Thursday, October 27, 2022
Elder of Ziyon
Jason Whitlock is a sports journalist with half a million Twitter followers who is politically conservative. He has been tweeting in defense of Kanye West and getting thousands of retweets:
Two of the panelists say what they know about the Black Hebrew movement and admit they don't know why this is offensive. One, author Shemeka Michelle, reads a dictionary definition of "semite" and says, sure, it sounds like Black people are Semitic, why is this offensive to Jews?
He displays a similar casual antisemitism as Kanye himself, retweeting this:When will the Bible be de-platformed and canceled? Revelation 2:9: "I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan." #Kanye
— Jason Whitlock (@WhitlockJason) October 26, 2022
Whitlock has an online show where he discusses Kanye's words and the reaction, and at one point (8:50) asks his panelists a basic question:
This is where I need help, and somebody jump in here. there seems to be a group of people that they're calling black or Hebrew Israelites and this seems to be very offensive, these people what they believe is very offensive that they're arguing that black people are the original Jews or are the Jews ...again I'm not plain dumb I really don't understand uh why it's offensive, or I'm not even sure what's the logic behind the argument, does anybody know?
Finally, former football player TJ Moe says, "My takeaway, again rudimentary understanding, and I don't know if Kanye did this, but a lot of the [Black Hebrew] movement they are not just saying that hey, there's a lost tribe of black people who are Jews too. They're saying you guys are imposters
and that's where it becomes anti-semitic, and that's where I could see them being offended ...He may have actually said it on Tucker, if I remember right, he said I think black people are the real Jews."
So there is a clear element of cluelessness going on here - not only how offensive the idea that Jews who have been persecuted for millennia for being Jewish are being called imposters is, but that if we are imposters than the centuries of expulsions and pogroms and the Holocaust becomes meaningless. Our dead aren't martyrs, they are just dead.
There is another point that is offensive - the idea of truth. There is no evidence that Black people are originally Jews, no matter how many rappers make that claim. To have a group of people come and hijack our history based on clearly false and constructed arguments is not only offensive to Jews but to history.
The conversation notes that Black people have poetically identified with Jews since the days of slavery, which is certainly true. One interesting point again made by TJ Moe was summarized by Whitlock, that Kanye was saying "that Jewish equals oppression, black people have been oppressed for centuries, ergo black people are the real Jews." The poetry of Negro spirituals like "Go Down Moses" has morphed into many Black people literally believing that the Bible is about them.
But even though Whitlock heard these explanations, he himself enthusiastically seemed to reject them - and reject Jews as Jews - in the tweet at the top of this article, written after this video was made.
Also, Whitlock seems to accept without question that Jews control the music industry and are therefore guilty of oppressing multimillionaire rappers. It isn't true that Jews control the industry, and it isn't true that Black performers are treated differently than any other in their contracts.
Whitlock's cluelessness doesn't end there - he cannot understand why Jews are offended by analogies of Black people getting abortions with the Holocaust. He thinks that is valid.
Without bothering to ask a Jew why we are offended by Kanye's clearly hateful statements, he is taking wild guesses based on pure ignorance - and drawing conclusions based on wrong information.
Yes, it is antisemitic to compare the Black experience in America today with the Holocaust. It is antisemitic to blame Jews for unfair contracts in the music industry. It is antisemitic to say that Jewish history is a lie. It is antisemitic to say that Jews are imposters and that some other group is the real Jewish people, based on fake history and lies. it is antisemitic to to pretend that Kanye is being persecuted by a vast Jewish cabal and that he did nothing wrong. And it is offensive to assume that the Jewish outrage at Kanye's words are overblown and unfair without even understanding why they are offensive to begin with.
And it might not be antisemitic, but it is definitely offensive, that so many supporters of Kanye West don't even bother to ask the question of why his words are so hateful and offensive to begin with.
