Brands have started to pull the plug on supplying famous rapper Kanye West’s products after he made anti-Semitic remarks on Oct. 8. Adidas, Gap, and Balenciaga are only some of the corporations that have dropped Kanye after his horrifying and damaging remarks against the Jewish community. From wearing a shirt displaying “White Lives Matter” at his fashion show in Paris to tweeting about going “DEFCON 3 on Jewish people,” Kanye deserves this forceful deplatforming.
However, after watching brands disassociate themselves from Kanye after his bigoted statements, it’s almost impossible not to wonder: why haven’t brands done this sooner?
Kanye is familiar with controversy. Namely, he showed devout support for Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election. Donald Trump, a figurehead for the growing alt-right and white supremacist movement, built his platform from racist rhetoric against Hispanic Americans and Black Americans. This didn’t matter to Kanye, who told his fans to stop worrying about Trump’s racism because “this world is racist, OK?” In his infamous radio interview with TMZ, Kanye claimed that 400 years of slavery “sounds like a choice.”
Kanye West has come to be recognized as anti-Black by the general public and fans alike. It’s seemingly impossible for him to go a month without saying something so outlandish and offensive that one would wonder if he even bothered to hire a publicist.
Throughout his past controversies, brands never made any notion that Kanye was stepping over a boundary or that they wanted to distance themselves from him. It was all but radio silence from the same corporations that post performative recognition for Black History Month every year. These same corporations that claimed to stand with the Black Lives Matter movement refused to risk their sales to actually combat racism.
Honestly, it should be no surprise that many corporations continue to be performative regarding social justice issues.
The only reason they’ve now removed Kanye from their brands is because his anti-semitism was the last straw. In their eyes, it was no longer excusable for Kanye West to spout racist rhetoric, mainly because he is not Jewish himself. Unfortunately, when racism is perpetuated against one’s own demographic, many people don’t take action. Washington Post Magazine writer Damon Young said, in terms of white executives reacting to anti-black sentiment, “When a Black person says things about Black people, it’s like ‘Okay, what do we do? What do we do with that?’” Corporations have no doubt recognized this pattern and have simply allowed Kanye’s racism because of it. Had Kanye never made these anti-Semitic remarks, he would likely still have most of the sponsorships he’s lost.
Where do corporations draw this line?
Corporations’ “morality” is determined by public opinion. When people finally began to give attention to important movements such as Black Lives Matter, conglomerates recognized this and wanted in on the action. Hoping to make themselves look better to the public, many made statements along the lines of, “to be silent is to be complicit.” They only made statements, often not even identifying police brutality as a problem. Many times, actual systemic change in their own work environment was nowhere to be found. Using one’s influence to bring awareness to an issue is not way useless, but for these companies with billions of dollars at their disposal, their potential influence definitely spans beyond just word of mouth.
These empty statements are only to boost the company’s image. Actions speak louder than words, and these corporations are not helping social justice movements nearly as much as they should be. Corporations that donate money likely aren’t doing anything to reduce the systematic racism that’s ingrained in their company and hurts their own employees every day. Those that pledge to increase diversity, like Adidas, fail to actually own up to their spoken commitment against racism.
Taking a stand against Kanye was definitely an important step in holding racists accountable, but big-brand companies have a long way to go before they can actually be praised for doing their part against racism.
Layla Asgarian Nahavandi is an Opinion Intern for the fall 2022 quarter. She can be reached at lasgaria@uci.edu.
