Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
The Gloria Purvis PodcastDecember 20, 2022
Kanye West arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party on Feb. 9, 2020, in Beverly Hills, Calif. The rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, is no longer buying right-leaning social media site Parler, the company said Thursday, Dec. 1, 2022. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)

While claiming a Christian and pro-life worldview, Kanye West—who is now known as Ye—has steeped himself in scandal over blatant anti-Black and antisemitic remarks. In October, he donned a “White Lives Matter” T-shirt with an image of Pope St. John Paul II on the front. Missing from his highly controversial remarks and actions has been any recognition of the harm done to Jews and Black people. That is an important omission, according to Binta Niambi Brown, a talent manager in the music and entertainment industry, the founder Omalilly Projects and a member of the board of directors of America Media.

[Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify]

On this week’s episode of “The Gloria Purvis Podcast,” Binta speaks with Gloria about the cognitive dissonance that people can experience when a beloved and influential artist speaks and acts immorally. At times, Christians in the United States can have an anemic understanding of human dignity, they argue, on the one hand praising Ye for promoting the dignity of the unborn, while ignoring his anti-Black and antisemitic rhetoric. They also discuss the importance of holding pop cultural figures with large platforms accountable.

Finally, Gloria and Binta discuss why music is a profound form of spiritual expression and offer a word of encouragement to Black Catholics in the United States who have considered leaving the church.

More: Music / Racism / Judaism

We don’t have comments turned on everywhere anymore. We have recently relaunched the commenting experience at America and are aiming for a more focused commenting experience with better moderation by opening comments on a select number of articles each day.

But we still want your feedback. You can join the conversation about this article with us in social media on Twitter or Facebook, or in one of our Facebook discussion groups for various topics.

Or send us feedback on this article with one of the options below:

We welcome and read all letters to the editor but, due to the volume received, cannot guarantee a response.

In order to be considered for publication, letters should be brief (around 200 words or less) and include the author’s name and geographic location. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

We open comments only on select articles so that we can provide a focused and well-moderated discussion on interesting topics. If you think this article provides the opportunity for such a discussion, please let us know what you'd like to talk about, or what interesting question you think readers might want to respond to.

If we decide to open comments on this article, we will email you to let you know.

If you have a message for the author, we will do our best to pass it along. Note that if the article is from a wire service such as Catholic News Service, Religion News Service, or the Associated Press, we will not have direct contact information for the author. We cannot guarantee a response from any author.

We welcome any information that will help us improve the factual accuracy of this piece. Thank you.

Please consult our Contact Us page for other options to reach us.

City and state/province, or if outside Canada or the U.S., city and country. 
When you click submit, this article page will reload. You should see a message at the top of the reloaded page confirming that your feedback has been received.

The latest from america

The two high-profile Catholics are among a diverse group of 19 individuals to be honored by President Biden for making “exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States.”
Speaking May 3 on the need for holistic higher education, the pope said that some universities are “too liberal” and do not place enough emphasis on forming their students into whole people.
Manifesting techniques abound in the online world. But creators are conflating manifesting with prayer, especially in their love lives.
Christine LenahanMay 03, 2024
This week on Jesuitical, Zac and Ashley share their conversation with Cardinal Wilton Gregory—the archbishop of what he calls “the epicenter of division”—on the role of a church in a polarized society.
JesuiticalMay 03, 2024