Adidas finally ended its partnership with Ye.
That took long enough.
The Germany-based sportswear brand has had enough of the controversial rapper formally known as Kanye West and his hate speech. In a statement Tuesday, the brand announced it will no longer front West’s $4 billion sportswear and sneaker collection.
“Adidas does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech,” the company said.
The breakup, effective immediately, could mean a $246 million loss in fourth quarter revenue for Adidas, according to AdWeek. Balenciaga, the Paris-based design house, cut ties with Ye last week, J.P. Morgan Chase is on the outs, Twitter banned him, his talent agency dropped him and a documentary on his life has been shelved.
I’ve been over Ye for a minute. That’s hard for me to admit because his first three albums, especially "College Dropout," are a part of the soundtrack of my early adulthood. I was a fan of his hobo chic sportswear line. When Ye said that George Bush didn’t care about Black people, I agreed.
The truth is, however, Ye doesn’t care about Black people either. He doesn’t care about Jewish people. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself and that’s even questionable.
Ye’s self-hate runs much deeper than his recent antics which include falsely claiming George Floyd died of fentanyl and wearing a White Lives Matters T-shirt to a Paris Fashion Week show. It’s even goes deeper than his most egregious and asinine statement dating back to a 2018 TMZ interview that slavery “sounds like a choice.” (Whose choice, Ye? Certainly not the Black people snatched out of Africa, whose progeny have been denied humanity for centuries?)
Ye’s anti-Blackness — especially toward Black women — and his projection of inferiority have driven his music from jump. We — including me — excused him because his beats were tight. We laughed with Ye to the lyrics of "College Dropout’s" “The New Workout Plan” even though he suggested that Black women’s bodies were undesirable. Of course Kanye wasn’t talking about me, I thought, in his 2005 hit “Gold Digger,” I was a Black woman with a job. I ignored the very last line where he plainly says once a Black man makes it, he will leave his Black woman “for a white girl.” Not only is that not true, it furthers the perception that Black women aren’t good enough, and that Black men don’t — or worse, can’t — love Black women.
Ye was protected like that crazy uncle we knew was going to show out at the barbecue because, bless his heart, his mother died and he isn’t wrapped too tight. Even as he aligned himself with Donald Trump and Candace Owens — two of the most anti-Black, anti-woman, and antisemitic people on the planet — while he raided our pocketbooks
He probably should have been canceled long ago.
West’s lyrics and actions went unchecked, allowing his hateful attitudes to fester. Excuses for his behavior piled up, and his platform became more dangerous. So, yes. It’s time. Bye, bye Ye.
But canceling Ye isn’t enough.
We have politicians like Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who have made careers spewing the same hateful, antisemitic, anti-Black rhetoric, yet continue to be rewarded with more access to power.
Just like Ye, they showed us who they were, but we excused them. How is it even possible that the former president gets to consider a second run for office after his involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection? How is Pennsylvania entertaining the candidacy of Doug Mastriano as governor when he unapologetically touts his homophobic beliefs?
Ye may have a large platform, but politicians who spew anti-Black, anti-woman, homophobic, and antisemitic rhetoric are far more dangerous than a man who can make a fresh beat and a dope pair of sneakers. Shoes that no longer serve me can be thrown away. Policies designed to make Black and Brown people’s lives difficult are much harder to get rid of.
———
ABOUT THE WRITER
Elizabeth Wellington is a columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
———
