Kanye West has made shockwaves with his recent anti-Semitic comments, which have led to him being dropped from major brand deals, including Adidas, GAP and Balenciaga. This is not the first time Ye has caused controversy with his provocative and offensive remarks. He has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which he has admitted causes him to suffer with paranoia. However, whether it is coming from a neurodivergent or neurotypical person, the outcome of antisemitism is the same: it is dangerous, and cannot be tolerated.
At Paris Fashion Week in the first week of October, West proudly wore a ‘White Lives Matter’ shirt: this phrase was popularised as a counter to the Black Lives Matter movement, which in turn was born out of police violence and institutionalised racism towards Black people, particularly in the United States. White Lives Matter is a white supremacist term, which seeks to invalidate those who fight for a fairer world for Black people, and ignores the fact that white lives already DO matter in the eyes of powerful institutions.
Further to this controversy, on the 15th October West made an appearance on the Drink Champs podcast, where he fed into harmful stereotypes and conspiracy theories about Jewish people and their supposed power and control in global media and business. He accused Jewish people of ‘owning the Black voice’ and ‘taking us and milking us ’till we die’. In an interview with Chris Cuomo, he also stated that he does not ‘believe’ in the term antisemitism.
In a subsequent Instagram post, he implied that fellow rapper P Diddy was being controlled by Jews because he urged Ye to stop wearing a White Lives Matter shirt. The post alluded to conspiracy theories about the ways in which Jews allegedly control the world invisibly. Instagram’s parent company Meta swiftly deleted the post, prompting West to criticise its Jewish founder Mark Zuckerberg.
His antisemitic spree culminated with a tweet, where he vowed to go ‘death con 3 ON JEWISH PEOPLE’. The term ‘death con 3’ alludes to an American military state of alert (DEFCON) and thus implies clear violence towards Jews.
Whilst the tweet was removed by Twitter for violation of its terms, it was still shared widely and seen by millions. In today’s world, where the rapid diffusion of information is possible due to social media, it is extremely harmful for such a tweet to be made – firstly because of the hurt felt by the victim group, but also because it serves as a starting point for others to share their offensive views.
Actress Jamie Lee Curtis, whose father was Jewish, tweeted that ‘…A threat to Jewish people ended once in a genocide. Your words hurt and incite violence…’. This of course references the Holocaust, where six million Jews were systematically killed, tortured and degraded by the Nazis. It is important to remember that the Holocaust was born out of harmful stereotypes about Jewish people that are still perpetuated today: the Nazis claimed that Jews possessed inherent, racial characteristics, which Othered them from the ideal Aryan German citizen.
Nazi propagandists disseminated existing narratives about Jews, such as that they were greedy, and that they controlled the global economy in a way that suited their own self-interested agenda. These harmful ideas were not unique to the Nazi Party: they already existed, and the Nazis exploited them to gain popular support for their anti-Semitic policies.
Jews were the victims of more than four hundred decrees and regulations on all aspects of their social, political and economic lives. Their freedoms and rights were gradually stripped, taking them from citizens to a racialised and outcasted ‘enemy’ of the state. Therefore, we can see that the Holocaust stemmed from pre-existing stereotypes about Jewish people, and that the Nazis used these as a springboard into lower-level persecution, before the horrific systematic killing.
So, even if some people see individual bouts of antisemitism as trivial, or unimportant because they are isolated incidents, this is not the case. Individuals who feed into harmful, antisemitic ideas are contributing to global stereotypes which are the same as those that were able to start the Holocaust. And so, West’s tweets should not just be dismissed as the words of a paranoid, mentally ill person, but recognised for what they are: a dangerous global narrative that seeks to depict Jews as an ‘enemy’.
These conspiracy theories are more popular than some people care to believe. According to research by the anti-fascist group Hope Not Hate in 2020, people aged 25 to 34 are the most likely to buy into these ideas, and are five times more likely than those aged 65 to 74 to believe that ‘Jews have disproportionate control of powerful institutions and use that power for their own benefit and against the good of the general population’. West’s fanbase is predominantly within the young adult age category, and so his anti-Semitic remarks promote these harmful narratives amongst an easily-led demographic.
Whilst West has been dropped from major brand deals, his Twitter account has already been restored and he will no doubt be able to spout more harmful, racist rhetoric. If we want to combat these harmful anti-Semitic ideas, giant social media platforms need to take firmer stances on punishing perpetrators and preventing hate speech from being posted.