Kanye West Is Trying to Look Beyond Conventional Politics

In a since-deleted post, Ye also shared text messages with his father, Ray West, where he discussed the “White Lives Matter” shirt. “I thought that was so funny,” Ray texted Ye about the shirt. This prompted the artist to ask his father, “What did you like about it,” to which Ray responded, “That a Black Man was declaring the obvious.”

For context, Ye’s father is a former member of the Black Panthers, a famous Black power political organization founded in the 1960s.