Kanye: The fusion of self-hate and anti-Semitic rhetoric
The Tuesday Talking Points!
Last week, the increasingly strange, inane, and vitriolic rap music mogul Kanye West was interviewed by another foolish far-right influencer, Alex Jones, and during an exchange about the former's recent dinner date with Donald Trump and white nationalist/neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes, Kanye said, “I like Hitler,” adding, “I love Jewish people, but I also love Nazis.”
Sorry, Kanye, but that statement is totally incongruent because there's absolutely NO middle ground that can be forged between such diametrically opposed viewpoints.
Now, my Great Grandpa Charlie Williams, a sharp minded sharecropper who passed in 1982 at the age of 98, used to warn against Black men and boys who "grin too much," his logic being that the excessive grinners lack intelligence, common sense—or both—and by so lacking, are dangerous. Kanye, I submit, grins too much, and is even more dangerous when he masks his grins to put on that fake made scowl—as if he is a deep thinker.
Ordinarily, I would pay little attention to the words or acts of a fool, but I would be remiss in this case because Kanye is a fool with a major platform; while he has always been a musical genius, that genius has earned him riches, Grammys, and clout on the 'Gram (Instagram) to the tune of many millions of followers. Such influence allows his worst instincts to become not just the butt of jokes and memes—but potentially normalized when his racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric go unchecked.
To the last point, earlier this fall, I chaperoned my daughter and a group of middle school teens on a field trip to the Florida Gulf Coast. While my playlist was old school 80's Pop/R&B, I could tell that the kids were not listening to my Duran Duran or Jody Watley, but were chatting it up among themselves in the back of my SUV about myriad topics. Being the type of chaperone that is seen and not heard (unless something necessitates adult intervention), I overheard the boys in my group talking about Kanye—quoting his lyrics and laughing about some of the same. Curious, I broke my silence and from the front seat asked, "what do you guys know about Kanye?" Perhaps it was because they had never met me before, or maybe it was the deep baritone in my voice, but they all got quiet before one timidly said "he raps”— and the giggles commenced. I stopped my query at that point because I was getting the "Dad, don't be cringey" stare from Lil’ Hobbs, so I focused back on my Hall & Oates and kept to myself—while noticing that the Kanye discussion had morphed into loud talk about soccer and bike riding 😆. Still, it was not lost upon me that on some level, these teen boys were under Kanye's sway—which was (and remains) a frightening proposition.
Now, some may say, “Hobbs, you are no psychiatrist and you are unqualified to diagnose Kanye with a mental illness.” While true, I counter that I am also no gourmet chef, but I sure as Hell can tell you what tastes good and what doesn't; thus, my perception tells me that Kanye is "touched in the head," like Grandpa Charlie and all of my elders used to say. Which is why I believe that in his right mind, Kanye knows fully well that Hitler was no heroic figure worthy of admiration, and I believe that Kanye is educated enough to know that the Holocaust was real—and that 10 millions Jews and Roma were murdered by the Nazis from 1941-45.
Jewish concentration camp survivors circa 1945…
What Kanye may not know, due to the horrifically inadequate history curricula across America, is that Hitler hated Black people, too! In fact, Hitler admired the notoriously racist and anti-Semitic car maker Henry T. Ford so much that he kept a picture of the Ford Motors mogul on his credenza in his office at the German Reich's Chancellery.
Hitler admired America's Jim Crow system of segregation so much that he used the same as the blueprint for divesting German Jews of their businesses, homes, land, and educational opportunities—before implementing his mass murder "Final Solution."
Hitler referred to Black athletes, like Heavyweight Champ Joe Louis and Track & Field great Jesse Owens, as "mongrels" and “gorillas” who were inferior to his "pure Aryan" German athletes.
Jesse Owens ( center), flanked by German nationals giving the Nazi salute at the 1936 Berlin Olympics…
When the German Army went around the French Maginot Line to smash through Belgium and into France in May of 1940, after German forces had routed the French forces near Lyon, France, Black Senegalese soldiers that had put up stiff resistance against their
German invaders were rounded up, marched to a field, and unlike the majority of their white French Army counterparts, were mowed down by Panzer fire—and tossed into a mass grave.
Perhaps these historical facts will never mean anything to Kanye, the same man who foolishly called our Black ancestors enslavement "a choice," before using the Confederate Battle Flag on his clothing line in utter disrespect of our Black ancestors who suffered under that flag during the Civil War—and throughout the Jim Crow era, like my Grandparents and parents.
But to me, the issue isn't about saving Kanye, but about saving ignorant fans and followers who, like many Americans, simply have incomplete educations about American slavery, Jim Crow, and Nazi atrocities. That charge is up to each of us, via our social media platforms and by simply having frank discussions with the succeeding generations to come so that they, too, will see that there is nothing normal—or noble—about Kanye's racist, self-hating, and anti-Semitic rhetoric.
