Don't Go West, Young Man

I completely understand the well-deserved focus on Kanye West ongoing barrage of anti-Semitic and violent comments, reaching a peek with him basically dismissing any threat that Adidas would cut ties with him.

Indeed, Adidas was put in a somewhat tricky position because Adidas isn’t his sponsor, but his business partner and an important one.  And so, they risk losing business if they’re even able to end the partnership.  But then, they’re also risk losing business and credibility if they don’t end their relationship with him and remain partners with a virulent, violent anti-Semite.  Made all the more pronounced when White Supremacists draped banners on a 405 Freeway overpass in Los Angeles in support of West, saying that he’s right about Jews.  Not really the kind of association one would think Adidas wants, whatever the financial cost of finding a way out of their contract.

And West appears to have kicked in the Law of Unintended Consequences, as another partner, Balenciaga dropped its relationship with him.  Which also not only shows Adidas that a company can break ties with West, but puts pressure on them to do so.  And then yesterday, his talent agency CAA dropped him from their roster.  And Vogue broke off their relationship with him.  And production company MRC is not releasing a completed documentary on West.  And now, this morning Adidas did cut ties with Kanye West. 

(Go figure, he was wrong, it turns out there was ​something Adidas could do about it...)

To be clear, it’s not like Kanye West will be financially hurt much if at all by any of this.  If he doesn’t earn another nickel in his life, he’s still doing great.  (After Adidas dropped him, Forbes magazine already removed West from their billionaire's list, significantly plummeting his net worth to $400 million.  That's a huge loss of wealth.  It's also a massive amount of money.)  That said, we don’t know his financial ties and if he’s leveraged and has outstanding loans, and how losses from other business cutting ties will affect his finances.  So, it could be a problem for him.  But not only do I doubt that, in terms of real-life "problems," I also don’t care.  This isn’t about money.  It’s about a virulent, violent anti-Semite.

If he wants to buy the far-right, extreme social media company Parler, and post his hate-filled rants, he has that right to become a human pariah surrounded only by White Supremacists for support.  And others have the right to demean him as much as possible.

But like with Trump, this isn’t about Kanye West.  It’s about the near-total silence of the Republican Party, whose leadership has shown cowardice in action and putting its own racial hate and anti-Semitism front and center.  It was silent went Trump went on his anti-Semitic rampage about Jews and Israel.  And it’s silent about Kanye West.  When a Hollywood talent agency shows more morals than the Republican Party – or most anybody – you know you’re scraping the bottom.