Taylor Swift, Kanye West, and the Woke Arms Race
One of the highest profile fights in identity politics oldest conflict is telling
One of the most concerning aspects of (whatever you want to call it: identity politics, the woke movement, critical social justice, what have you) is that the truth of a thing becomes entirely dependent on the politics, with little bearing on the facts.
I'm using the West-Swift feud as an example, despite the fact that it's become somewhat dated. Kanye's friendship with Trump and conservative social views generally mean he's revoked his "black" card in the eyes of this movement. By breaking to the right, to quote Joe Biden, he "ain't black"; he has attained the status of White Man and is therefore beyond the pale, subject only to condemnation. (That is, to some. There are those who still side with him because of race, joined by new allies. Given the fact that he's clearly having some sort of breakdown, any criticism of West's actions must be rooted in ableism!)
But let's turn back the clock and look at the conflict as we did in those heady months (and years) of madness we collectively shared as a nation.
The facts go something like this: Swift won the MTV Music Video Awards in 2009. Kanye rushed the stage, in his famous "Imma let you finish" moment, to say Beyonce made one of the greatest videos of all time. A kerfuffle ensued. Kanye released a music video that included a long list of celebrity wax models in bed with him, including Swift. She responded at another awards ceremony about not letting men in the industry keep women down. Soon after, west's then-wife, Kim Kardashian, released a video she recorded with West asking permission to include her in the video, along with the infamous "I made that bitch famous" line, with Swift agreeing to it, saying she understood it wasn't personal. (It was only in looking this up I realized this feud was literally over the course of years. Years of our lives. 2009 through at least 2017.)
But really, the facts don't matter, or they didn't matter back then. What mattered was where you sided in the largest unresolved event in the Oppression Olympics: who is more exploited, (straight) black men or (straight) white women?
If women are the most oppressed, then you see yet another example of an older man in the industry taking advantage of a young woman, not just profiting off of her, not just belittling her, but inappropriately sexualizing her. It's a clear example of patriarchy, if not outright rape culture. Men doing their best to undercut and defame successful women, using misogyny to maintain their grip on power.
On the other hand, if white supremacy and anti black racism are the fundamental tenets of American society, then Kanye almost got Emmitt Till'ed. A white woman, offended at a black man voicing his opinion, deliberately set that black man up, and lied about it, to attack his reputation, for her own profit. And she knew she could get away with it, too, because our racist society views all black men, no matter how successful, as inherently dangerous. At a time when unarmed black men are dying in the street, this is a dangerous display of white supremacy.
So here's thing one: neither of those narratives are true. Or at least, not completely true.
I don't dispute that we live in a society that is both racist and patriarchal, to some degree. That is going to at least influence the actions people take, as well as the consequences and repercussions. If this was all white guys, would people have gotten as angry? I don't know.
But with the woke lens, fights like this aren't between two individuals; they're between two identities. Instead of two individual people, they become stand in figures for the entirety of their identity group: all black people versus all women. (Leaving black women to have to decide if Kanye is a Hotep or if Taylor is a Becky, thereby declaring their allegiance.)
The facts of this conflict don't put either figure in a good light. But those facts are purely conditional, based on which camp you're in. The bad facts about your avatar in this nonsense scuffle can be written off by utilizing legitimate facts about racism or sexism. However, the other side is just using that as cover for the Bad Thing their character did.
Which leads to thing two: money. Kanye West and Taylor Swift made TONS of money off of this. They both actively, openly exploited this conflict to increase sales, utilizing their already privileged position in our class society to pad their bank accounts. All of the Tweets and YouTube comments and think pieces written about this dopey episode did nothing to alleviate a single molecule of the actual impacts of racism or sexism on broader society. But it did get people to buy albums and watch videos of their stand in in this nonsense.
I'm not suggesting West and Swift colluded, or this was all some shell game. But it's undeniable that both took advantage of the culture war coverage of this fight to their own benefit. And when social justice politics is class blind, or when class is viewed just as an equal part of a laundry list of one's identity, it leads to a lot of fire responses on social media... with no deliverables.