Yasiin Bey Wears ‘White Lies Matter’ Shirt Amid Kanye West Controversy
Yasiin Bey, best known as Mos Def, took to Instagram on Friday (Oct. 7) to share a photo in response to Kanye West wearing a “White Lives Matter” shirt to his Yeezy Season 9 runway show during Paris Fashion Week.
The Brooklyn native shared a photo of himself wearing a shirt that also read “White Lives Matter.” However, the “v” was faded, and the shirt read “White Lies Matter.”
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The racist “WLM” phrase was widely adopted by neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. Its official website, which has since been taken down, was “dedicated to promotion of the white race and taking positive action as a united voice against issues facing our race,” in its own words, per the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“The fiber and integrity our nation was founded on is being unraveled … [by] homosexuality and [racially] mix[ed] relationships,” the former WLM website used to read. “Illegal immigration, healthcare, housing, welfare, employment, education, social security, our children, our veterans and active military and their rights … are the issues we face as white Americans. The laws and immoral orders the current [Obama] administration are passing are drastically … targeting everything the white way of life holds dear.”
Ye told Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson, “My dad is an educated ex-Black Panther, and he put a text to me today and he said, ‘White lives matter hahahaha,’ And I said, ‘I thought the shirt was a funny shirt; I thought the idea of me wearing it was funny.’ And I said, ‘Dad, why did you think it was funny?’ He said, ‘Just a Black man stating the obvious.’”
