Kanye West responded to the “White Lives Matter” shirt he wore earlier this week during a nearly hour-long interview with Tucker Carlson on Thursday, telling the Fox anchor that he found the outfit “funny.”
According to Carlson, the rapper, now known as Ye, wore the shirt at his Yeezy fashion show during Paris Fashion Week on Monday, generating outrage online and among his own group.
“Someone called me last night and claimed that anyone wearing a ‘White Lives Matter’ shirt will receive approval,” West stated. That implies to be beaten.
—Marc Lamont Hill (@marcmonthill), via Twitter
3 October 2022
West told Carlson that he didn’t care what others thought of his fashion choices or political views, citing a “gut sense” for wearing the shirt.
“I do certain things based on my emotions. I just harness the energy, it just seems right, “he remarked. It requires intuition, a relationship with God, and sheer genius.
West continued his rambling speech by comparing his decision to wear the “White Lives Matter” shirt to Tonya Harding’s 1991 Triple Axel.
West also revealed to Carlson that his father, a former Black Panther, emailed him that he found the shirt amusing.
“Just a Black man stating the obvious,” West’s father told him, according to West.
West stated, “The reason I wrote “White Lives Matter” on a shirt is because it is true.” It is an evident fact.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, the statement has profoundly racist implications and has been adopted as a rallying cry by some white nationalist organisations.
West said, however, that the phrase is contentious since society seeks to “separate” the Black community.
During the conversation, West also mentioned Vogue editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson and model Gigi Hadid, who publicly lambasted West for wearing the shirt and showcasing it in his YZYSZN9 Paris fashion show.
Karefa-Johnson described West’s choices as “dangerous” due to the fact that the message “justifies enormous incarceration, mass murder, and even the beginning of slavery.”
Hadid labeled the rapper a “bully and a joke” after he publicly insulted Karefa-Johnson and her clothing in a now-deleted Instagram post.