Kanye West Controversy

Ye, formerly Kanye West, is a Chicago, Illinois native rapper, songwriter, producer, as well as fashion designer. He was born on June 8th, 1977, to Ray and Donda West. Throughout his musical career he has accumulated twenty-one Grammys, making him the most decorated hip hop artist in the world, as well as countless other prestigious awards totaling more than seven hundred ninety nominations and over two hundred fifty wins. More than two hundred of his songs have made it onto the Billboard Top 100. Kanye West has also helped produce over ten Billboard Top 10 songs and multiple number one albums with other artists. In November of 2013, he partnered with the clothing and shoe brand Adidas to launch his wildly successful “Yeezy” line of clothes and shoes.

But, as I am sure many of you have already heard, Kanye West has gotten himself in a lot of hot water as of late. Much of the controversy currently surrounding him stems from the things he posts on a popular social media platform, Twitter. Within the last few months Kanye has been pushing a narrative to his followers, and the public, that the media, banks, government etc. are being controlled behind the scenes by people of Jewish backgrounds. These comments were met with immediate backlash from the public. Many people called for his Twitter accounts to be terminated. Kanye West fought these requests by claiming he was only exercising his freedom of speech on the platform. With the ownership of Twitter recently being transferred from Jack Dorsey to multi-billionaire Elon Musk, freedom of expression and speech on the app has been a hotly debated topic. Kanye West only worsened the situation by later tweeting, “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.” Many of the people that disagreed with Kanye’s statements once again called for his account to be shut down. They claimed that he had threatened the Jewish people, which is not protected under the first amendment right to freedom of speech and expression.

 

It seems that Mr. West simply does not know when to stop, as he recently took things to a new level in an interview with Alex Jones on InfoWars. During this interview Kanye expressed his belief that all people should be valued and that he loves everyone. While this may seem like a step in the right direction following his many antisemitic comments, he followed up this statement by saying he loved all people including Nazis. Nazis, or the Nation Socialist German Worker’s Party, was the politcal party in control of Germany at the time of the Holocost. The holocost took place during World War II and saw the death of over six million jewish people all across war-torn Europe. In this interview Kanye tries to mitigate the severity of the atrocities committed by the Nazi soldiers and leaders. He continues to say that he even loves Adolf Hitler, the Nazi dictator of German during World War II, often considered one of the worst people to ever walk the earth. As if this was not enough to ruin what was left of Kanye West’s reputation, he posted a picture of the Jewish star of David with a swastika, the symbol used by the Nazis during World War II, shortly after the interview ended. This was the final straw for many people, including the owner of Twitter, Elon Musk. Kanye West’s account was suspended early in the morning on Friday of last week. Elon Musk made a statement that his tweets had violated the platform's terms of service by inciting violence. 

 

 

https://www.ajc.org/news/5-of-kanye-wests-antisemitic-remarks-explained

https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/nazi-party

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_and_nominations_received_by_Kanye_West

 

What do you think about the situation?

Do you think that his account should be banned?

What do you think is going through his head?

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Replies

  • I think that he deserved to be banned from the platform. Kanye West posted statements that probably hurt many people - there need to be consequences, in my opinion. I honestly have no idea what is going through his head. I just hope that he will realize soon what the did. 

  • I think that Kanye is digging himself a hole.  He has been saying things that he is going to regret. I think what he's saying is bad because of what happened during World War II.  I think his account should get banned but not permanently. I wish I knew what was going through his head.

    • I agree with you that Kanye has been continually digging himself a deeper and deeper hole with each comment he makes. As well as, the fact that he is going to regret making these horrible comments further down the line in the future. 

  • In my opinion, I think Kanye took things too far.  Kanye should think before he says anything which Kayne barely does in the first place. I think his account should be suspended but not banned because it is freedom of speech.  A temporary ban or suspension would maybe show him and others that social media is not afraid to ban celebrities. 

  • I think that he shouldn't be banned because it is not going to make him change his mind. He has said some messed up things in the past that can not be forgiven or taken back. But, he also has the freedom of speech and should be able to say what he wants. 

  • I think that Kanye has taken things too far. He is talking about very controversial stuff, and I think he needs to stop. I don't think he should be banned, but he should definetly be more careful about what he says. 

    • I completely agree with you that Kanye West has taken things way too far with his comments about jewish people as of late and needs to stop immediately if he ever wishes to have a successful career after things cool down. I agree with you that he shouldn't be permanently banned. 

  • I think that he should be banned. I say this because eventually he will realize that he shouldn't be saying things like that- obviously it will make him unpopular, but at the same time, it is just not right to say that period, no matter who you are.

  • I think that he shouldn't be banned because it's not going to change his mind at least not in the near future but he has said some messed up things that can't be forgiven. But its freedom of speech and it's not like he did anything wrong it is just not liked among people because of what happened with Hitler and WWII.

  • Celebrities are always stirring up drama on social media. I think that they should just watch what they say. Maybe even have a few people look at every post before a celeb posts it to prevent these types of things. I really just don't know what Kanye is trying to do. I think a temporary ban would show him and others that social media is not afraid to ban celebs. 

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