Kanye West spoke to the Wall Street Journal recently about topics like music, fashion, design and possibly manufacturing masks for the pandemic.
West talked about Donald Trump as well and the backlash he received for supporting him.
“I’m a Black guy with a red [MAGA] hat, can you imagine?” asked West. “It reminded me of how I felt as a Black guy before I was famous when I would walk in a restaurant, and people would look at you like you were going to steal something. ‘This is your place, Ye, don’t talk about apparel. This is your place, Ye, you’re Black, so you’re a Democrat.'”
“Everything is about putting people in their place,” he added. “Classism, protectionism, not just racism. Classism is like living on a bookshelf. The more money you have, the higher you go, and you get to the top and look over and what do you see? Fear.”
The first sign that West was a Trump supporter came in December 2016 when he visited then-president-elect at Trump Tower in New York City. The two took photos together, and West received backlash for his support immediately.
Then in October 2018, West and Trump’s relationship made headlines again when West joined him for lunch at the White House to discuss things like gang violence in Chicago, as well as job creation and criminal justice reform.
Besides getting blasted for that meeting, West received even more criticism when he began paling around with conservative provocateur Candace Owens and said he likes the way she thinks.
This was around the same period of time that West said slavery for Black people was a choice, which he also got lambasted for.
