Kim Kardashian’s Tweetstorm is What Happens When You Use Wokeness As An Accessory
On Saturday night, Kim Kardashian rushed on Twitter to defend her husband, Kanye West, after he was accused by prominent Chicago rapper and frequent collaborator Che “Rhymefest” Smith for abandoning Donda’s House, the foundation the two rappers co-founded in 2011. Kanye, Rhymefest and Rhymefest’s wife Donnie Smith, co-founded the non-profit to provide arts education to Chicagoan youth and honor West’s late mother, Donda. But according to Rhymefest, Kanye hasn’t financially fulfilled his promise to the organization. He even went as far as alleging that Kanye had said, “f–k the youth of Chicago.” Kim didn’t take these claims lightly, sending out a series of ill-advised, tone deaf tweets that expose what we all kind of knew already: wokeness is just a mere accessory to her.
It’s been long reported that Kim had been overhauling her image to appear more political. Although the reports haven’t been confirmed by Kim nor her team, there’s a stark difference in the way she’s been using her platform in the last couple of years. Back in September 2016, Kim linked with the Armenian Education Foundation and put out a full page ad to challenge the denial of the Armenian genocide. She followed the ad up with an essay in Time, asking Former President Obama to use the word “genocide.” It was the first time of note that we began to see shades of political leaning.
As the 2016 election drew closer, the political rhetoric started to ramp up. Kim met with Hillary Clinton and publicly supported her campaign. She tweeted about the Orlando shooting. She tweeted support for Cyntoia Brown and reportedly sent attorneys to assist her case. She posted a picture at the March for Our Lives protest. Kim’s made it clear on multiple occasions that she doesn’t agree with Kanye’s views on Trump and MAGA. It seemed that privately Kim had turned a corner. There was more to Kim Kardashian than just the superficial, and for a minute there, she had us all believing that there was much more thoughtfulness going on behind the scenes. Her platform went beyond nude selfies and selling her products, she actually cared about the sh-t that was going on--or so we thought.
Unfortunately, the Rhymefest beef highlights the problem with Kim’s newly political image--she either doesn’t actually care about the rhetoric she’s been spewing or she doesn’t understand it. It’s hard to tell which one is worse, but in either case it jumped the hell out during this dispute. Kim’s go-to in Twitter beef is to leverage her celebrity over the other person, but what she didn’t realize in this case is that Rhymefest has a special connection to Chicago that goes beyond celebrity. It’s the connection that her husband once had. Rhymefest is actually on the ground, doing the work that so many others claim isn’t happening in Chicago. So when Kim tweeted that she couldn’t wait to take Donda’s House from him to replace with her young, wealthy children it became extremely clear who Kim had been fighting for this whole time--herself. She’s isn’t woke. She’s isn’t political. She’s just an expert salesman.
Fake woke has been all the rage in celebrities nowadays. Say the right things at the right times. Appear to be for the people. Then sell your product. J.Cole had mentioned this very thing in his interview with Angie Martinez. Celebrities have figured out how to use this political tense moment to further their own agendas. In this case, Kim rebranded herself as “woke” because she saw opportunity to further her brand. “Kim is real!” “She’s not just a vapid reality star!” Well, the joker has been pulled out of the deck now. Time to jump on the wave, Kim.
