“We are Semite, we Jew, so I can’t be antisemite.” The rapper, record producer, and fashion designer Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, garnered mass attention and praise as an influential hip hop artist. In the fall of 2022, he was in the limelight for his ostensive displays of antisemitism and proliferation of hateful, disgusting rhetoric. 

 

Ye certainly stayed busy. He had yet to fall from grace on October 3, when he wore a shirt emboldened with “White Lives Matter” on the back at his Yeezy Paris Fashion Week show. That particular phrase has been adopted by neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. But in the following weeks, Ye’s actions not only elicited criticism from fans across the political spectrum and renunciation of their “unconditional” support, but also the termination of relationships and brand deals with The Gap, Balenciaga, and Adidas. He used social media to propagate his dangerous ideals. On October 8, Ye tweeted that he would soon go “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE,” an apparent reference to the United States’ defense readiness condition, known as Def. Con. This tweet has since been deleted. 

 

On November 22, Ye attended an incendiary Thanksgiving dinner at former president Donald Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago alongside the notorious white supremacist Nick Fuentes. Despite his antisemitic escapades, he was still welcomed at the Trump residence. According to Trump, Ye was hoping to receive business advice, and just so happened to bring Fuentes along (who Trump claimed not to know). 

 

On December 1, Ye’s antisemitic sentiments came to a terrifying head during an interview with the infamous Alex Jones on Jones’ platform, Infowars. Jones, a controversial figure himself, faced recent legal trouble. A right-wing conspiracy theorist, Jones was responsible for attempting to discredit the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, a tragic event in 2012 where 20-year old Adam Lanza murdered 20 children and six teachers. Jones took to Infowars to spread the false idea that the deaths were staged by the United States government in an attempt to strip American gun rights. His words sparked action from his listeners, who proceeded to harass the grieving parents and family members of the victims and vandalize grave sites. In a civil suit in October, those same parents and family members won three defamation lawsuits, and Jones was forced to pay them nearly $1 billion. With this in mind, it is a wonder that during that interview, Jones somehow managed to sound sane in comparison to Ye. 

 

Ye, fully masked, went on an antisemitic rant: “Well, I see good things about Hitler also. I love everyone.” Ye continued, “Every human being has something of value that they brought to the table, especially Hitler.” Jones told Ye he had a Hitler fetish just as the show was approaching a commercial break, to which Ye replied “I like Hitler.” Ye stated that he does not like the word evil next to Nazis after Jones pushed back on some of his assertions. Jones, when Ye dug a deeper hole with ​​“I love Jewish people, but I also love Nazis,” laughed and said “Well, I have to disagree with that.”

 

Hours after the interview, Ye incurred another Twitter ban for “incitement of violence” (this time, just a 12 hour ban) when he posted a Jewish star embedded in a swastika. I shared this development on my personal Instagram account, condemning the decision of “Chief Twit” (aka Elon Musk) to enact just a 12 hour suspension. I received a message that I believe captures the opinions of a large number of people following this story’s developments. This individual claimed, without malintent, that “As long as he’s not promoting violence he shouldn’t be banned. Besides if u get offended what that lunatic says then ur soft.”

 

It is not “soft” to be extremely disturbed, distressed, and worried about the hateful rhetoric Ye proliferated. If only it could all be summed up or even excused by lunacy or his documented mental health issues. The reality is 1 in 4 Jewish people experienced antisemitism in 2021. There is a steadily increasing number of Holocaust deniers. Ye’s words have emboldened other “lunatics” to act: vandalizing graves and Jewish holy sites, sending threatening notes, and physical violence (and, in the not-so-long-ago past, synagogue shootings). To have given Ye the platform and megaphone that he continuously abused is to be complicit in the disgusting sentiments he’s been espousing. 

I wish that there was something funny that could come out of this debacle, an amusing quip I could add to this article to end it on a lighter note. Although I do believe there is some depressing irony in Ye’s repeated attacks and outbursts, he, and others like him, poses a real threat. His antisemitic remarks are unoriginal; he’s playing into stereotypes that have existed for millenia. But the more we listen to Ye and people like him, the more “comfortable” we become with stewing in hatred. We grow tired of concerning ourselves with headlines and instead we choose to ignore them. We give Ye and the cohort of loathsome people who profit off of our silence a free pass, to which they will keep on taking advantage of. We must continue to speak out against hate.