UPDATE: Tuesday, Oct 18, 2022 · 6:41:06 PM +00:00
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Rebekah Sager
Tuesday, the mother of George Floyd’s daughter filed a $250 million lawsuit against Ye, Click to Houston reports.
Lawyers for Roxie Washington, the mother of Gianna Floyd, said West made “false statements about George Floyd’s death to promote his brands and increase marketing value and revenue for himself, his business partners, and associates.” Adding to Ye’s comments about Floyd were “malicious falsehoods” made to profit from the family and prey on their tragedy.
Attorney Nuru Witherspoon, a partner at The Witherspoon Law Group, told Click to Houston that “George Floyd’s daughter is being traumatized by Kanye West’s comments, and he’s creating an unsafe and unhealthy environment for her.”
While it may be true that Kanye ‘Ye’ West struggles with mental health issues, and he has admitted to that, it doesn’t mean that the billionaire rapper is immune to a possible lawsuit when he says something totally false and outrageous.
In a recent three-hour appearance on the Drink Champs podcast Sunday, Ye made a slew of wild and unfounded comments. Inspired by The Greatest Lie Ever Sold, a documentary about Black Lives Matter by Candace Owens, whom the rapper was seen with at Paris Fashion Week wearing matching “White Lives Matter” T-shirts, Ye claimed that George Floyd died because “They hit him with the fentanyl.”
“If you look, the guy’s knee wasn’t even on his neck like that,” Ye said in defense of ex-Minneapolis cop and convicted murderer Derek Chauvin.
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Floyd’s family wasn’t having it, and Floyd’s brother, Philonise Floyd, reached out to the family attorney, civil rights lawyer Lee Merritt, saying they were interested in possibly pursuing a defamation suit against the celebrity.
“I have put together a working team to investigate [West’s] statements and to investigate the source of those statements,” Merritt told CNN.
Merritt tweeted, “While one cannot defame the dead, the family of #GeorgeFloyd is considering suit for Kanye’s false statements about the manner of his death. Claiming Floyd died from fentanyl not the brutality established criminally and civilly undermines & diminishes the Floyd family’s fight.”
Ye’s fentanyl allegations are not new; that claim was dismissed during Chauvin’s trial. Medical examiners and experts all agreed that Floyd died due to “asphyxia, or low oxygen,” the New York Post reported.
“Basically, Mr. Floyd was in a position because of subdual restraint and compression, he was unable to get enough oxygen in to maintain his body function,” Dr. Lindsey Thomas, a consulting forensic pathologist for the prosecution, testified. “There’s no evidence to suggest he would have died that night except for the interactions with law enforcement.”
Chauvin was sentenced to 22-and-half-years in prison for Floyd’s murder, and three officers who were there when Chauvin was choking Floyd to death received federal prison sentences this year for violating Floyd’s civil rights.
But let’s not waste time arguing with Ye over facts. He’s busy enough for all of us recreating truths and spreading paranoid conspiracies.
Despite Ye’s mental health issues, decrying Jews or making false allegations about George Floyd isn’t acceptable—and maybe not even legal. Ye must be held accountable.
According to Haaretz, Kanye West rejected an invitation from the Holocaust Museum in Los Angeles following his antisemitic rants. On the podcast, he said, “I want you to visit Planned Parenthood. That’s our Holocaust museum,” seeming to mimic comments he paid in a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, where he called Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, as a proponent of “known eugenics” along with the Ku Klux Klan “to control the Jew population.” Reuters fact checks Ye’s accusations here. Needless to say, Ye is not correct.
Daily Kos’ Lauren Sue writes that “avoiding all discussion of Kanye West is not the best approach either,” citing mental health experts.
"We want to recognize that this person may have their own very strong beliefs on religion or politics, and we want to call that out as being separate from the mental health diagnosis," clinical psychologist Carla Manly told USA Today. "There are many people who don't have mental health issues who are racist and bigoted. And there are people with mental health issues who are not racist or bigoted. We want to see those as two very different issues."
Whichever it is, is anyone’s guess. Is it the mental health issue talking or Ye himself?
We do know that Ye announced Monday that he intends to buy the conservative platform Parler. This comes after the rapper and clothing designer was booted from Twitter and Instagram following threatening antisemitic comments he made.
In a statement released by Parler, Ye said about the purchase, “In a world where conservative opinions are considered to be controversial we have to make sure we have the right to freely express ourselves.”
Parler recently launched its own in-house cloud infrastructure called Parlement Technologies in an effort to keep app stores such as Google’s shutting it down. The tech arm is run by CEO George Farmer, husband to Owens.
“Ye is making a groundbreaking move into the free speech media space and will never have to fear being removed from social media again,” Farmer said. “Once again, Ye proves that he is one step ahead of the legacy media narrative. Parlement will be honored to help him achieve his goals.”
Bernice King, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s youngest daughter, tweeted about Ye’s Floyd comments with:
“I am praying for #GeorgeFloyd’s family who, after erroneous, terribly insensitive comments that never should have been made, are enduring more today than they were yesterday.”
Ye hinted in the interview that he may take another run for president in 2024.
