Sarah Fishman
Contributing Writer
The artist Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, recently went on a rant on X (formerly Twitter), which included calling himself a Nazi and praising Adolf Hitler, making a series of extremely bigoted remarks about the Jewish people, and calling for the release of sex offender Sean “Diddy” Combs, among other things.
In addition to explicitly stating, “I’m a Nazi,” “I love Hitler,” and “I’m racist,” the 47-year-old rapper invoked various antisemitic tropes and tweeted a slew of derogatory comments, including but not limited to “Amy [sic] Jewish person that does business with me needs to know I don’t like or trust any Jewish person amd [sic] this is completely sober with no hennesy [sic]” and “Jewish people actually hate white people and use black people.”
Another post read, “I love when Jewish people come to me and say they can’t work with me anymore its my fav.”
He also tweeted, “I don’t even know what the fuck anti Semitic means. It’s just some bullshit Jewish people made up to protect their bullshit.” West also raved, “I’m never apologizing for my Jewish comments. I can say whatever the fuck I wanna say forever…”
The rapper threw some misogyny into his outburst as well: “Jews are arrogant and think they can speak to anyone they want any kind of way that’s why every Jewish wife is a b—-,” one post read, along with multiple other tweets targeting Jewish women.
Ye has roughly twice the number of followers on X than the entire number of Jews in the world.
Several of the rapper’s tweets received thousands of likes, which is highly concerning. While some may dismiss West’s comments as insignificant rambling, the rapper’s hate speech should be taken as seriously as the genocide he lauded. The antisemitic conspiracy theories he peddled are no trivial matter — they directly harm Jewish people.
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) spoke out against the artist’s rant: “Just a few years ago, ADL found that 30 antisemitic incidents nationwide were tied to Kanye’s 2022 antisemitic rants. … We condemn this dangerous behavior and need to call it what it is: a flagrant and unequivocal display of hate.”
In 2022, Ye had also praised Hitler and threatened he was “going death con 3 on Jewish people,” among other antisemitic posts. His X account was suspended for a period of time by Elon Musk after he posted an image of a swastika inside a Star of David. The company Adidas also famously ended a $2 billion-per-year partnership with him following backlash that same year.
Jewish actor David Schwimmer echoed Greenblatt’s sentiment, writing on Instagram that “[Ye’s] sick hate speech results in REAL LIFE violence against Jews.”
In addition to his recent messages on X, West also ran an ad during the Super Bowl featuring himself in a dentist’s chair filming with an iPhone, in which he directed viewers to the website of his brand Yeezy. On the site, only one item was for sale: a $20 plain white t-shirt with a black printed swastika in the center. The fact that the rapper was able to advertise this hatred so shamelessly and overtly to the event’s millions of viewers, not even a century after the Holocaust, is chilling.
Shopify, an e-commerce platform, subsequently took down the rapper’s online store for “not [engaging] in authentic commerce practices and [violating] our terms.”
Other targets of the rapper’s comments on X included Make-A-Wish children, rape victims, “fat people,” “ugly people,” “poor people,” people who “wear a lot of jewelry,” and more.
Additional tweets centered around Sean “Diddy” Combs, an artist who was indicted on charges of sex trafficking and racketeering, and has dozens of sexual assault allegations against him. Ye asked President Donald Trump to “free my brother Puff,” using another nickname for Combs. “My support of Puff is completely selfish,” he tweeted. “I need to find whoever been trying to out black moguls.”
West later went on to say “I’m logging out of Twitter. I appreciate Elon for allowing me to vent…”
Musk eventually classified Ye’s account as ‘NSFW,’ or ‘not safe for work,’ but “it wasn’t his racism or antisemitism that seemed to cross the line for Musk” — this occurred only after the rapper posted explicit pornography clips.
The platform X has been criticized in the past for having community guidelines on speech relaxed to such an extent that it allows neo-Nazism and other extremism to run rampant.
As David Schwimmer put it, “we can’t stop a deranged bigot from spewing hate filled, ignorant bile … but we CAN stop giving him a megaphone, Mr. Musk.”
At a time when antisemitism is already at extremely alarming levels, Ye’s words and actions serve as a stark reminder of the imperative to hold powerful people accountable and combat hate speech — as the magnitude of its impact left unchecked can be scary and severe.