Kanye West causes controversy with $20 swastika T-shirt
Kanye West is selling a swastika T-shirt on his Yeezy website, which has caused controversy online. Ye funded an advert during Super Bowl LIX that told viewers to visit his website. However, fans were unknowingly sent to a website that only sold apparel relating to his pro-Nazi views.
“So, what’s up, guys? I spent, like, all the money for the commercial on these new teeth,” he said in the 30-second commercial. “So, once again, I had to shoot it on the iPhone. Um… um… um… go to yeezy.com.”
According to Variety, the $20 swastika T-shirt wasn’t available when the ad first aired. However, within an hour of it going out to viewers, Kanye switched the website to only sell the hateful T-shirt. An insider said, “It was such a small ad, I don’t think anyone put two and two together. The copy was clean, the website was clean, and so they did their due diligence with that little part of it.”
The advert was only shown in the Los Angeles area and came shortly after his outburst on X (formerly known as Twitter) last week, where he declared his love for Adolf Hitler, who was behind the genocide of six million Jews. “I love Hitler. Now what, bitches? I’m a Nazi,” he wrote on the platform. “I say whatever the fuck I want, p*ssies.”
Following his comments, the Campaign Against Antisemitism called on Elon Musk to ban Kanye from X due to hate speech. “As if we needed further proof of Kanye’s antisemitism, he chose to put a single item for sale on his website – a T-shirt emblazoned with a swastika,” a post from the ADL read. “The swastika is the symbol adopted by Hitler as the primary emblem of the Nazis.”
The post continued, “It galvanised his followers in the 20th century and continues to threaten and instil fear in those targeted by antisemitism and white supremacy. If that wasn’t enough, the t-shirt is labelled on Kanye’s website as ‘HH-01,’ which is code for ‘Heil Hitler.'”
In 2022, Kanye claimed he saw “good things” in Hitler and that everyone has something of value, “especially Hitler.” He also told Jewish people to “forgive” Hitler and to stop trying to “force” their hatred on other people.