Kanye West is gone from X – good
Over the past week, the amount of shocking Kanye West news has been overwhelming.
First came the Grammys on February 2, when West walked the red carpet with his wife Bianca Censori only to have her drop her coat to reveal virtually nothing underneath. After that act of indecent exposure (during which Censori did not offer a word) things got even worse. On Friday, West began a weekend-long rant on X, the social media formerly known as Twitter and now owned by far-right “first buddy” Elon Musk. His posts came to an end today when his account was deactivated, seemingly by West himself.
To say West’s X statements were shocking would be an understatement. They were full of antisemitism and ableism. He outright declared himself a Nazi. Anyone even remotely familiar with him knows he’s made antisemitic statements before, appalling ones, but this time it was full on Hitler worship. “I LOVE HITLER. I’M A NAZI,” he declared in one post. In another, he made it clear what the relationship between him and Censori amounted to, saying that as her husband he had “dominion” over her.
This would be against the terms of conduct on ordinary websites, in an ordinary world—but we have just seen Elon Musk do something very like a Nazi salute in public. It’s safe to assume he has no issues whatsoever with a world-famous star, someone long since descended into madness, spreading Nazi talking points on his platform. His reaction to the whole thing? Just laughter.
The terrifying reality of posts like this
As a person with Jewish heritage, this is completely terrifying. Suddenly, against all reason and morality, very bad people are doing their best to normalize Nazism. West didn’t settle for “just” posting hate over the weekend—he also made a Super Bowl ad advertising his store, yeezy.com. And when you go to yeezy.com, you find only one thing, a white t-shirt with a swastika on it.
But arguably the worst thing of all? When West’s X posts were active, each of them had countless likes. There is a huge portion of society absolutely okay with this kind of hate, is what I came to understand. That’s as horrifying as Musk’s Nazi salute, as horrifying as the swastika t-shirt, and oh my god there should not be this much Nazi glorification on my radar in the space of less than a month.
I don’t know if West deleted his X account completely of his own volition. It’s possible someone on the outside intervened to convince him to deactivate. He wrote as his parting message, “I’m logging out of Twitter. I appreciate Elon for allowing me to vent. It has been very cathartic to use the world as a sounding board. It was like an Ayahuasca trip. Love all of you who gave me your energy and attention. To we connect again. Good afternoon and good night.”
So, a hate-filled man appreciating another hate-filled man. What a disgusting spectacle. My only satisfaction comes from knowing West now has one less platform. He needed to go for our sakes and frankly for his own sake as well. He refused to get the help he needs for his mental health issues, and the result is that we got a tremendously powerful person blasting Nazi rhetoric out to millions of people.
If only he had at any point typed the word “cisgender” in one of his X posts. It would have saved everyone so much trouble.
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