{"id":712,"date":"2022-12-02T18:42:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-02T23:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reloading\/?p=712"},"modified":"2022-12-02T19:27:09","modified_gmt":"2022-12-03T00:27:09","slug":"widespread-outcry-against-kanye-wests-anti-semitic-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reloading\/2022\/12\/02\/widespread-outcry-against-kanye-wests-anti-semitic-comments\/","title":{"rendered":"Widespread outcry against Kanye West&#8217;s anti-Semitic comments"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><strong>By: Alex Dines<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\">Political leaders and Jewish organizations are speaking out after rapper Kanye West&#8217;s latest anti-Semitic remarks, which he made Thursday on Alex Jones\u2019s controversial Infowars podcast, have some fearing the hateful sentiments are being normalized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During the interview, Jones, a far-right commentator, asked West about previous comments he had made, to which West responded with praise for the Nazi Party and its leader Adolf Hitler.&nbsp; The rapper also posted offensive content on Twitter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The reaction to West&#8217;s latest behaviour has been swift and condemning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>NDP leader Jagmeet Singh wrote Friday in a tweet that \u201cpolitical leaders must take strong action to confront [anti-Semitism].\u201d President Joe Biden also responded to West\u2019s comments on Twitter, adding that \u201csilence is complicity.\u201d And the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto wrote \u201cKanye West is radicalizing countless people every time he speaks to millions. Violent hate always begins with violent ideas.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/KanyeWest?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#KanyeWest<\/a> is radicalizing countless people every time he speaks to millions. Violent hate always begins with violent ideas.<br><br>No one should host a Hitler fan and Holocaust denier. Amplifying him is complicity. <br><br>No more excuses. No more fanning the flames of Kanye\u2019s Jew hatred.<\/p>&mdash; UJA Federation of Greater Toronto (@UJAFederation) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/UJAFederation\/status\/1598694633378353153?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 2, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A tweet from the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto condemning West&#8217;s recent comments.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>West\u2019s account on Twitter was suspended early Friday due to his tweets violating Twitter\u2019s guidelines regarding inciting violence.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Regarding West\u2019s comments on Infowars, David Sachs, the community relations and anti-Semitism specialist at the Jewish Federation of Ottawa, said the response to the Jewish community is \u201cgoing to be much worse\u201d than before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI think the Jewish community is largely horrified and scared of what [these comments] mean,\u201d Sachs said in an interview Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He said the community also recognized the danger posed by West\u2019s comments and said they \u201cknew immediately that this would be seized on by any number of groups.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the Annual Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents published by the League for Human Rights, a division of the Jewish human rights organization B&#8217;nai Brith Canada, there were 2,799 incidents recorded last year in this country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The report also noted there had been an over 733 per cent increase of violent incidents in 2021 compared to 2020.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe biggest problem Jews have had with regards to anti-Semitism is that most of the world doesn\u2019t realize that it\u2019s a problem and it\u2019s a danger,\u201d Sachs said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reloading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/81RukJAhvXL._UY200_-copy-2.jpg\" alt=\"David Sachs in a blue coat with snow and trees behind him. \" class=\"wp-image-797\" width=\"448\" height=\"252\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">David Sachs spoke about how the Jewish community is reacting to West&#8217;s comments. (Submitted by David Sachs)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>Ian Boyd, the owner of Compact Music in the Glebe, said he does not agree with West\u2019s statements. However, he said his store will continue to sell the rapper&#8217;s albums. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m going to sell what I have,\u201d Boyd said when speaking about the few remaining Kanye West records he had in stock. \u201cIt\u2019s not my place to ban him from the store.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Boyd also mentioned the store\u2019s hip hop section is popular, particularly with young people who gravitate towards other artists such as Travis Scott, Tyler, the Creator and Kid Cudi, among others.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The streaming service <a href=\"https:\/\/newsroom.spotify.com\/2022-11-30\/the-top-songs-artists-podcasts-and-listening-trends-of-2022\/\">Spotify<\/a> reported Kanye West was the fourth most streamed artist in the United States in 2022.&nbsp;West did not appear on Spotify&#8217;s most streamed artist list globally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sachs said West\u2019s previous comments \u201cnormalized talking about Jews as an \u2018other,\u2019 as a suspicious community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He added the most recent wave of anti-Semitism began about two and a half years ago and was inflamed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Gaza conflict in May 2021 and anti-Israel protests.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sachs also spoke about how anti-Semitism is not only online, but also happening locally in Ottawa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As part of his job, Sachs is in contact with parents whose children have experienced anti-Semitic hate at school. He said this week alone he received three separate emails from concerned parents regarding &#8220;horrific incidents of kids joking about Nazis, killing Jews and setting up swastikas.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;That should show how serious this is right now in our community,&#8221; he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Political leaders and Jewish organizations are speaking out against Kanye West&#8217;s recent antisemitic comments. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":729,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"A cardboard record placeholder for Kanye West's records at Compact Music. Owner Ian Boyd says he disagrees with West's comments but will not be pulling his records from the store. (Alex Dines\/Reloading News) ","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[44,1,5],"tags":[95,8,87],"ppma_author":[33],"class_list":["post-712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-front-page","category-home","category-news","tag-kanye-west","tag-news","tag-online-hate"],"authors":[{"term_id":33,"user_id":14,"is_guest":0,"slug":"alexdines","display_name":"Alex Dines","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reloading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/IMG_20221115_124500_357-1-scaled-e1668556308959.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reloading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/IMG_20221115_124500_357-1-scaled-e1668556308959.jpg"},"user_url":"","last_name":"Dines","first_name":"Alex","description":"Alex Dines is a journalist from Vancouver who moved to Ottawa this year to complete her graduate degree in journalism. She enjoys writing about social issues and the arts. Alex's new normal involves working out religiously and listening to Mariah Carey all year round."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reloading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reloading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reloading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reloading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reloading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reloading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":818,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reloading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712\/revisions\/818"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reloading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reloading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reloading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reloading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reloading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}