Deon Cole, acting as host, slammed Kanye West for his audacious swastika t-shirt ploy on his Yeezy website, along with an admonition for Ye’s wife, Bianca Censori, to ‘dress modestly.’ All this while the Trump administration was looming over Vice President Kamala Harris’ first televised appearance after the elections. While the NAACP Image Awards of 2025 missed the presence of these contentious figures, they didn’t dodge the commentary from Dave Chappelle and Kamala Harris on Trump’s second term, or the host’s take on Kanye West.
With an ornate sense of timing, Deon served up a roasting prayer for Kanye West, the man who went from creating celebrated music to designing shirts bearing the abhorred swastika symbol. He prayed for the Lord to guide Kanye back to sensibility from his flawed artistic expedition. And while in prayer, he requested a divine intervention in the wardrobe choices of Kanye’s frequently scantily-clad wife, Bianca Censori, hoping for a little much-needed modesty.
While the NAACP Image Awards were unfolding, Kanye West and Bianca Censori were preoccupied with their own event, a film featuring Bianca in an unorthodox role. This gathering offered visitors little use for scarves, bow ties, or ribbons. Intriguingly, Bianca chose a much more conservative outfit for her public appearance, drawing from the austerity of a nun’s attire.
Unsurprisingly though, the film explored themes of bodily liberation, treating attendees to an ample display of Censori’s contours and skin before the evening ended. Ironically, while Censori was dressing modestly off-screen, she was baring it all on-screen – a tactic which included a heavy dose of irony.
With all eyes on the controversial figures in town, some meaningful matters were being addressed at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. Despite a crushing electoral defeat, Kamala Harris showed up for her first televised appearance since the results were announced. She was awarded the Chairman’s Award and used her acceptance speech to reflect on the NAACP’s history and decry the obstacles plaguing the nation.
Harris, evoking the yeomen work of the NAACP’s founders, lamented the problems arising from ‘greed, bitterness, and hatred’ besetting the nation. She described the journey as a ‘stony road’, painting a dreary picture for the future. Her anecdotes painted a bleak outlook but promised to fight on, echoing the NAACP’s celebrated history.
Labeling 2025 as a critical moment in American history, she bemoaned the perceived destruction facing the country, and questioned, ‘What do we do now?’Whether this was rhetorical or not, her subsequent call to action signaled a desperate plea for unity.
Arrogantly, she maintained that the answer to these challenges was known already, saying ‘we will do it again’ as if history offered no lessons, yet this was met with applause. Harris advocated for a sustained push towards education, grassroots organizations, and mobilizing advocacy targeting supposed historical injustices and current inequalities.
Her speech, heavy with polarizing views, offered no concrete solutions just platitudes. The former Vice President claimed that the nation’s strength lies in their faith – a faith which had been blindly placed in the hands of a failed administration.
She asserted, ‘Our strength flows from our faith — faith in God, faith in each other, and our refusal to surrender to cynicism and destruction,’ a statement that promised much, but offered little in way of substantive progress.
Harris declared that history will be written not by the powerful, but rather by Regular Joes, or as she put it, ‘by us, by we the people.’ This statement, while inspiring to some, echoed a sentiment of populist rhetoric but did little to address the crisis at hand.
Amid a ringing applause, Dave Chappelle picked up the baton and began his address. Accepting the organization’s President’s Award, he highlighted the influence of the NAACP in challenging negative portrayals of African Americans in media.
Expressing the importance of the accolade, given its insignia of the African American population’s struggle, Chappelle lamented the ‘hideous depiction’ of the community in a 1915 film. He marked this as the catalyst for the establishment of the premier NAACP Hollywood office.
Chappelle echoed the sentiments that the fight was far from over, portraying the industry as a ‘monster of a machine.’ This metaphor placed a significant hurdle in the path of artists who aim to accurately represent their stories.
From a somber reflection, his speech took a jocular turn as he regaled the audience with tales of his success. ‘But tonight, man, tonight, I feel invigorated because all my checks cleared,’ the comedian quipped, before resuming his serious commentary.
Chappelle concluded with the advice his father had given him – ‘Whenever you mess up or you feel like you can’t get up. He said, You remember these words because they’re magic words.’ And closed his speech with the mantra ‘Whoops, let’s keep it moving.’