Kanye West accused of racial discrimination by former security guard
nme.comKanye West is being sued for racial discrimination by one of his former security guards.The lawsuit has been brought forward by Benjamin Deshon Provo – who worked for the rapper (who now goes by Ye) at both his Donda Academy school and at a warehouse used as storage for the Yeezy brand of clothing.In the filing, the former employee alleges that the artist subjected his Black employees to “less favourable treatment than their White counterparts”, and People reported that the lawsuit also claims that Ye “frequently screamed at and berated Black employees”, and ultimately fired Provo for refusing to cut his dreadlocks.The former member of staff began working for the controversial rapper in August 2021, after six months at the Donda Academy.
This, he alleges, is when the school relocated and “assigned additional job duties” to employees “as a result of a lack of staffing”.In the lawsuit, he accuses Ye of demonstrating a “stark difference” in the way he treated his Black employees compared to other members of staff, and claims that the rapper was “always abrupt, abrasive, and demeaning of Plaintiff and his Black counterparts” (via Metro).
Alongside this, he accuses West of making “anyone associated with Donda dispose of books related to Martin Luther King, Jr, Malcolm X, and other prominent figures in the Black community”, and paying him less than non-Black employees “for no discernible reason”.Elsewhere, Provo alleges that he complained to his line manager about the pay disparity, and was told not to raise the topic with the rapper.
