Kanye's "WLM" Shirts Against the Zeitgeist's Enforced "BLM" Meaning
Western Equality Against Marxism's Equity
On October 8th, 2022, Scott Adams’ “Real Coffee” video includes Adams wearing the “Black Lives Matter” generic t-shirt:
He explains that he is doing this following Kanye’s performative appearance at Kanye’s own “Yeezy Season 9” Paris Fashion Show, which Kanye explained was to show (correctly) that “Black Lives Matter was a scam”..
..and also to show that "the answer to why I wrote White Lives Matter on a shirt is because they do. It's the obvious thing." Kanye appears to do this by juxtaposing the back of the shirt (“White Lives Matter”) with the front of the shirt, an image that ironically celebrates Pope John Paul II by using a Glamour Shots composition effect and rap-album font (the Old English Blackletter font; similar to the Nas “Illmatic” album font or the Bone Thugs logo):
The shirt states, «Seguiremos Tu Ejemplo, Juan Pablo II», which translates from Spanish to English as, “We will follow your example, John Paul II.” The use of Spanish here could be a simple stylistic choice to obscure the meaning, and/or the artist was attempting to put a “people’s” language in contrast to the opulence of John Paul II’s lavish living.
Consolidating Kanye’s statements with the artwork, the shirt thus seems to show that the Catholic Church is a scam that capitalizes on common truths, funneling money from followers via “obvious” statements about morality and human worth (compare this to less “establishment” variations of Christianity which focus on the teachings of Christ and give less or no weight to the Gospel according to Saint Paul). For Kanye, the BLM organization is thus the symbolic equivalent of the corrupt Catholic Church, with the Marxist “Black Lives Matter” phrase being its facilitating mantra to fleece black communities and set a poor example, as “white lives matter” might be such a mantra for the Church fleecing its flock — a kind of slant rhyme that preserves the BLM connection while sacrificing the Catholic Church’s actual stated dogmas (i.e., the connection to “Black Lives Matter” would have been less clear if the shirt stated the Catholic phrase, “God is universal and loves everyone”).
Launching from this “obvious thing” statement (and perhaps unaware of context beyond a Tucker Carlson interview of Kanye), Adams concludes that “Black Lives Matter” is “no longer a political statement”, which makes it possible for someone such as Adams to wear the shirt “unironically” (though he later includes in a response to his chat that there’s simultaneously a bit of entertainment, theatricality, and attention-generation in mind — this second motive not undermining the lack of irony).
At 11:10 in the video, Adams talks about the “Peace” sign/symbol's meaning changing during and after the ‘60s as also the meaning of "Black Lives Matter" may change or has already changed.
It’s a somewhat fair analogy (symbols do often change meanings), but it also ignores the present reality.
If one went back in time to the height of the peace symbol's intended meaning as a hippie-movement tribal marker and attempted to use it by today's meaning, the traveler would not be able to communicate that meaning with just the symbol itself. Flashing the sign amongst the opposition, the traveler would instead be stuck explaining his alternate meaning, and at the end of that explanation, the tribalists would be totally unconvinced and perhaps defensive about their meaning being dissolved. Only a few people who knew the traveler and his meaning would understand, and they would nevertheless see a futility in his revision.
So how does one actually change a meaning?
This requires overcoming the Zeitgeist's current meaning with a potent new alternative, and that alternative would have to be supported by popular meaning-makers.
To the "BLM" slogan, did Kanye do this?
No. He fed the tribalists a small dose of cognitive dissonance, but already, the Twittersphere and DNC media was ready to reject anything that Kanye said.
Kanye's marketshare has become "right-wing" by the tribalist reckoning, with only a few left-wing hold-outs (former fans) giving him any kind of benefit of the doubt. Already, corporate media has the Ahmaud Arbery family saying that Kanye's stunt would merely "legitimize extremist behavior" (reported by Billboard; repeating the DNC's "white supremacy" talking point and citing the Marxist-infiltrated “experts” at the Southern Poverty Law Center), and nearly every DNC affiliate is condemning him to hold onto the meaning that they have built into the BLM slogan. The major controllers of the Zeitgeist do not want the meaning to change.
Any what is the meaning of "Black Lives Matter"?
• Firstly, notice that the common "Black Lives Matter" shirt uses the "Secular One" font in the "Parental Advisory"/"Straight Outta Compton" grid style (see FontMeme).
So, it is packed with built-in musical associations from the start (music known for championing resentment). The BLM mantra itself comes from Nietzschean slave morality's inversion of morality (see also Marcuse's "repressive tolerance"), wherein the in-group can do no wrong and the out-group is always wrong. Thus, it is not saying, "Black Lives Matter [and so do white lives, we just need to reaffirm Western equality by focusing on black plights in particular]"; it is specifically saying, "Black Lives Matter [because they are 'oppressed', and the 'oppressor'—the 'white lives'—do not matter unless they themselves accept this dialectical strategy of redistribution. The oppressor and oppressed must reverse places for the new slavery of "equity"]."
This is built into the meaning-making of the Marxists behind the push and is supported by the ESG establishment, who are seeking this reversal to divide and conquer (e.g., see the World Economic Forum’s use of “systemic racism” rhetoric for its global control strategy).
• Secondly, notice Kanye's attempt: Kanye used "impact" font — the font popular in memes used by everyone (the generic meme font). No grid. Centered, not justified.
And — and this should be incredibly obvious — he said "White Lives Matter", not "Black Lives Matter". The alternate shirt is what produces the dissonance onto the first shirt, and it forces the intended meaning of the first shirt into the open. It does not change the meaning of the first shirt. That is, Kanye's shirt does not redeem the "Black Lives Matter" shirt, it merely critiques it, revealing the slave morality of the first shirt. Thus, even if Adams accepts Kanye's refrain that it's "an obvious thing" that "white lives matter", the (Marxist) meaning of "Black Lives Matter" remains the same when left by itself, and it certainly is the same when left in its original grid font.
But how would one change its meaning, in practice?
This would require signaling that “Black Lives Matter” has been decoupled from its previous context.
• Changing the font as Kanye did was a good move (i.e., one cannot wear the original font and believe that the meaning has changed), but font is not enough, as even groups such as Black Sabbath have made major changes to the font without changing the underlying Marxist meaning (they borrowed from the Marxist Array Now organization), and groups such as Tool have used the "Parental Advisory" font without inspiring a universal meaning greater than that of the race-specific issues of "Straight Outta Compton" (see Tool’s “Hush” video, 1991).
• "All Lives Matter" does not work because the left has already demonized it in the Zeitgeist. It has become an immediate thought-terminating cliché meaning "[Other! Disregard all arguments from this person!]" The phrase is true from the Enlightenment perspective, but it would not interrupt the left psychosis.
• One would probably have to wear a shirt that includes both messages, i.e., "Black Lives Matter, White Lives Matter" in a common font (e.g., Impact again).
This lessens (but does not remove) the "supremacy" argument and brings further dissonance to the "repressive tolerance" meaning of "Black Lives Matter" by itself (i.e., it illustrates BLM’s corruptions). The Marxism-indoctrinated reader searches for some fault while evading his own racism and the extent to which his his mind turns to align with Party Doctrine, and it shows a (more) nuanced meaning is at work.
However, this double message is still an attempt to work within the framework set by the Marxists, and so it fails by this same action. Once one begins listing those that “matter”, the Marxist path runs into the LGBTQ2S+NAMBLA Party Doctrine — and, being a doctrine of slave morality, this list must necessarily omit the white ‘oppressor’. The Party Member shouts his refrain, and any deviation from the “true” words of the Party indicate someone who is not a loyal Bolshevik — as has happened in very explicit form (2020 Portland riots video by Michael Tracey):
Adams simply wearing the "Black Lives Matter"–"Straight Outta Compton" shirt after this Kanye stunt does not change the Marxist meaning of the phrase or of the shirt. The phrase is so owned by the controllers of the Zeitgeist that it has to be heavily qualified and modified to be reclaimed by Western ideas of equality. A person is left in a long-winded talk such as this present article where it is necessary to say,
“[I don’t support the BLM organization, but I do think that black lives matter, just not as the phrase means under the Marxist dialectical manipulation of Nietzschean slave morality as a means to power, since I believe in the inherent equality of humans as expressed by John Locke’s idea of unalienable natural rights. Under that Enlightenment framework, every individual has a right to pursue his or her own greatest self, with good works demonstrating one’s virtue. This universality builds a virtuous society around a moral people.]”
This lawyerly clarification does not make a great t-shirt, though people are free to print it.
Kanye’s t-shirt design could even be a template to complete its intended mirror, with a decadent BLM organizer on the front and the BLM message on the back in Impact font:
In short, reclaiming the phrase itself may be ultimately impossible, since the Marxist framework has so totally monopolized the meaning-making around it. At every corner, the Marxist Panopticon awaits to cry, “Racism!” when its mantra is challenged by Western ideals. Adams’ wit around the issue re-raises these issues, but his “wry” smile while saying, “unironically,” makes the entire event appear to be a recognition of his part in a kind of George W. Bush “Mission Accomplished” moment.
That does not mean that the phrase cannot be challenged or modified, however. The “Peace sign” metaphor is not wrong. Even Adams’ video is an effort to meme it into its absurdity — or rather, to make that absurdity more visible to unwitting Party followers still defending its Marxist symbolism. That is, the meaning may stay the same for “Black Lives Matter”, but the Marxism fueling the phrase can rightly be made into a joke. This decouples those whose lives matter from the slave morality propaganda that is attempting to weaponize their resentment on behalf of a total state.