Kanye West railed against the pro-fat movement, which is afflicting black Americans at a higher rate than any other group, Thursday night in a prime-time interview with Tucker Carlson.
In their wide-ranging discussion, West, a rapper and a rising icon in the fashion industry who is also known as Ye, slammed the media’s obsessive efforts to normalize obesity in the 21st century.
“Lizzo works with my trainer,” West said. “When Lizzo loses 10 pounds and announces it, the bots, that’s a term for people like telemarketer callers on Instagram, they attack her for losing weight because the media wants to put out a perception that being overweight is the new goal when it’s actually unhealthy.”
“Let’s get aside the fact of whether it’s fashion, en vogue, which it’s not. Let’s just — or if someone thinks it’s attractive, to each his own,” West continued. “It’s actually clinically unhealthy, and for people to promote that, it’s demonic.”
Carlson pressed the celebrity on why the media and industry at large are so consumed with glorifying obesity.
“Why do you think they would want to promote unhealthiness among the population?” Carlson asked.
“It’s a genocide of the black race,” West said. “They want to kill us in any way they can.”
The notoriously pro-life pop star went on to trash Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, and the organization’s roots in “eugenics.”
“I believe that if we saw ourselves as more — if we saw ourselves as a people, and not a race, then we would treat our people better,” West said.
That the media’s compulsive promotion of obesity is motivated by anti-black racism is a stretch. Coverage framing obesity as healthy is far likelier a consequence of apathy towards weight gain among Americans, at least 66 percent of whom are considered, at minimum, overweight. Nearly 42 percent of U.S. adults are categorically obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control. But on the broad issue of the pro-fat movement dubbed “body positivity,” West makes an important point in an area where racial dynamics are still at play.
By the modern left’s standards, the media’s embrace of the pro-fat movement is institutional racism. CDC data shows black and Hispanic minorities have the highest age-adjusted prevalence of obesity of any group. Fifty percent of black Americans are considered obese in addition to nearly 46 percent of Hispanics.
Meanwhile, there is no shortage of examples of bizarre and growing hostility towards the active promotion of healthy lifestyles — even when Lizzo, an icon of the deadly pro-fat movement, does something productive for her own health. And the pro-fat movement is deadly. Those who are overweight or obese are at a higher risk of high blood pressure, cancers, diabetes, stroke, coronary heart disease, breathing problems, high cholesterol, and mental illness to name a few, all while rendered sedentary in the immediate future.
Pop culture, however, continues to dismiss the American obesity crisis as not a crisis at all. Magazines from Self to Cosmopolitan have published cover series pitching obesity to women. Just last month, California’s largest school district published a video to its more than half a million students, shaming those who suggest nutritious choices over “bad food” such as donuts. Never mind that 1 in 5 children nationwide is already considered obese.
West’s commentary on the issue is a sharp break from the growing list of cultural influencers who grow their followings by capitalizing on a sick and apathetic population.
Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.
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