Cancel culture isn’t real, but that isn’t stopping Kanye West from feeling the consequences of his recent actions in real time. They say life comes at you fast; Kanye, who challenged established institutions to silence him after making antisemitic remarks and disparaging George Floyd, is finding out just how fast.
In the past few weeks, he’s his bank accounts closed by JP Morgan, his social media accounts banned by Twitter and Instagram, and losing his lucrative partnerships with Balenciaga, Vogue, CAA, and most recently, Adidas, Gap, with which West said he ended his partnership over contract disputes before all this started, says that it’s “taking immediate steps” to remove Yeezy Gap products from its stores.
In a statement, Gap representatives wrote, “Our former partner’s recent remarks and behavior further underscore why we are taking immediate steps to remove Yeezy Gap product from our stores and we have shut down [the Yeezy Gap site]. Antisemitism, racism, and hate in any form are inexcusable and not tolerated in accordance with our values. On behalf of our customers, employees, and shareholders, we are partnering with organizations that combat hate and discrimination.”
While Ye maintains that he doesn’t believe his statements were antisemitic at all, the sad truth remains that theories like the ones he’s parroted in recent interviews and online have been used to justify hate and violence against Jewish people, and we’ve already seen signs that his words have motivated hate groups. Basically, he should be deplatformed and arguably, should have been four years ago when Zack Fox predicted this eventual turn of events (because, let’s face it, that train is never late).
Of course, he’ll be just fine despite not being a billionaire anymore (I’ll take $400 million any day of the week, thanks), and he’ll probably use this to justify some of his conspiratorial talking points but on the bright side, he’ll soon be the tree that falls in the forest with no one around to hear it.