The Ls continue to stack for one Mr. Kanye West. Just over a month ago, Kanye West was one of the wealthiest Black men in the country. As a result, he thought he could do just about anything, including wearing a “White Lives Matter” shirt to Paris Fashion Week with Candace Owens.
As expected, people were not happy.
Since then, Ye has lost his billionaire status and can no longer use the “White Lives Matter” phrase on the back of his T-shirts because two Black radio hosts in Arizona have become legal owners of the phrase’s trademark. The only way the Chicago rapper can get it back is if he buys it for $1 billion.
Which is something he probably doesn’t have, thanks to Adidas dropping his ass after he made a ridiculous number of anti-Semitic comments over the past month.
CNN reported that Ramses Ja and Quinton Ward, hosts of the weekly racial justice radio show Civic Cipher, agreed to take ownership of the trademark to block anyone from profiting off the slogan, most notably Ye.
Anyone who wants to make a profit from “White Lives Matter” will have to negotiate with the duo’s attorneys and potentially face a lawsuit.
During an interview with TMZ over the weekend, the two radio station hosts said that they’re not in the market of selling the trademark, but they will consider it if someone can scrap together $1 billion.
But for Ja and Ward, the most important thing for them is to help organizations fighting for Black people’s rights in the United States. So the $1 billion would not be for their own benefit; they think they could do a lot of good for the Black community across the country with that kind of money.
During an interview with Capital B News, Ja said, “I recognize that one of two things could happen. Someone could come to our lawyer or us and say, ‘Hey, you have the exclusive right to make and sell those clothes in the United States of America. I would like to buy the trademark for millions of dollars.’’
He continued, “If we were to sell that trademark, for whatever amount of money, we could donate that money to causes that we feel would benefit Black people, like the NAACP or Black Lives Matter organizations. Because, realistically, we cannot stop the shirts from being made right now. We can write cease and desist to people selling these shirts right now, but that is a big monster that requires teams of lawyers and thousands of dollars that we do not have.”
Either way, I’m thankful that two Black men are blocking Kanye and any other racist assholes who think it’s okay to profit off a statement that is only meant to diminish the importance of protecting Black lives in this country.