The broad overview of the world and humanity’s history proves that there will always be neglect, always be conflict, and always be discrimination. Humanity is the furthest thing away from unflawed, and these qualities are often cited as some of the largest abstract conflicts it as a species deals with. That being said, each time conflict arises, each time discrimination is spread, it is a stinging pain, panging and resonating through the exhaustion of the same perpetual hatred and subsequent sorrow which rings through human history since early society. Specifically, issues like racism, including antisemitism, continue to be just as relevant as hundreds of years ago. Oppression through slavery, genocide, and hate crimes follows humans like a putrid scent. 

What Did He Say This Time? Kanye West, a rapper, has recently unveiled his newest project: contributing to and inciting raging antisemitism. As a man of color, who puts emphasis on having faced discrimination, this is almost hilariously ironic as he then spews the same hateful language towards another oppressed race. For those unaware, antisemitism is the discrimination towards Jewish people. As racism has been for centuries and centuries, antisemitism has spurred on ugly discrimination in various countries towards Jews both in recent and ancient years. West began adding to this on October 7th through posting a conversation with Sean “Diddy” Combs in which he accused him of being controlled by Jews, following that up with, on October 9th, tweeting, “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 ON JEWISH PEOPLE The funny thing is I actually can’t be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.” In a clever little play on the word “defcon,” which refers to a military term for being on high alert from an attack, West publicly attacked Jewish people to his thirty million plus followers. 

But that’s not all: On October 11th, footage was leaked from Tucker Carlson’s interview with West, in which it was revealed that there was a portion which was edited out. In this clip, Kanye claimed that the term “Jew” refers to “the 12 lost tribes of Judah… who the people known as the race Black really are.” He also claimed that Planned Parenthood was created as a way of “control(ing) the Jew population).” Kanye continued to do various interviews, in which his outlandish statements never disappointed, becoming more genuinely flooring with each instance. A talk show by the name of The Shop said it “would not air an interview with West because he used the platform to ‘reiterate more hate speech and extremely dangerous stereotypes.’” On October 17th, in an interview with Chris Cuomo, West referred to the “Jewish underground media mafia,” and clarified that his “death con 3” comment was in regards to when “Black musicians signed to Jewish record labels and those Jewish record labels take ownership.” He also claimed that this was a form of  “modern day slavery,” with the Jewish being the enslavers. 

On Piers Morgan Uncensored, Kanye stated that he did not regret his antisemitic remarks, however, apologized to “the people that [he] hurt with the ‘death con’” comment. Ironically, he then went on to say, “Would I have grown into the box you want me to go in if I say: to specify the business people that have raped my people, that just so happen to be JEWISHHHHHHHH.” He then smiled like a proud child as Piers Morgan retorted, “By doing what you’ve just done, I find that I’m not even Jewish and I find that offensive. Why do you keep having to do that?” Kanye responded, “What? I don’t! I know, that’s why I did it!” On October 31st, he posted on Instagram, “I gotta get the Jewish business people to make the contracts fair Or die trying.” Kanye also remarked on being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, saying, “The thing about the red hat, that drove me to a point of exhaustion, which was misdiagnosed by a, I’m not gonna say what race, what people, uh, doctor, and what hospital, and what media went to. We know I can’t say that… It was a Jewish doctor.” Lastly, West tweeted he is “starting to think anti-Semitic means [the N word].” 

Many people say that his antisemitism may have to do with only recent events and perhaps some label he may be dissatisfied with. However, it was unveiled that, according to multiple sources close to Kanye, Ye wanted to name his 2018 album after Hitler, Nazi leader. These sources also said Kanye had an “obsession” with the leading antisemite of all time and arguably the most evil person to ever live. Six anonymous other sources who previously worked with West revealed Kanye was pro-Nazi and pro-Hitler through making many remarks aligning with these views. Allegedly, a former employee also accused him of being antisemitic, to whom he then made a settlement payment. West denied all of these claims, though that, looking at his hate speech from the past month, sounds highly unlikely. In fact, it would be more surprising if he wasn’t pro-Hitler, considering their views align to such an extent. 

The Response: One would think that after continuous outlandish remarks and blatant antisemitism, his fans would finally stop supporting him, condemn his insane actions, and admit that what he is doing is inexcusable. However, that is not the case. Ye’s fans, brainwashed by devotion so strong one would need Helium’s ionization energy to separate it from them, are either ignoring his actions, or, praising them. Let that sink in for a moment. Praising them. How sickly and putrid it is indeed that in the twenty-first century, in a world where Holocaust survivors continue to tell their stories and nations around the globe commemorate the lives lost in this genocide, people, in millions, continue to uphold antisemitism because one artist with a horrific track record and a tendency to do insanely controversial things is doing so. How abhorrent is it, that Kanye West, an artist, who has influence over double the amount of people than there are Jewish people left in the world, is being used as a Trojan horse to allow people’s inner hatred towards Jews to come out. For example, an anti-semitic group held a rally recently in which they hung banners over a Los Angeles freeway with phrases like, “Kanye is right about the Jews,” “Honk if you know,” antisemitic video site “Goyim TV”, and citing Revelation 3:9, John 8:44, in which, speaking to a group of Jews, Jesus says, “You belong to your father, the devil, you want to carry out your father’s desires.” He also says, “They say they are Jews, but they are not, because their synagogue belongs to Satan.” This is taken very much out of context as Jesus says this not because they are Jews, but because they were in the process of arresting him to be crucified.

 Kanye fans online have taken to defending this antisemitism everywhere, even seen in Tik Tok comment sections. One user wrote, “Am I the only one that loves this side of Kanye? He’d done holding back. People will say he’s out of his mind but he actually make sense.” Another wrote, “We all know about [Jewish people controlling the media] and we can’t say it. But more and more starts to raise up and speak the truth.” After Adidas ceased collaboration with the rapper, people wrote things like, “Adidas with a huge L, waiting for them to realize.” Other users tried to defend his actions by saying things like, “The reaction to Ye comments further proves the point he was trying to make. But are we really read to go down that rode.” The spelling mistakes in each of these comments pretty much speak for themselves. 

Spectrum News reports that “fliers with antisemitic propaganda were found on lawns, doorsteps and cars of Jewish people in Beverly Hills and Los Angeles’ Westwood neighborhood… Each flyer, placed in plastic sandwich bags and weighed down with rocks or sand, included similar antisemitic tropes baselessly linking the Jewish people to the COVID-19 pandemic, control of the media and government and other false claims. The flyers have been found in states from coast to coast.”

Kanye has, however, been dropped by Adidas, Goodwill, Madame Tussauds, Peloton, Skechers, TJ Maxx, Christie’s, Foot Locker, Gap, DefJam Records, Balenciaga, MRC Entertainment, Vogue, JPMorgan Chase, UTA, CAA, and lost multiple clients from Donda Sports. He lost his billionaire status through the termination of these partnerships, going from a net worth of approximately $1.8 billion to $400 million in the span of this past month. Prominent celebrities, including ex-wife and mother of his children Kim Kardashian and her family, Jamie Lee Curtis, Shaquille O’Neil, Florence Pugh, Reese Witherspoon, Los Angeles mayor Eris Garcetti, Josh Gad, Amy Schumer, etc., also publicly condemned Ye for his comments and actions. Yeezy, Kanye’s shoe company, has also taken a major hit in where it will be sold, as most of the places where it was available for purchase, like Adidas, Gap, and Footlocker, have terminated their partnerships with Kanye. 

In Conclusion: Kanye West is a cretin, a symbol for a much larger issue in the current society. When will antisemitism cease to be acceptable? When will society learn from past mistakes and realize that this hatred, though overlooked, though directed towards a much smaller amount of people than other ethnic groups, can never and should never be normalized? Though a spotlight is being shone on the current antisemitic actions being performed, antisemitism is not anything recent. Hate crimes towards Jews have been normalized for many, many decades and centuries: synagogue shootings, harassment of rabbis and Orthodox Jews, harmful stereotypes in film and jokes in real life, and those flyers previously mentioned, which have been around for years, prominent during the Covid-19 pandemic in which Jews were somehow blamed. At a certain point, society should stop looking to the vessel of antisemitism, as we all know Kanye is struggling with issues and demented views on the world which we need to stop feeding with our attention, and start looking to fix the actual issue. In a way, perhaps we should even thank Kanye, as without him, antisemitism wouldn’t have been mentioned or acknowledged in any shape or form otherwise. There is an interesting track record throughout history, in which trends of hatred are overlooked until they build up and cause things like hate crimes and genocide. The most prominent time this happened, all that was needed was a vessel to carry the antisemitism… let history not repeat itself.