Kanye West wore a “White Lives Matter” T-shirt during Paris Fashion Week’s Yeezy runway show. And so did his conservative-pundit pal Candace Owens.
Ye’s long-sleeved black T-shirt with bold white writing on the back served one purpose immediately: getting outlets to write about Ye’s presentation. But when Owens’ long-sleeved white version joined the mix, with the same message rendered in black type, the story got more complex.
Each shirt bore the image of a pope. Owens’ had Pope John Paul I, whose 33-day tenure at the Vatican was among history’s shortest, while Ye’s showed Pope John Paul II, the long-tenured pontiff who died in 2005 and was canonized as a saint in 2014.
