Kanye West will not be able to sell his “White Lives Matter” t-shirts due to a block by two Black men who own the trademark to the controversial slogan.
Ramses Ja and Quinton Ward, hosts of the weekly racial justice radio show Civic Cipher, became legal owners of the slogan last month. The duo decided to obtain the trademark once they saw Kanye West was moving forward with the sale of the shirts.
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“Once it was clear that someone stood to gain significant profit from it, because as you’ve seen, even though he (West) says some really hurtful, divisive and sometimes crazy things, he has a bit of a zealot following and every time he releases something, it sells out,” Ward said during an interview with CNN.
According to the hosts, owning the trademark comes with a responsibility to make sure no one can profit from the slogan or watch it land in the wrong hands.
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An anonymous listener of the Civic Cipher show filed the trademark the same day Kanye West wore the shirt with an image of Pope John Paul II on the front and the words “White Lives Matter” on the back at Paris fashion week. The person then transferred their ownership to the duo.
The Civic Cypher hosts had no clue why the listener initially bought the rights but felt it happened when the term went viral again after Ye wore the shirts and saw what could possibly happen if the shirts went on sale.
Civic Cipher is a nationwide show that Ja and Ward kicked off in 2020 to create a space for the Black community to speak on the things that have affected them, such as police violence, housing inequality, environmental racism, and more.
Kanye West stirred up controversy with the shirt and attempted to explain his decision to wear it as something he found “funny” during an interview with Tucker Carlson last month.
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“I do certain things from a feeling,” he said. “I just channel the energy, it just feels right. It’s using a gut instinct, a connection with God, and just brilliance … God is preparing us for the real battles, and we are in a battle with the media. The majority of the media has a God-less agenda, and the jokes are not working. This whole like, ‘Oh, Ye’s crazy,’ and all these things, they don’t work.”
Kanye continued: “My dad is an educated ex-Black Panther and he put a text to me that said, ‘White Lives Matter hahaha.’ And I said, ‘I thought the shirt was a funny shirt.’ I said the idea of me wearing it was funny. I said, ‘Dad, what do you think of it?’ He said, ‘Just a Black man stating the obvious.'”
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Ye also mentioned why he wore the shirt during an interview with the French television show Clique, explaining it was in response to seeing white people wear Black Lives Matter shirts.
“At a certain point, it felt like I saw white people wearing shirts that said ‘Black Lives Matter’ like they were doing me such a favor by having a T-shirt that reminded me that my life mattered, like I didn’t already know that,” he said. “So I thought I’d return the favor and let white people know that, ‘Hey, your life matters too.'”
