Boy, Bye! Kanye West Pulls Another Dumbass Stunt, Wears "White Lives Matter" Shirt At Yeezy Show [UPDATED]

The rapper's latest move continues to prove how he invokes anti-Blackness to get attention.

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Image for article titled Boy, Bye! Kanye West Pulls Another Dumbass Stunt, Wears "White Lives Matter" Shirt At Yeezy Show [UPDATED]
Photo: Kanye West

Updated Tuesday, October 4th, 2022, at 10:00 a.m.

Ye took to Instagram Tuesday morning to share his thoughts on the reverberating backlash from his White Lives Matter t-shirt debacle by stating: “Everyone knows that/Black Lives Matter was a scam/Now it’s over/You’re welcome.”

At his surprise Yeezy show in Paris on Monday, Kanye West stunned audience members by wearing a shirt that had the words “WHITE LIVES MATTER” in capital letters across the back. The artist, who now legally goes by Ye, also had his models sport the shirt as well.

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As if that wasn’t enough, notorious right-wing political commentator Candace Owens showed up to sport her own version of the t-shirt beside West.

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Following a very public fallout with the Gap—as well as an asinine call to boycott Adidas—West debuted his highly anticipated Season 9 Yeezy collection during the Paris pop-up. However, his latest stunt reiterates how the rapper relies on race to cause controversy. Not only is it predictable, but it’s become downright pathetic.

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It wasn’t that long ago that West used race as a weapon against his ex-wife, Kim Kardashian, when it comes to how the former couple decided to co-parent. In reference to the entire Kardashian family, West stated that “they play like that with Black men’s lives” and he wasn’t “playing about [his] Black children anymore.”

Clearly, it was a ploy to get public sympathy as the star had no problem enabling the famous family when it came to cultural appropriating and even famously featured Kim in his videos. When it comes to the intersection of race and politics, West has consistently made dumbass decisions.

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Whether it was slapping the confederate flag on his “Yeezus” tour merchandise back in 2013, endorsing Trump (he even wore a MAGA hat) and notoriously saying that slavery was a choice, he knows that discussing race—even when it is anti-Black—will cause him to become the topic of mainstream conversation.

Following his recent confession that he doesn’t read books, however, Black folks know not to take Ye seriously. However, it can’t negate the influence his words and actions still have in a culture that thrives off of the disenfranchisment of Black people.