The two men who are the legal owners of the “White Lives Matter” trademark relating to its commercial use say they do not need to take immediate action following the actions of rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West.
The pair made the comment while speaking with CNN’s Laura Coates and Alisyn Camerota about Ye’s wearing of a T-shirt with the phrase.
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“At present, we plan to do nothing,” Ramses Ja, co-host of racial justice radio show Civic Cipher, said.
“Nothing is plenty, as you can imagine. We have lawyers advising us how to best protect the trademark. It will not be sued to hurt, harm, trigger any people as long as we are the people in the position to decide how it is used in commerce.”
Because they have no intention to use the phrase commercially, no one else can either, according to Quinton Ward, co-host of Civic Cipher.
The trademark was anonymously given to the hosts, he said.
“It’s really about controlling who can profit from it,” Ja said. “In terms of how it feels to be at the helm of this moment, I can say that it feels good to see people’s reaction to it, to see people feel like they have a reason to smile.”
The last few weeks have been very controversial for people, according to Ja.
Seeing that phrase on a T-shirt was like “sitting on your porch and someone walking up to your home with a Confederate flag on one shoulder, a Trump flag over the other shoulder, a Make America Great Again hat on, a T-shirt that says ‘White Lives Matter’ on the front and that says ‘slavery was a choice’ on the back,” according to Ward.
“Imagine that person holding a bullhorn and saying through it, ‘George Floyd was not killed by police, but he died from a drug overdose.’ Imagine how that would make you feel and then explain to me why I should feel different because the person wearing all that stuff is a creative genius.”
The owners of the trademark feel the term “White Lives Matter” rose up in “opposition to the affirmation that ‘Black Lives Matter.'”
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“A lot of people who see the headline and the picture assume that we have some personal beef or problem with Kanye West or Ye, and we don’t,” Ward said. “We just don’t like the hurt that comes from that message, whether it be intentional or not, and we’re just trying to limit, as much as we can, the amount of people that have to relive trauma or be triggered or feel pain from a message that had such negative intentions.”
