‘White Lives Matter’ trademark owners willing to sell to Kanye West for $1bn

Two Black radio hosts acquired the trademark from a listener hoping to avoid someone else profiting from the hateful slogan.

Ramses Ja and Quinton Ward, two Black activists who own the rights to “White Lives Matter,” are willing to sell the phrase to Kanye West for $1bn.

Ye stirred up a whirlwind of controversy after appearing with conservative commentator Candace Owens in T-shirts stating “White Lives Matter” at Paris Fashion Week in early October. During the show, some models also wore clothing bearing the phrase, which the Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Centre has categorised as a hateful, white supremacist slogan.

While speaking with TMZ last weekend, Ja and Ward admitted that, while they’re not looking to sell the trademark, they’d consider doing so should someone propose an enticing offer. “Any potential buyer would have to come up with a $1 billion offer to even make them consider selling,” the outlet notes.

The news follows Ja and Ward’s recent appearance on ABC News, in which the pair maintained that no one in America can legally sell any “White Lives Matter” products without receiving their authorization.

“I recognize that one of two things could happen. Someone could come to our lawyer or us and say, ‘Hey, you have the exclusive right to make and sell those clothes in the United States of America. I would like to buy the trademark for millions of dollars,’” Ja told Capital B News

“If we were to sell that trademark, for whatever amount of money, we could donate that money to causes that we feel would benefit Black people, like the NAACP or Black Lives Matter organisations. Because, realistically, we cannot stop the shirts from being made right now. We can write cease and desists to people selling these shirts right now, but that is a big monster that requires teams of lawyers and thousands of dollars that we do not have.”

Writer
Chris Saunders