Trigger warning: racism.
Kanye West’s most recent outburst saw him attack the Jewish community. In tweets posted earlier this month the rapper said he was “going death con 3 on Jewish people '' adding, “You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda”. He also tried to defend his antisemitism with claims “Black people are actually Jew also.”
The flurry of offensive tweets was accompanied by Instagram posts of a similar vein, causing West’s accounts to be restricted on both social media platforms. Since then, Ye has backed his anti-Semetic vitriol (sprinkling in some anti-Black misinformation for good measure) on an episode of Drink Champs podcast, which has now been removed from Youtube. Several brands and establishments have distanced themselves from him including Vogue’s Editor in Chief Anna Wintour and most notably Adidas, who terminated their affiliation with West, plummeting his net worth below billionaire status.
West’s ex wife, Kim Kardashian, is amongst many celebs who have publicly spoken out against his comments, saying: “Hate speech is never OK or excusable. I stand together with the Jewish community and call on the terrible violence and hateful rhetoric towards them to come to an immediate end.”
Yet Kim's statement has faced more scrutiny than most. Reports have hinted that the statement comes as part of a wider PR coalition between the Kardashians and the Trumps, while social media users are saying Kim’s statement is too little too late, considering her silence in regards to Kanye’s earlier, equally ignorant stunts such as his 2018 declaration that “slavery sounds like a choice” and his more recent White Lives Matter runway designs.
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Kim’s statement is vague, never once mentioning her ex-husband by name hence why some have interpreted it as weak or ‘insufficient’. It comes over a fortnight after Kanye originally tweeted those comments and its nebulous nature suggests to me that Kim acted out of a sense of obligation rather than pure will. It’s likely that those who pressured Kim into speaking out and those who are disappointed by the lack of substance in her statement are one in the same; this begs the question – why are we so obsessed with making women pay for their poor choices in partners?
It's something we've seen play out time and time again. Following news of Bill Clinton’s affair with Gennifer Flowers in 1992 (not to be confused with his subsequent, more iconic Monika Lewinsky affair) Hillary Clinton was wheeled out in front of cameras for a one-hour joint interview in which she defended her husband against the allegations. The interview is thought to have saved Clinton’s presidential campaign and was the world’s first proper introduction to Hillary. It was also the first of many instances in which Hillary, the proverbial airbag in her husband’s string of car-crash affairs, absorbed the impact of Bill’s wrongdoings.
Similarly, women like Melania Trump and Jada Pinkett-Smith have also been called to comment on things they did not do. When Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars earlier this year, people couldn't understand why Jada didn't speak out, until she eventually addressed the incident on her Facebook Watch talk show, Red Table Talk, saying: “My deepest hope is that these two intelligent, capable men have the opportunity to heal, talk this out, and reconcile.” And, well, the actions of Melania's husband for which she was hounded need no explanation.
In the UK, women like Martha Hancock and Colleen Rooney have also faced undue media attention for their husbands’ cock-ups. When news of both Matt Hancock's and Wayne Rooney's various affairs broke, it was their wives who had to face the hordes of paparazzi.
Whether still together or broken up, women are often the collateral damage when prominent men in their lives do or say outrageous things. Even when the women themselves are direct victims of the hurtful act, they’re still expected to put a brave face on for the media and in some cases, to absolve the men of guilt.
Yes, we should expect adults to surround themselves with people whose values reflect their own. But we must also understand that nobody is responsible for the words or actions of another. In a world that holds women to higher ethical standards than men, women who date men face more of a challenge in finding a partner that is equally yoked, morally speaking. Through no fault of our own, many of us have probably dated at least one person whose questionable or disrespectful views didn’t surface until later in the relationship and if they surfaced publicly we may have felt the same pressure as Kim to speak out on their behalf.
We need to progress past hounding women like Kim Kardashian for the mistakes of the men they associate with, for the sake of us all. Having these expectations of women not only leads to disingenuous statements and apologies but it also shifts accountability and attention away from the men who are actually at fault. Instead of eagerly awaiting word from the wife, girlfriend or ex of a famous man who has done a terrible thing, we should look to fixing the cultural landscape that affords men the audacity to be so brazenly disgraceful in the first place.
