery for 400 years … for 400 years? That sounds like a choice,” said West in an interview with TMZ.

That same year, he met with Donald Trump in a MAGA hat; “There was something about putting this hat on that made me feel like Superman,” West said, declaring that the former President was on a “hero’s journey.”

He praised Candance Owens for saying that Black Lives Matters supporters were “pretending to be oppressed for attention.”

In 2020, he went on an anti-abortion rant, spreading misinformation about abortion and Black women on Nick Canon’s podcast.

Not too long after that year in mid-October, West suggested that a fentanyl overdose killed George Floyd as opposed to the proven homicide due to “cardiopulmonary arrest” from law enforcement.

These are just a few examples, and West refused to apologize for all but one.

Many people noticed the problem with continuing to support West after all that he had said about the Black community; Journalist Ernest Owens recently tweeted, “FACT: Before Kanye West was ‘the face of Anti-Semitism,’ he was one of the hip-hop faces of misogynoir, anti-Blackness, Trumpism, and slavery-denial.” He finished, “And y’all still gave him contracts, documentaries, endorsements, clothing deals, and millions that became billions. Shame.”

West’s statements against Black people have never prompted the corporate backlash that his antisemitic comments have. “Wish being anti-Black held this much weight,” Scottie Beam posted on Twitter.

At his Yeezy Paris Fashion Week show on Oct. 3 he wore a “White Lives Matter” shirt, a phrase adopted by neo-Nazi and White supremacist groups in response to the Black Lives Matter movement.

On Twitter, he threatened to go “death con 3 on Jewish people”, a reference to U.S. defense protocol, DEFCON.

He had read “Mein Kampf”, Adolf Hitler’s 1925 autobiographical manifesto, and demonstrated admiration for Hitler’s skill in propaganda; a business executive who worked with Kanye claimed that West frequently had employees sign NDAs so they would not expose his pro-Nazi rants.

West, most recently, was suspended from Twitter for posting a Swastika on his page.

He also had dinner with former president Donald Trump and White nationalist and antisemite, Nick Fuentes.

These are just a few examples of West’s blatant antisemitism.

West says he’s “absolutely not” sorry for his antisemitic remarks and is paying the price for it.

Several companies including Adidas, GAP, and Balenciaga have severed ties with the rapper. West has lost his billionaire status due to the dropped brand deals. Instagram and Twitter restricted his accounts. He faced a decline in radio play; West’s daily spins declined by 21.1% and his average daily radio audience fell by 21.4%. Donda Academy was removed from the Scholastic Play-By-Play Classics basketball tournament. His wax figure was removed from Madame Tussauds London from the main stage into the archive. He has faced plenty of other forms of consequence throughout the weeks.

And it was all wholly justified; West deserves each and every consequence coming his way.

However, West has had a long history of promoting his internal self-hatred, manifesting it through different forms of anti-Blackness. Why was that not also a red flag for Adidas?

We need to pay closer attention to these companies and what they say about Kanye. According to Stacy Lee Kong, “After all, decrying antisemitism, offering sensitivity training, and saying they won’t tolerate racism is a good first step, but we should also think critically about why they are making those decisions.” She continued, “What inspired them to speak out now, what are their true motivations, and do they hold everyone to the same standard? Or put even more bluntly: would they denounce bigotry in this way if they couldn’t do it publicly and for praise?”

We need to handle antisemitism and antiblackness to the same weight, denouncing hatred toward both groups alike.

Historically, Black and Jewish people have worked together during the Civil Rights Movement to fend off White supremacy. American Jewish people played a significant role in the founding and funding of civil rights organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. 

Additionally, Jewish people made up approximately half of the young people who participated in the Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched arm-in-arm with Dr. King in his 1965 March on Selma.

In fact, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were drafted in the conference room of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, according to RAC. We need to remember the ways in which both communities have passed the baton to each other in the race against oppression. Hate threatens the progression of both groups, and it is only when we come together to fight for one another that we will see true progress.

In the words of Fannie Lou Hamer, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.” So, let’s work together to combat antisemitism and anti-Blackness.