Whatever you think of Kim Kardashian West, she certainly knows how to leverage her platform – sometimes for a very worthy cause.
On September 17, the reality star and businesswoman made waves for a full page ad she wrote in tandem with the Armenian Educational Foundation. Published in the New York Times, the article condemned the media for contributing to genocide denial.
West pointedly called out the Wall Street Journal for running a Turkic Platform ad that downplayed the Armenian Genocide and blamed it on Armenia, not Ottoman Turkey. In response to earlier criticism from Gawker, WSJ had justified its actions as allowing “provocative viewpoints” and “varied and divergent views.”
West, whose great-grandparents fled Armenia in 1914, was having none of it. “Advocating the denial of genocide by the country responsible for it – that’s not publishing a ‘provocative viewpoint,’ that’s spreading lies,” she wrote. “It’s totally morally irresponsible and, most of all, it’s dangerous.”
Later, the star cogently questioned: “If this had been an ad denying the Holocaust, or pushing some 9/11 conspiracy theory, would it have made it to print?” Tying the genocide to the Holocaust, West argued that the latter horror might have been prevented had Turkey been held accountable for her actions.
“When we deny our past, we endanger our future,” West articulated. “When we allow ourselves to be silenced by money, by fear and by power, we teach our children that truth is irrelevant.”
Like most of West’s words and actions are wont to do, the article garnered instant – and mostly favorable – press. Yet, sadly, West has done a much better job at generating awareness than either the U.S. mainstream media or our Federal government.
In 2015, the selfie queen and her sister visited Armenia to commemorate the centennial of the massacre, yet both ABC and CBS ignored the occasion. In fact, between January 2009 and April 2015, the networks covered the presidential family’s dog 28 times more than the genocide.
During his campaign, President Obama declared he would officially recognize the Armenian Genocide. Now in his eighth year as POTUS, that promise remains unfulfilled. At a federal level, our government refuses to recognize the pointed slaughter of 1.5 million of the first Christian country’s people.
“When we deny our past, we endanger our future.” West’s words are eerily prescient. One hundred years after the Armenian horror, another Christian genocide is occurring in the Middle East – this time, at the hands of ISIS. Although the State Department has labeled it as such, the networks won’t call it what it is.
Thankfully, Amal Clooney – human rights lawyer and wife of actor George Clooney – has recently brought attention to the plight of the Yazidi Muslim minority which has also been directly targeted for extermination by ISIS.
It seems that a celebrity advocate is now required in order for the cries of the Christians to be heard.
Of Note: A new film set during the Armenian Genocide recently premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. The Promise, starring Christian Bale, “follows a love triangle between Michael, a brilliant medical student, the beautiful and sophisticated Ana, and Chris - a renowned American journalist based in Paris.” It will hit theaters later this year.
