Cancel One, Cancel All.

Adidas, Balenciaga, and Gap have all ended their partnerships with Kanye West’s Yeezy brand. It is with good reason that they ended the partnership. Ye has been off his rocker. He has said horrible, derogatory things towards many different cultural groups, things that have really pushed my limits. If you have read my past blog, you know where I stand on Kanye West. I can’t agree with his ideologies. However, I will still listen to his music because his music holds special meaning to me. When I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, Kanye helped me feel like I wasn’t alone. He helped me get through a challenging time in my life. I am not trying to minimize what he has done or what he says, but if other people get to choose what to ignore, so am I. The problem is not with these companies ending their partnerships with Yeezy. My problem is with the hypocrisy of “cancel culture.” The tipping point, Kanye’s “White Lives Matter” t-shirt at the Yeezy Season 9 show, is not the first piece of clothing with bigotry spattered on it, nor will it be the last. Dolce & Gabbana is the perfect example of that. Dolce & Gabbana has made several headlines for racist designs and homophobic comments.

Let’s take a look at some of their past bigotry. On Halloween 2013, Stefano Gabbana attended the “Disco Africa” Halloween party (more on this later), where blackface was very prevalent. In 2015, Dolce and Gabbana separately spewed homophobic ideas. Domenico Dolce told an Italian magazine, “I’m not convinced with what I call chemical children, a rented uterus, semen selected from a catalogue.” That’s not just homophobic; that is also offensive to people that struggle with infertility. Meanwhile, in 2016, they literally went to market with a sandal called the “slave sandal.” How in the fuck was this an actual design? It just shows how intertwined fashion and racism are. Dolce and Gabbana made fun of people calling for a boycott by creating a “#Boycott Dolce & Gabbana” t-shirt. This isn’t even everything they’ve done. Then, last year they released an ad that showed racial stereotypes of Asian people. See the video below. There have been too many incidents to list them all out. Yet, Kim Kardashian, the ex-wife of Kanye, can post her support of the Jewish community while collaborating with a brand like Dolce & Gabbana is so hypocritical.

Halloweek is Milan’s Halloween celebration which includes many of the biggest names in the fashion industry. The “Hallowood Disco Africa” party of 2013 was nothing more than a celebration of the industry’s racism. Designer Alessandro Dell’Acqua dressed in blackface, 2 men showed darkened their skin and dressed up as enslaved people. This party was organized and hosted by the photographer Giampolo Sgura. Sgura has worked with the most prominent magazines; he has worked with Vogue, Allure, and GQ. Anna Dello Russo, the current editor-in-chief of Vogue Japan and one of the most well-known people in fashion attended this party.

Is what Kanye has spewed and is still spewing worse than this? No, it is not. Does that make it ok? Absolutely not, but if Kim Kardashian can still work with Dolce & Gabbana, Kanye can still keep his partnerships. In fact, her recent support of the Jewish community points to a scary idea. People had problems with Yeezy’s “White Lives Matter” t-shirt. Still, nobody ended partnerships and deals until he started spewing antisemitism. Do we value the Jewish community more than the black community? Racism is ok, but antisemitism isn’t? I don’t understand.

This leads me to a conversation I had with somebody the other day. Taylor Swift just released her new album “Midnights.” It is one of her best and most vulnerable albums, but that is beside the point. In her music video for “Anti-hero,” she steps on a scale, and the scale only shows the word fat in all caps and in red font. Taylor tweeted, “Watch my nightmare scenarios and intrusive thoughts play out in real time.” My conversation was about this fatphobic scene. I asked why Taylor could do that, but Kanye couldn’t. She responded that fat people can lose weight and it’s not healthy for people to be overweight. So, it goes antisemitism, then racism, and then fatphobia? Do we value some people more than others? That’s not different from Kanye spewing his hatred or Dolce and Gabbana releasing a racist ad. We cannot just pick and choose who and what we are going to cancel. We cancel all of it or cancel none of it. The hypocrisy of “cancel culture” juxtaposes the entire idea of the movement. If we are going to boycott Kanye and Yeezy products, we need to make sure we boycott other brands too.