Wednesday, November 23, 2022
When Kanye (Ye) West finally managed to out himself as an
antisemite, the response was predictable. Demand an apology. Demand that the
offender’s lucrative business deals be canceled. This is the pattern we’ve seen
over the past several years, as antisemitism grows, even in America, the
Goldene Medina. But is it working?
It certainly didn’t work with West. The rapper only doubled down and refused to apologize, even after several very profitable business contracts were canceled, as a result.
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| Kanye (Ye) West |
The following exchange took place during an
interview with Piers Morgan:
Piers Morgan: “Do you now regret saying ‘death con 3 on Jewish people’… Are you sorry you said that?”
Kanye: “No… Absolutely not.”
Bottom of the barrel. Kanye West goes on Piers Morgan’s show, presumably because that’s the only show that would have him on, and offers most ridiculous half-assed apology ever. pic.twitter.com/HzOSvLAwA7
— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) October 19, 2022
In other words, despite the fact that Ye lost out on
billions of dollars in potential earnings, he has shown little to no contrition
for the hateful things he said about the Jewish people.
Yet Morgan persisted until he at last managed to eke out a
semblance of an apology from West:
“I will say I’m sorry for the people that I hurt with the ‘Death Con’ — the
confusion that I caused. I feel like I caused hurt and confusion. And I’m sorry for the families of the people
that had nothing to do with the trauma that I have been through, and that I
used my platform, where you say hurt people hurt people, and I was hurt.”
Some media outlets referred to Kanye’s non-apology as an
apology.
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| (Yahoo) |
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| (The Wrap) |
Others were more honest.
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| (TMZ) |
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| (Daily Beast) |
Once allowed back on Twitter after a six-week ban, Ye collectively mocked the Jewish people by tweeting a single word, “Shalom.” As if to say, “You Jews exploited me and stole my money as you always do, but I refused to bow my head.”
Shalom : )
— ye (@kanyewest) November 20, 2022
.jpg) |
| Kyrie Irving |
The same irritating pattern was repeated with athlete Kyrie Irving. There was a tweet with hateful content, this time in the form of a link to an antisemitic movie: "Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America." The ADL put pressure on a sports shoe company—Nike—with West it was Adidas—and an apology was demanded but not received. Irving was also suspended from his position as a guard for the Brooklyn Nets.
Sources: Nets have delivered Kyrie Irving six items he must complete to return to team:
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) November 6, 2022
- Apologize/condemn movie
- $500K donation to anti-hate causes
- Sensitivity training
- Antisemitic training
- Meet with ADL, Jewish leaders
- Meet with Joe Tsai to demonstrate understanding
But Irving was smarter than Ye, or at least saner. He figured
out that he stood to lose a LOT of money if he didn’t apologize to those damned
Jews. So after he tried to get away with not apologizing, followed by a non-apology
that everyone knew was a non-apology, he finally made an actual apology—or at
least said the words—whether he meant them is anyone’s guess (and I’m guessing
not).
The non-apology:
The apology:
“I don’t have hate in my heart for the Jewish people or
anyone that identifies as a Jew . . . The difficult aspect is just processing
all this, understanding the power of my voice, the influence I have. I am no
one’s idol, but I am a human being that wants to make [an] impact and change.”
“I really want to
focus on the hurt that I caused. I just want to apologize deeply for all my
actions throughout the time that it’s been since the post was first put up. I’ve
had a lot of time to think,” said Irving.
Having at last issued an apology—whether heartfelt or not—Kyrie
was reinstated by the Nets.
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| Nick Cannon |
The antisemitism of Kyrie and Ye are lately in the news. But
we’ve seen this show before. There was Nick
Cannon’s 2020 podcast with Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin. From the
transcript:
Nick Cannon: Right. So let’s dive into it. Who are they? When we speak up, because this is where it truly is. And we talk about the six corporations, when we go as deep as the Rothschilds, centralized banking, the 13 families, the bloodlines that control everything even outside of America. When we talk about the people who, if we were truly the children of Israel, and we’re defining who the Jewish people are, because I feel like if we actually can understand that construct, then we can see that there is no hate involved. When we talk about the lies, the deceit, how the fake dollar controls all of this, then maybe we can get to the reason why they wanted to silence you, why they want to silence Minister Farrakhan, and they want to throw that we are having hate speech when it’s never hate speech, when it’s not. You can’t be anti-Semitic when we are the Semitic people, when we are the same people that who they want to be, that’s our birthright.
Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: It’s our birthright.
Nick Cannon: So if that’s truly our birthright, there’s no hate involved.
Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: It’s not.
Nick Cannon: How did this message gets so misconstrued?
Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: When we came back to claim it. When we woke up and we came back to claim … If you steal my bicycle, when we were six years old, and you riding around the hood with my bike, now I’m 12, and I understand …
Nick Cannon: I want my bike back.
Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: I want my bike back, man. Now you’re going to kick up dust.
Nick Cannon: Right, right. Right.
Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: You understand what I’m saying?
Nick Cannon: And I’m baller enough to get my bike back. . .
Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: You understand what I’m saying? That’s showing and proving that that’s my bike, and I’m here to claim it, man. You got, you have to give it back. So when you start hearing songs like Michael Jackson “hike me, kike me” and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, nah, you can’t say that.
Nick Cannon: You can’t say that. That’s hate speech.
Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: When you see Puffy talking about “I’m getting paid like the Hebrew,” you know what I’m saying?
Nick Cannon: Right, right. They want to mute the Hebrew.
Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: They want to mute that. You understand what I’m saying?
Nick Cannon: Even we the true Hebrews.
Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: Exactly. So we can’t even tell the truth now.
Nick Cannon: Right.
Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: Not on record, not on television shows, not on YouTube. . . .
Nick Cannon: Because we’re not saying anything hateful, and that’s the thing when they want to put that on the Minister Farrakhan, was saying, even the term “white devils” or just devils in general …
Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: Right, right, right.
Nick Cannon: … when he was really speaking about the people who devalue our communities and themselves, and that’s really where the word “devil” comes from and how he’s speaking it. But they want to take the sound bites and say, “This is antisemitic.” And so how does that occur? And why does that occur? Is that great? Is that spiritual warfare or is that just truly just us just silencing each other?
Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: That’s the psychological covert, meaning hidden, war on the higher, infinite power healing our people.
Further on in the podcast is this exchange:
Nick Cannon: So ultimately are we saying that there’s a certain group of people that maybe they’re scared of the truth?
Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: I think there’s Jewish people, but I just think there’s a group of Jewish people inside of that. You could call them Zionists. You can call them whatever.
Nick Cannon: Let’s dig into that for a second because that’s where I, and even sometimes I find myself wanting to debate this idea, and it gets real wishy-washy and unclear for me when we give so much power to the “they,” and then the theys then turn into the Illuminati, the Zionists, the Rothschilds …
Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: The Freemasons.
Nick Cannon: The Bilderberg group, the Freemason. And as a community I feel, and I’ve done this myself, I want to blame others for the position that I’m currently in. And that often becomes when you say the privileged white girlfriend comes into the room or the apologists or these people come in and say, “Why aren’t you guys over slavery already?” or “Why are you always complaining? And why don’t you do for yourself? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. And my people were also oppressed.”
That’s the pattern: demand an apology—and it doesn’t seem to
matter whether or not it is sincere—and hit the hater in the wallet. Perhaps it’s
time to question the wisdom of this method. Do the antisemitic beliefs
evaporate once the apology is issued? Do the apologies matter at all? And doesn’t
placing financial pressure on antisemitic offenders only reinforce classic
tropes about Jews, money, and power?
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| ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt |
From the ADL’s blog, Unpacking
Kanye West’s Antisemitic Remarks:
Claims About Jewish Money and Greed
Ye’s claim that Jared Kushner’s actions between Israel and Arab nations was driven by his desire for financial gain corroborates long-standing antisemitic tropes about alleged Jewish control of money and financial institutions. His vague suggestion that a prominent Jewish holiday is associated with “financial engineering” also reinforces this stereotype. Overall, Ye's suggestions about Jewish people, holidays and the monetary implications of the two lends credence to the baseless idea that Jews can leverage their power for insidious purposes because of the stronghold they have on financial institutions.
From the ADL’s resource, Ye (Kanye
West): What You Need to Know:
Claims about Jewish Control of Media and Government
In many of his recent interviews, Ye repeatedly referenced purported Jewish control over various industries — he used the phrase “Jewish media” over twenty times on “Drink Champs” alone. Ye also spoke about “Jewish Zionists” and “Zionist media handlers.” He made multiple references to prominent Jewish individuals, including George Soros — the Hungarian Jewish billionaire, philanthropist and Holocaust survivor who is a frequent bogeyman for both avowed antisemites and the political right — and Jared Kushner, as supposed examples of Jewish power.
Ye’s insinuations about Jewish control perpetuate the longstanding antisemitic trope that Jews wield an inordinate amount of power and exert control over global systems as part of a quest for world domination. These views are regularly promoted by extremists and antisemites of a wide variety of ideologies, from white supremacists and extremist Black nationalist groups to conspiracy theorists and Holocaust deniers.
· “Jared Kushner is an example of how the Jewish people have their hand on every single business that controls the world.” (Ye on “Drink Champs,” 10/16/22)
· “We’re not going to be owned by the Jewish media anymore…Every celebrity has Jewish people in their contract…And these people, if you say anything out of the line with the agenda, then your career can be over.” (Ye on “Cuomo,” 10/17/22)
· “Kim [Kardashian, Ye’s ex-wife] has Zionist media handlers surrounding her.” (Ye on “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” 10/19/22)
· “I said the Jewish people because, by the way, it’s a barrage…George Soros knows, like, ‘wow, this guy is like a younger guy that’s looking at what I did and looking at how I control the world silently and he’s calling it out’…That’s what George Soros sees, right, when he’s dealing with me.” (Ye on the “Lex Fridman Podcast,” 10/24/22)
Claims that Jews Exploit Black Artists for Financial Gain
Antisemitic tropes about alleged Jewish power and greed intersect in Ye’s comments about purported Jewish control of the music industry and exploitation of Black artists. This trope has been present in the discourse of other Black performers and activists in the past and is a common talking point within more extremist groups. Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, for example, frequently makes this accusation.
· “Jewish people have owned the Black voice…The Jewish community, especially in the music industry, in the entertainment [industry] period, they’ll take one of us, the brightest of us, right, that can really feed a whole village, and they’ll take us and milk us till we die.” (Ye on “Drink Champs,” 10/16/22)
· “There’s so many Black musicians signed to Jewish record labels and those Jewish records labels take ownership not only of the publishing…but also ownership of the culture itself…It’s like a modern-day slavery.” (Ye on “Cuomo,” 10/17/22)
· “I’ve been wronged so many times by Jewish businessmen…They’re taking money out of my children’s mouths and putting it into their children’s mouths!” (Ye on “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” 10/19/22)
· “90% of Black people in entertainment — from sports, to music, to acting — are in some way tied into Jewish businesspeople…Like if Rahm [Emanuel] is sitting next to [President] Obama or Jared [Kushner] sitting next to [President] Trump, there’s a Jewish person right there controlling the country, the Jewish people controlling who gets the best video or not, controlling what the media says about me.” (Ye on the “Lex Fridman Podcast,” 10/24/22)
So let’s see, Jonathan Greenblatt, after pressuring Adidas (of the Nazi past) to break its very generous contract with Ye, educates us on classic Jewish tropes relating to money and power. Isn’t this a contradiction in terms? Of course it is. And a lot of Jews think the ADL has outlived its usefulness, and in fact, causes more harm than good.
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| The Dassler shoe factory--where Adidas and Puma were born--in Herzogenaurach, Germany circa 1930s. Source: Wikimedia Commons |
Liel Liebovitz lays it out for us in No
More ADL:
Pop quiz:
Which of these two individuals do you find more problematic?
Kyrie Irving, a kooky basketball player who believes that the Earth is flat, that JFK was shot by bankers, that the COVID vaccines were secretly a plot to connect all Black people to a supercomputer, and that Jews worship Satan and launched the slave trade?
Or Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, who accepted $500,000 from Irving last week without even meeting or even talking to the all-star—and who was then forced to give back the donation when Irving blatantly refused to apologize?
Let’s think about it for a minute. One of these guys is a weirdo with dumb opinions he may or may not actually believe. The other is running a soulless racket which just made it clear that you can say whatever you want about the Jews and buy your indulgences at a discount price.
Don’t get me wrong: I absolutely believe that Irving’s endorsement of a Black nationalist documentary based on an obscure Jew-hating book, to say nothing of Kanye West’s meltdown, will most likely contribute to a surge in antisemitism in America, particularly in the Black community. But we Jews don’t control Kyrie Irving; in theory, we do control the ADL, and we shouldn’t want our chief defense group to behave in a way that advances antisemitic conspiracy theories about shadowy Jews trafficking in money and influence for fun and profit.
As for the pro forma apologies, not everyone is so eager to accept them. Meghan McCain, for instance, who, remarking on Nick Cannon’s apology said that antisemitism remains “the last form of passable bigotry in America.”
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| Meghan McCain at the No Fear: A Rally in Solidarity with the Jewish People, July 11, 2021, (Ted Eytan, Wikipedia.) |
“This isn’t just about Nick Cannon,” said McCain. “It’s why
we, as Americans, seem to find more forgiveness in our heart for antisemitism
than we do of racism of any other kind.”
“I think my concern is, for some reason, antisemitism is
something we let people forgive a lot easier than any other forms of bigotry
and racism.” McCain noted that “we’re having conversations about canceling Dr.
Seuss,” but we say nothing about works by other authors which contain “deeply
antisemitic characters.”
“I find that people who say antisemitic things are forgiven
a lot easier than anything else,” said McCain, “And I think that’s something we
really need to examine as a society.”
McCain is right. We are too forgiving, and the pattern of
demanding apologies and forcing companies to cancel big name antisemites just
isn’t working. If it were working, we’d
see less antisemitism, rather than more, as in our current situation, with both
Ye and Irving coming out of the (antisemitic) closet, so to speak.
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| Raoul Wallenberg |
The problem perhaps, is that the demands and pressures are coming from the Jews, when it would be preferable to have non-Jews fight this battle for us. But we have learned an unfortunate lesson from our tragic Jewish history. People like McCain, and even more so, righteous gentiles like Raoul Wallenberg who saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, are rare birds. For the most part, no one sticks up for the Jews, except for the Jews themselves.
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