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So...more people have dropped Kanye West in the wake of his "anti-semitic comments" (it took more digging than it should have to actually see what he said - a few articles just leave it incredibly vague which is...problematic). In this case Anna Wintour/Vogue and CAA, both of which are hugely influential, even though CAA only repped him for touring.
To tie it into another recent trend: the Floyd family is allegedly thinking of suing him for suggesting Floyd died of fentanyl though I don't know on what grounds? I guess people have been emboldened by the Alex Jones verdict?
A while ago a rapper called DaBaby went through a similar thing where he refused to apologize until the consequences got too serious - I personally was interested in how far someone could take it. But the outcome proved that "cancel culture" isn't really a paper tiger that only works when people play along because they're too spineless. Nope, it'll work regardless.
This is an interesting test case because Kanye is basically as close to "uncancellable" as a person in a hugely PR-focused industry like music (and fashion) gets. He has a bunch of rabid fans who will buy his music or gear and he's already so vastly rich and famous that he'll likely always make waves. And , according to him, he has an ironclad contract with Adidas
Presumably he knew all this when he - once again - decided to say something he almost certainly knew would bring controversy. But, unlike the "slavery was a choice" or all of the other shit he did, this one is actually leading to the most serious consequences we've seen yet. Ironically for saying Jews cancel people who don't play by the agenda.
Recall also that Nick Cannon eventually was forced to apologize not for racist, Scientology-esque pseudoscience about white people, but specifically for annoying Jews.
It's a shame we don't have a way to see what the median person thinks about this (it's all just elite shunning and op-eds right now) because my first impression when I saw that happen to Cannon is "this is bad for everyone. White people are seeing this - they're basically seeing that anti-white racism is fine and the only whites you don't get to be racist towards are Jews". I wonder how black people will feel if this is what kills Kanye and not...y'know, going against the strongest racial partisan preference in the country.
How would that look like? You can't just average what 300 millions of people think and get some meaningful picture. It's like composing an "average person", having one testicle, one teat and half a penis, and expecting that construct to give you a meaningful insight into how males and females behave.
As for why talk of persecuting Jews is dangerous, I think there are some examples in history that demonstrate that pretty conclusively. With that, the idiotic theories some of the less educated members of the famous-American community are periodically airing out are nothing new, and have been circulating for decades, some for centuries. Absent proper mental hygiene, some get infected and then sneeze it out in public. With prompt treatment delivered in time, there's nothing dangerous to it, if that's where it ends.
I'm not sure which part made you think "anti-white racism is fine"?
No one is saying any group should be persecuted. But it would seem as if one group is off-limits to debate or criticism.
That's not true at all. There's a lot of criticism directed at Jews in general and American Jews in particular. It's just "I am going to go Death Con 3 on Jews" is not something I call "debate and criticism". Neither is "you're not real Jews, your identity is fake and I am a real Jew instead". What exactly is being debated here? What is criticized? It's just repeating known false statements in an attempt to hurt people.
Of course in a free country one should be free to say even obviously false and idiotic things. But whoever is saying it also should be told they are false and idiotic, and "it's debate and criticism!" is no excuse for saying false and idiotic things.
It seems like the mere accusation of antiseminitm can end careers and has the effect of ending debate. Maybe Kanye was out of line but people have faced serious repercussions for far less
"I'm going Death Con 3 on Jews" is "mere accusation" as standing over the body with a smoking gun in one's hand and screaming "yes, I killed the bastard, and I am proud of it!" is a "mere accusation of murder". Since antisemitism is not a crime, there never could be anything more official than "accusation" - nobody gets an official Antisemitism League membership card, and organizations that could issue functional equivalents of this are, thankfully, either extinct or far away. But we have very clear expressions that go way beyond "mere accusation" - it's not like somebody just said out of the blue "Kanye said something antisemitic 20 years ago, I don't remember where or when or what it was, but I remember it being said so vividly it affected my whole life, even though I didn't speak to anybody about it for 20 years, but now I'm literally shaking!". That'd be mere accusation. And of course, nobody would think about taking something like that seriously and demand it had far-reaching consequences. But that's not what happened. We have the actual anti-semitic pronouncements. We all saw them. Maybe Ye wants to tell us we misunderstood him and "Death Con 3" actually means "embrace of friendship and love"? Maybe by saying Jews created cancel culture he meant Jews are great people and cancel culture is bad, and nothing more? He certainly didn't tell us any of that.
And as for ending debate - what debate? I don't see him debating anyone. I see him repeating moronic falsities about Jews and promising to do the same in the future. That's not a debate. At least it's not any debate that anybody would value. It's still his free speech, but there's no "ending debate" because there was never beginning the debate.
People have faced serious repercussions for very small things, like walking around White House in a bad time. What's your point here? Do I think Chase should have closed his account? No, I don't think so. I think Chase is bad for doing this, and creates a terrible precedent. But do I think Ye should get his ass kicked, in strictly metaphorical and rhetorical sense of course, for doing something this monumentally stupid? Yes, I think so.
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If a non-black celebrity was robbed, then tweeted about how he's about to go DEFCON 3 on black people and gave multiple interviews about how he's not about to keep getting victimized by black criminals, would it go very differently?
No, anti black racism is also unaccepted. But racism against non Jewish whites is completely acceptable. Thats the point
Yes, undisputed. That is not the same thing as "jews are the one group that is off-limits to debate or criticism".
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