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If anyone deserves boycotting, it’s Kanye West.

Just ask Rev. Al Sharpton who is calling for a national boycott of West, the controversial hip-hop artist, over his new clothing line that features the dreaded Confederate flag symbol.

Sharpton’s National Action Network is leading the boycott, saying it will not support any store that sells West’s Confederate flag merchandise.

It’s a prudent decision by Sharpton. West should be called out in the same high-profile way he introduced his racially-charged clothes.

The Confederate flag has remained a symbol of racism for many African Americans since the flag was adopted by Southern states during the Civil War. West may have forgotten that Southerners were fighting to keep black people in slavery.

But in an interview with a Los Angeles radio station, West, 36, explained his warped reasoning for using the Confederate flag.

“React how you want,” West said. “Any energy is good energy. You know the Confederate flag represented slavery in a way – that’s my abstract take on what I know about it. So I made the song ‘New Slaves.’ So I took the Confederate flag and made it my flag. It’s my flag. Now what are you going to do?”

Boycott.

“Kanye West selling jackets with the Confederate flag on them is a disgrace and embarrassment,” Rev. K.W. Tulloss, President of the Los Angeles branch of the of National Action Network, said in a statement.

“Many of our ancestors were brutalized, kidnapped , raped, and murdered during slavery under this flag,” Tulloss said. “It’s inexcusable for West to be promoting and merchandising this flag. We’re determined to boycott and shut down any other stores that attempt to sell this merchandise.”

COMMENTARY: Kanye West Makes a Mockery of Black Oppression for Profit  was originally published on blackamericaweb.com

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