Weeks after debuting controversial “White Lives Matter” shirts at Paris Fashion Week, Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, donated a box of the T-shirts to Skid Row’s homeless population. Los Angeles campaigners slammed the move, labeling Ye a “pseudo-morality-based con artist.”
Thursday, the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LACAN) said on Instagram, “Nowhere in this country does Black Lives Matter less than in Skid Row.”
“Kanye traveled to the most economically destitute and abandoned area of Los Angeles to dump his trash and convince a community of unhoused, minimally housed, and excessively policed Black people that White Lives Matter,” stated activist Pete White on LACAN’s Instagram.
White urged Ye to keep his uneducated, misguided, attention-seeking rhetoric and behavior out of the community.
White stated, “We are outraged that you continue to insult and use Black Angelenos as political props; you should know better.”
A share from LA CAN (@lacanetwork official) on Twitter.
In another Instagram post for LACAN, Pastor Stephen “Cue” Jn-Marie, who has served the Skid Row community for 16 years, called out Ye.
“Those in Kanye’s orbit have continuously played to his inflated ego by promoting him as a ‘genius’ while permitting his most self-destructive inclinations, outrageous conduct, and dangerous, ill-informed language to go unregulated and uncontested,” he stated.
He stated that “celebrities and so-called ‘people of faith'” who “come to clean their conscience by dropping off a couple of meals… greatly hurt those of us who are constantly in the neighborhood with our homeless neighbors.”
“All they’ve done is add insult to injury by taking advantage of the community’s weakness,” he said.
The Pastor cited the Bible in his Instagram post for LACAN, claiming that Ye was not “promoting peace” by sending “White Lives Matter” t-shirts to Skid Row.
Imagine being forced to choose between requiring clothing and openly supporting a political stereotype with which you disagree, he wrote. “Despite having enough money to house half of Skid Row’s Black residents for LIFE and still have millions in the bank, he opted to distribute politically charged T-shirts.”
A share from LA CAN (@lacanetwork official) on Twitter.
Skid Row is an impoverished section of downtown Los Angeles that serves as the city’s homeless hotspot.
Skid Row was established in 1976 as a “containment zone to ensure housing and services for impoverished, mostly Black Angelenos,” according to LACAN.
It was created to “hide the violent results of racialized segregation, redlining, racial covenants, de-industrialization, welfare reform, the introduction and devastation caused by crack cocaine, and the construction of the world’s largest prison industrial complex to cage Black bodies,” according to the organization.
According to LACAN, one in five homeless persons on Skid Row die every day.
White stated, “We’ve made the best of virtually nothing.” “Yes, here Black lives matter!”
Ye’s representatives did not react immediately to Insider’s request for comment.