National Urban League: Corporate Shunning of Kanye West is Long Overdue

NEW YORK (November 3, 2022) – As the fallout from Kanye West’s anti-Semitic statements continues to mount, with corporations and other institutions severing their ties to the rapper, National Urban League President and CEO Marc H. Morial said the response is years overdue.

“West’s history of outrageous and offensive statements goes back years,” Morial said. “We applaud those organizations who have ended their relationships with him, but given his record, it is mystifying that any of these relationships continued this long or – worse – were initiated in recent years.”

Morial referred specifically to West’s 2018 comments calling 400 years of slavery “a choice” on the part of enslaved people.

“His denigration of our ancestors feeds a white supremacist narrative that African-Americans are to blame for their own oppression and sabotages the efforts of the racial justice community to achieve social and economic equity,” Morial said of West, whose legal name is Ye. “He has continued to abuse his influence and platform to attack marginalized communities and embolden hate speech and violence.”

Morial added, “Even as we call on West to renounce anti-Semitism and racial hostility, no responsible organization should associate itself with such bigotry. Moreover, organizations who were late to distance themselves from West need to do an internal review of why it took them so long.”