Following Kanye West’s surprise Yeezy fashion show in Paris on Monday that featured “White Lives Matter” messaging, the rapper got into it with Vogue fashion editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson who called the event traumatic.
The Vogue editor enraged West Monday when she stated that she was deeply troubled by his show.
“I’m fuming … collecting my thoughts,” she wrote, according to the Daily Mail, calling West’s actions “indefensible behavior.”
She also wrote that she was among those attending the event who “suffered in that room” and was working through the “trauma” of the experience. Karefa-Johnson said the t-shirts were “deeply offensive, violent and dangerous.”
(Video Credit: The Daily Mail)
“I guess I get what he tried to do– he thought it was Duchampian. It wasn’t,” Karefa-Johnson wrote on Instagram. “It didn’t land and it was deeply offensive, violent, and dangerous.”
“There is no excuse, there is no art here,” she said viciously attacking West. “I do think if you asked Kanye, he’d say there was art, and revolution, and all of the things in that t-shirt. There isn’t.”
The fashion editor went on to say, “What I feel is that he is not fully aware of the difference between appropriating BLM and subverting the ‘Make America Great Again’ hat. Although I disagree with his thesis there.”
“I understand his idea that the hat was readymade. And it’s value was intrinsic to context—signature of the artist. When worn by [Trump] it’s racist, when [worn] by Kanye it’s about liberation,” Karefa-Johnson continued, according to Newsweek.
Kanye West posted this on his Instagram story: “Everyone knows that Black Lives Matter was a scam. Now it’s over. You’re welcome.” pic.twitter.com/tmSx3H06zL
— An0maly (@LegendaryEnergy) October 4, 2022
“He neglected to realize the importance of object when he tried to extend that kind of subversion to the BLM slogan,” Karefa-Johnson wrote. “One is object, one is ethos.”
“I know what he was trying to do. He was trying to illustrate a dystopian world in the future when whiteness might become extinct or at least would be in enough danger to demand defense,” she posted. “The danger is that, this very premise, the idea that white supremacy is in danger of extinction [is] what justifies mass incarceration, murder en masse, indeed even the advent of slavery.”
“The idea that blackness must be snuffed out for it will surely [supersede] whiteness in power and influence if given the chance, and it’s so hugely irresponsible to furnish the most dangerous extremists with this kind of fiction narrative,” she spewed.
So let’s get this straight, Kanye West’s “White Lives Matter” T -shirt recently worn at Paris Fashion Week was a trigger for Vogue’s editor, called it offensive, violent, said it was dangerous, are you kidding me?? Vogue once a Fashion Icon,now propaganda trash!
— Concetta (@concetta8631) October 5, 2022
West responded by posting a picture of Karefa-Johnson, commenting, “This is not a fashion person You speak on Ye Ima speak on you Ask Trevor Noah.”
He zoomed in on her boots and wrote, “‘I KNOOOOOOW ANNA HAAAATES THESE BOOTS.”
Then he shared a screenshot of Karefa-Johnson’s Instagram profile, stating, “Broke the processor When the computer can’t read the code This is a droid.”
He concluded by saying, “This means war.”
West walked back that criticism, later calling Karefa-Johnson his “sister” on Instagram.
View this post on Instagram
“IM NOT LETTING PEOPLE GO TO BED THINKING I DIDN’T MEET WITH GABRIELLE AT 5 PM TODAY FOR 2 HOURS THEN WE WENT TO DINNER AT FERDIE,” he wrote.
West claimed that Vogue editor Anna Wintour asked Australian film director Baz Luhrmann to film their encounter. He also said there were photos afterward but he was “instructed to not post them.”
“IT FELT LIKE SHE WAS BEING USED LIKE TREVOR NOAH AND OTHER BLACK PEOPLE TO SPEAK ON MY EXPRESSION,” he asserted. The Vogue editor denied that was the case.
“WE APOLOGIZED TO EACH OTHER FOR THE WAY WE MADE EACH OTHER FEEL WE ACTUALLY GOT ALONG AND HAVE BOTH EXPERIENCED THE FIGHT FOR ACCEPTANCE IN A WORLD THAT’S NOT OUR OWN,” he asserted.
“SHE DISAGREED I DISAGREED WE DISAGREED. AT LEAST WE BOTH LOVE FERDIE AND FASHION,” West concluded.
“Vogue stands with Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, our global fashion editor at large and longtime contributor. She was personally targeted and bullied. It is unacceptable,” the magazine said in a statement concerning West’s criticism of her. “Now more than ever, voices like hers are needed and in a private meeting with Ye today she once again spoke her truth in a way she felt best, on her terms.”
West’s spokesman and longtime business partner Jason Lee quit in protest over the show, writing on Instagram that the rapper was “gaslighting black people and empowering white supremacy.”
View this post on Instagram
“I love Ye as a person, and I support free speech. But this is gaslighting black people and empowering white supremacy. Not sure if he has any friends left to tell him but this is utterly disappointing,” he wrote on Instagram. “I’m going to exercise free speech and say, nobody black has ever said that white lives don’t matter. But when black people do this it just screams the need for white validation.”
Kanye West’s spokesman, Jason Lee, has quit, saying West was “gaslighting Black people and empowering white supremacy”. pic.twitter.com/RuoEkzd4Vg
— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) October 5, 2022
“Very humble and thankful to Ye for the opportunity to work with him but that part of our relationship has come to an end,” he later wrote on Instagram.
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