George Floyd’s family is right to hold Kanye West to account for his hateful comments

Rapper has made a stunning about-face since his words and actions in 2020

Joshua Broussard kneels in front of a memorial and mural that honors George Floyd at the Scott Food Mart corner store in Houston's Third Ward where Floyd grew up, on June 8, 2020 in Houston, Texas (Getty Images)

When it comes to Kanye West and his ongoing ill-advised media tour, I’ve tried my best to ignore him, his asininity, and his antisemitism for the sake of not amplifying the harmful things he says.

Unfortunately, much like former President Trump, whom he once referred to as a “brother” that he shares “dragon energy” with, some comments are too vile and inflammatory to be ignored or go unanswered.

During an interview on the Drink Champs podcast that aired last week, Kanye, or Ye as he’s now legally known, made the infuriating false claim that George Floyd died from a drug overdose rather than police brutality.

“I watched the George Floyd documentary that Candace Owens put out,” the rapper and designer explained. “One of the things that his two roommates said was they want a tall guy like me, and the day that he died, he said a prayer for eight minutes,” West said. “They hit him with the fentanyl.”

As for ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who was convicted of murdering Floyd back in April 2021, he claimed that Chauvin’s knee “wasn’t even on his neck like that.”

It is a stunning about-face from 2020 when as The Independent’s Josh Marcus notes, Kanye marched for Floyd at the time. Moreover, a representative for the rapper and designer confirmed to CNN that same year that he made a $2 million donation to support the families of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor. The funds were to support legal fees for the Arbery and Taylor families as well as a 529 education plan to fully cover college tuition for Gianna Floyd, the six-year-old daughter of George Floyd.

“Claiming Floyd died from fentanyl, not the brutality established criminally and civilly, undermines and diminishes the Floyd family’s fight,” Lee Merritt, an attorney for the Floyd family, tweeted on Sunday.

Indeed, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s autopsy report found that while Floyd did have fentanyl in his system, he died from a combination of causes – notably “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.”

And during Chauvin’s trial, Dr Martin Tobin, a physician in pulmonary and critical care medicine at Loyola University Medical Center and the Hines Veteran Administration Hospital in Illinois, testified that Floyd died “from a low level of oxygen” and ruled out the possibility that the fentanyl found in Floyd’s system during the autopsy caused his death.

In response to Kanye’s false claims, Roxie Washington, the mother of Gianna Floyd, has filed a $250 million lawsuit against him.

In a release about the suit, Washington, along with her lawyers, claim Kanye 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.”

Nuru Witherspoon, an attorney representing the family said: “The interests of the child are priority. George Floyd’s daughter is being traumatized by Kanye West’s comments and he’s creating an unsafe and unhealthy environment for her.”

It may not be the only suit Kanye faces over the interview.

Speaking to ABC News, Lee Merritt said, “We are looking into a lawsuit on behalf of George Floyd’s brother Philonise, regarding Kanye’s false statement about Floyd’s death.”

In a separate statement toRolling Stone, Merritt explained that the recent $1 billion judgment that family members of Sandy Hook victims won against Alex Jones has helped the family find a path towards holding Kanye accountable.

“I anticipate by the end of the week, we’ll at least have an idea of what claims are viable and what parties might be involved,” Merritt said. “At that time, the decision will be made whether or not to [pursue] trial litigation.”

As overly litigious as many rightfully find Americans, some people only understand the pain they cause in others by forcing them to face financial consequences.

In this case, file as many lawsuits against Kanye as possible if it gets him to stop antagonizing the Floyd family.

Of course, it can’t go unsaid that Kanye West has admittedly struggled with his mental health after disclosing his bipolar disorder back in 2016 and that might potentially be impacting his behavior. Even so, mental health problems are not an excuse for bad behavior. In the same way I agree that he ought to be held accountable for the disgusting comments he has made about Jews, he should face repercussions for what he has said about George Floyd, too. All of this is despicable.

As for the rapper N.O.R.E., the host of Drink Champs, he has since embarked on an apology tour.

“I made a mistake doing the Kanye interview,” he said during a call to Power 105’s The Breakfast Club on Monday morning about the episode, which has since been removed by YouTube and Revolt.

“I could come out here and say this was Kanye’s thing and that’s it. And guess what? People will forgive me and I could get away with that. But that’s not what I’m doing. I feel like I failed my people. I called The Breakfast Club because I wanted to apologize to my people.”

He repeated the apology the next day on Hot 97’s Ebro in the Morning, where he reiterated his apology, adding, “As a Black man I feel like I failed. As a human I feel like I failed. As a journalist I feel like I succeeded.”

Respectfully, “journalist” is generous given the show’s host is a rapper and reality star getting people intoxicated and asking them random questions without ever holding them accountable.

But even if you want to call N.O.R.E. a journalist, it does not absolve him from malpractice here. He, like Chris Cuomo, who also just aired a controversial interview with Kanye West, are doing a disservice to the public by providing Kanye West with a platform to spew hate speech and lies. When capitalizing off the sensationalism sparked by Kanye’s love of conspiracy theories and racist rhetoric, they are helping the man become a mainstream Alex Jones

As the lawsuit filed by the mother of George Floyd’s daughter highlights, there is real harm in giving a hateful, ignorant person the space to spread vitriol and lies. Now is not the time to help Kanye West cause more pain. This is the moment he needs to come to the understanding that you can’t spread hate nor can you lie to people without consequence.

Floyd’s family should make Kanye West pay for his mistakes – and the media needs to mute him until further notice.