Kanye West’s Parler deal is officially dead
After sharing a new string of anti-semitic comments on The Alex Jones Show, Ye will no longer be acquiring the conservative-leaning social media platform
Aux News Parler
Kanye “Ye” West, the star that just can’t stop burning out, has officially flamed his way through a partnership with the conservative-leaning social media platform Parler. The rapper, who has spent the past few weeks diving headfirst into overt Nazism and white supremacy, initially partnered with Parler back in October after a temporary removal from Twitter and Instagram.
Parler announced the decision to part ways, allegedly reached in mid-November, on Thursday afternoon. “In response to numerous media inquiries, Parlement Technologies would like to confirm that the company has mutually agreed with Ye to terminate the intent of sale of Parler,” Parler writes via their official Twitter.” This decision was made in the interest of both parties in mid-November.”
Parler’s announcement arrives just shortly after another one of Ye’s anti-semitic antics got him suspended from Twitter for the umpteenth time. West, who goes by “Ye,” only just regained access to Twitter under Elon Musk’s not-so-benevolent reign, lost access to the account early this morning after sharing a photo of a swastika intertwined with a Star Of David.
“I tried my best. Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended,” a tweet from Musk announcing the news reads.
As if his embrace of the swastika wasn’t a blatant enough indication of Nazism, Ye further embraced malicious prejudice during a recent appearance on Alex Jones’ show InfoWars alongside white supremacist commentator Nick Fuentes. Throughout the hours-long show, Ye repeatedly praised Hitler and Nazism, insisting to a (has this ever been happened?) notably uncomfortable Jones that the Nazis “did good things too.”
“There’s a lot of things that I love about Hitler,” Ye continues on the show. “A lot of things.” That’s a statement even Parler can’t stoop to condone, despite their previous promise that a deal with Ye would mean he would “never have to fear being removed from social media again.” Hindsight is 20/20.
135 Comments
This dude is making a serious run at being the first ever human to go from literal billionaire to homeless.
Let’s all hope he accomplishes that amazing feat!
We don’t need anymore crazy, violent, homeless people on the street.
This guy comes close, though I guess prison counts as housing.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Stanford
So that’s how the Stanford Prison Experiment ended.
He’s got the wardrobe for it!
Which they’re still selling at the Gap. I had to go to the store to return an online purchase and those damn garbage bags full of his garbage clothes were in the middle of the store. I can’t even imagine letting someone see me dig through garbage bags to purchase Gap clothing. I’d die of embarrassment.
He already looks homeless with that beard. Makes his mouth look like a hairy butthole, somehow.
Sounds like a Trading Places-esque movie waiting to happen.
I suspect there won’t be any African princes handing out any second chances this time, though.
Though hopefully with fewer raping gorillas.
Time for that ‘Brewster’s Millions’ remake.
He already looks the part.
He’s got the facial expression down. And did he get beaten up??
Wait till Sam Bankman-Fried or whatever finishes his run.
He was only ever a billionaire in a paperwork sense. He was very rich, and he is still very rich, with real estate, his music, valuable possessions, the guy has stuff worth hundreds of millions of dollars, but all he had to make him a billionaire is paperwork from Adidas for a licensing deal that Forbes said was worth $1.5 billion. He didn’t lose $1.5 billion when Adidas ended the deal, because he never had it to begin with.
Buying Parler would have been a horrible investment, so he saved himself from that thanks to his crazy bigotry.
Imagine being too crazy and odious for Parler.
Imagine being so batshit insane that you make Alex fucking Jones try (unsuccessfully) to reel you back in. He gave Kanye so many chances to walk back or temper his comments, but every time he just doubled down and went even further.
Just like a dog who finally catches its own tail… It was probably Alex Jones’ fever dream to find a black white supremacist, but once he actually had one sitting in front of him, he had no idea what to do.
Alex Jones knows not to say the quiet part loud which Ye was yelling at the top of mountain. They didn’t realize he would set thier hate peddling machine ablaze.
every time he just doubled down and went even further
It’s the alt-right’s version of “Nevertheless, she persisted”.
Jones didn’t really intend to ‘reel him back’ anyways. He supports nazis too, he just didn’t want Kanye to say the quiet part out loud.
This avclub snippet doesn’t do the Infowars interview justice – other news outlets have more detailed breakdowns of Kanye’s belief that he is introducing teenagers to antisemitism, that Hitler invented both the microphone and the highway, and that the Holocaust was a lie. He also talks shit about Dave Chappelle, which I’m hoping touches off a public feud between the two of them – that might have the power to finally destroy the internet for good.
Yeah, I’ve read that, and was expecting him to throw in “he invented the question mark” for good measure.
Wait, Hitler didn’t invent the question mark???/s
I heard Der Fuher was the first to hail a cab and it just caught on.
He did, right before he invented Post-it.
Brb throwing out all my post-it notes.
He also accused chestnuts of being lazy. Well… some *wink* chestnuts…
99% chance Kanye will be pitching meat helmets next year.
I think he also said Bibi Netanyahu and the Mossad want to kidnap his children, yes? *twirls finger around temple*
Oh, he didn’t just do that. He repeatedly took out a brightly-colored fishing net, called it ‘Netan,’ and did bits with it where he gave it an Elmo voice and made it say things like: ‘Oh no, Ye, you’re being antisemitic!’ It was meant to be funny but even Fuentes and Jones were cringing.He did this about five times over the course of the interview.
Just normal interview stuff!
Gore Vidal did the same thing in many of his interviews.
Well, they didn’t…. but they do now!
I don’t see a West-Chappelle feud happening. Dave’s smart enough to see that Kanye is having a full-on mental breakdown, and experienced enough to know that there is never anything to be gained by fighting with a crazy person.
He wouldn’t stand a chance in a feud with Chappelle. Whatever you think of his policy positions, he’s still a quick-witted wordsmith. Meanwhile I’m starting to think Kanye’s had a stroke.
This f@^&in idiot. I CAN NOT. He is The Onion walking.
Parler has a racism zone. You can’t be not racist, but you also can’t be too racist. For a while, Kanye rode the middle ground.
Wait, what?! What did Kanye ever do to anybody? That’s so unfair!Keep in mind, I’ve been living under a rock for the last few years and, as always, didn’t read the article.
Honestly I have to imagine under a rock is way better than this shitshow out here.
“I’ve been living under a rock for the last few years” That’s hawt.
You mean, you don’t know what’s been going on? Alright I’ll explain.
So, it all started with Pete Davidson’s 10-inch cock…
Doesn’t everything?
Does Kanye “Ye” know that the Nazis didn’t like black people much more than they did Jews?
Jesse Owens said that Hitler was way nicer to him than FDR.
If he’s given it any thought at all, which I’m confident he hasn’t, he probably believes that he and Hitler could have been on decent terms, sort of like with Trump and other American white supremacists. He’s a very, very, very stupid man.
Crazy is not the same thing as stupid.
I’m pretty sure that he has been quoted as saying that he hates/doesn’t like books- so I’m guessing that his knowledge of that era is limited to a documentary that was on at an Applebee’s once when he was having a sandwich in 1994 with his mom. The sound was off, but he got the gist.
Saw some of his interview with Lex Fridman. He said that learning about history was pointless, that no-one should pay attention to the past, and that school should be limited to 1) engineering and 2) recess.Honestly, though, at this point it wouldn’t matter. Dude is completely off his rocker, at this point I doubt he could tell the difference between Hitler and a ham sandwich.
He’s the current Exhibit A of what happens when you’re so rich you don’t have to listen to anyone, in spite of the fact that your choices are stupid. The former Exhibit A’s are either dead (Michael Jackson) or in prison (R. Kelly)- people who were OBVIOUSLY making horrific choices and no one could tell them anything, because they didn’t have to care at all.
Between Hitler and a Ham Sandwich…. Is that Taika Waititi’s surrealist sequel to Jojo Rabbit?
My favorite part of going to Applebee’s with my family as a kid was always the Hitler documentaries they had on the TVs
Man that time between the Final Four and the start of baseball season is a desert if you don’t have a hockey team amirite
Please let me be the one to tell him!No but really, the type of Black person Kanye is believes that he’s better than other Black people, and that white people like him more because he’s smarter and all that. He has internalized the concept of “one of the good ones.” And he’s right, partially—someone like Trump (or maybe Hitler) will play along and use him as long as he can, but when his usefulness is over he’ll be in the concentration camp with the rest of us, and I would like to witness the surprise on his face then. Except then I’ll be in a concentration camp. :/
Anyone can be White with enough money. Soon, Kanye will be Black again.
Two black guys walking down the street, stop in front of a storefront that says “Be White! 99 cents!” They search their pockets and one guy has 98 cents, the other has a dollar. The guy with the 98 cents says “Well, you go in and do it, and if it’s cool, you give me your change and I’ll go do it!” So they agree, and the one with the dollar goes in, pays, gets his change and is led into a room where lights flash for a minute or so.
When he comes out, he’s white, his friend says “Wow! Look at you! That’s great! Gimme the penny so I can go!”Click SUBSCRIBE to hear the rest.
It’s more like:
A White guy and a Black guy walk down the street. The white guy becomes rich after inheriting his father’s business and the Black guy becomes rich after getting two PhDs and inventing a cure for __X__. Both are now considered “Good Americans” aka White aka Valuable (not to be confused with lowercase ‘white’ which is just regular citizens) and enjoy the upper echelons of society. The punchline is all they needed was enough money.
Badum-bum-Tssss!
“I’m fuckin’ dis’ custid!”
Is the twist that when he comes out, he’s white… but also Jewish!?
I hate to be the guy… but I guess I will. The historical Nazis actually didn’t really care much about black people either way, other than seeing them as inferior. Which is not much different from how they regarded pretty much everyone else, if maybe a little lower on their racial totem pole. Their real ire was directed at who they considered their more immediate local enemies, the Jews, Slavs, Roma, homosexuals, and communists. They weren’t above trying to recruit Africans to fight in the Waffen SS, although nothing actually came of this effort. So, if Kanye had lived in the 30s and 40s with the same level of fame, and declared his admiration for Hitler and the Nazi movement… it isn’t outside the realm of possibility that Hitler would have reciprocated, if for nothing else than a propaganda victory.Now, Neo-Nazis, completely different story there.
They absolutely thought that black people were subhuman and should be wiped out; they just didn’t commit a hell of a lot of resources to killing them, since they numbered less than a thousand. They did round them up and sterilize biracial children, mistreat black POWs, etc.They only didn’t care about them because the other groups they wanted to destroy were much, much more numerous in the area.There’s no reality in which Hitler would embrace a black person, even Kanye fucking West.
The nazi attitude towards black people was more along the lines of “not caring about what were basically animals” They didnt see blacks as human or any kind of a threat, unlike jews and others.
Yeah, this isn’t actually true. They simply didn’t overly focus on black people because there weren’t many of them around.
In Europe, you are correct. But that doesnt contradict what I said. Racism isnt really rational. There was an excellent post in SSC codex about this that used the Nazis as an example. With racism, its proximity and small differences. People dont really get too worked up about distant foreigners because its just hard to really care, which is practically how the Nazis looked at black people. If you want to find groups thats have 100s of years of history of hatred, its the thing where its a group who live in the next valley but have slightly different customs.
The point about the Nazis was they despied the jews and were there mortal enemies despite being allied with the japanese, a people much more foreign in customs, features, etc. then the jews. Now there’s also thories about social and political attitudes evolving from family structures and both the Germans and Japanese had a traditional family structure where tje eldest son inherits everything and “protects the name” which might have lead to better undertanding- except this was the same structure the Jews tended to have. Many black americans who visited Nazi Germany prewar decired accusations of German racism as they claimed ( and were likely accurate) that they had more freedom then back in the deeply racist america. Again, this was a propaganda effort by the nazis as they didnt really care about blacks since there were so few of them so using american racism as a defense against charges of their own racial policies was more practical politically then restricting the rights of the occasional black person in Germany. Remember Hitler had ambitions for europe but reallly, really didnt want the US to enter the war, partially because of his memories of WW1 and the decisive role american entry played in it. His reluctance was the reason Japan waited as long as they did to declare war against the US, becuase the US navy was blockading Japanese ports essentially cutting them off from their conquests, and the rise of fascism and industrialism was largely a respone to american gunboat diplomacy (this isnt well remembered, but the japanese cast their military efforts as against the colonial powers of europe including the Chinese Government. The blockade almost certainly would have lead to war were it not for Hitlers pleading with Hirohitpo to keep the americans out of it. Of course a Japanese commander felt like the fact japan was enduring such treatment was an insult an embrrasment and planned his own attack on hawaiia to force the issue
to be clear, I’m by no mena justyfing the axis- I’m pointing out that while the narrative that fascism was uniquely evil and had to be defeated was true, the Allies were pretty shitty racist colonial powers minly concerned with maintaining their own interests, not the saviors of the world as has been mythologized.
The anachronism is kind of funny, in a sad way.
Except what you said is not true.https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/12/02/hitler-kanye-west-black-germans-holocaust/
……You’re saying that Adolf Hitler, the man who rounded up Europe’s prominent, wealthy Jewish citizens for extermination, would have embraced a wealthy, prominent Black person as a “propaganda victory?” He saw Krystalnacht as a propaganda victory. He saw invading France as a propaganda victory. It’s incoherent to say that a man who started a World War for white supremacy would have considered the endorsement of a Black person a victory.
“Kanye. Elon. Trump.”
*snerk*
Or, as you will be required to refer to them in 2025, Year Zero of the Eternal Presidency, ‘The Triumvirate’.
Kanye, Elon, Trump
A bigot, a moron, a chump
try to tell which is which
well son of a bitch
it’s a three headed racist shit lump
Good God, even Parler didn’t want him.
I would suggest Kanye save his money. There might not be that much more to come in the future, and he may need to join his buddy Alex Jones in filing for bankruptcy. *fingers crossed that Alex is miserable*
He’s also likely going to catch some defamation-related suits.
Didn’t anyone tell Ye what the Nazis thought about black people?
If your question contains the words “tell Ye,” the answer is literally always “no.”
Unless it’s being asked in the 16th Century.
I laughed.
Unlike Ye, I’ve done my research and believe it or not “ye” was actually pronounced “the” back then (and never as how it looks to us today).
“It says, ‘The West, The’.”
That Parler announcement doesn’t condemn what he did/said, just politely disengages from doing business together. Because they’re horrible people, but they know a dead-end deal when they see one.
Everytime you start a sentence with ‘Ye’, I feel like I’m being attacked.
“Ye, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…”
*Gets up, punches priest*
I just want the next stage of this spectacle to be a muskrat cult civil war between the free speech absolutists and the elon bootlickers.
He clearly has a mental illness and the constant coverage of his ramblings is a bit cruel.
I mean it’s pretty funny that Parler had to announce this news via Twitter.
Holy shit I didn’t catch that, that’s too funny.
One day Twitter will announce its looming bankruptcy via Google+.
How pissed is Candace Owens and her husband that they couldn’t dump Parler off on Kanye? Also let’s take a moment and laugh at their anti-woke bank going under almost immediately.
If the question is “how pissed is Candace Owens,” the answer is always, “Infinitely.”
This is what it was like to watch Andy Kaufman do stuff. It’s funny watching Kanye expose the right while making racist liberals mad.
B-b-b-but what about radical free speech? I love how we went from the completely arbitrary and capricious rules of one dumb billionaire to the completely arbitrary and capricious rules of a bigger, dumber billionaire. And that was somehow seen as an improvement.
I’m glad that the community really came together to shit all over Kanye’s dumb ass.This is the most unifying thing I’ve seen all year, and the prick really deserves it.
I just kinda can’t help but feeling bad for him. He’s gone flat fucking off the deep end and he hasn’t had anyone around him that could really pull him back and convince him that “Woah, you need serious help”. He needs a Britney Spears-esque conservatorship, because sane people do not purposefully throw away their social capital that vigorously unless they are of a very chemically altered state. I’m not saying his mental instability is responsible for his beliefs, but they are a contributing factor, and the largest contributing factor for why he’s sharing them in such a way.And he’s got Nick Fuentes and Milo Yiannopolis along for the ride to leech out whatever they can from his remaining net worth.
Fame and fortune probably ruined his life in a lot of ways and this is proof that he doesn’t deserve those things. But at this point, it’s better that he doesn’t have fame or fortune, because without it, he has no platform to be this type of person. There are probably lots of people around him saying that he needs help… I kinda refuse to believe that there isn’t one person that has said this to him after all he’s done to his ex-wife and children, which is why I don’t feel bad for him and you shouldn’t either. It doesn’t matter what kind of medication he needs now because medicating mental instability won’t change these beliefs or undo what happened…I mean seriously, would meds have helped Hitler? Is there a pill that can remove the desire for genocide from a person…? Can anyone seriously look at Hitler and the Nazi party of the 1930s and 40s and think to themselves “They just needed some kind of conservatorship because sane people do not purposefully do these things.” Their existence is proof that sane people can do a lot of terrible things on purpose. Sane people will make propaganda to increase support for their atrocities. Sane people will round up children and push them into gas chambers. Sane people will then take the corpses of those children and burn their bodies in a furnace, just to have room for the next batch. Sane people are just as capable at destroying the world than the insane ones. That is our reality, and if medication is all that’s needed to fix it, then god help us all medicate.
I think there’s a couple of problems with what you’re
saying, here. For starters, I don’t think anyone is suggesting that
racism IS a mental illness/personality disorder that can be cured by
medication. Nor is anyone saying that ALL racists are mentally ill. But the idea that certain forms of extreme racism might be
caused by mental illness has been floating around
the psychological discourse for a while.
Mental illnesses and
personality disorders tend to represent exacerbated feelings, emotions
or thought patterns: some level of anxiety is normal in people, but
severe, crippling anxiety might be a symptom of something else and
require treatment. Washing your hands is normal, but feeling the need to
wash your hands fifteen times every 2 hours sounds like a symptom of
OCD. It’s possible that a non-bipolar (or whatever he is) Kanye may have
had some level of racial bias against Jews (science, after all, says that we all have subconscious racial biases) but his condition severely exacerbated this. In fact, this seems to be the most likely explanation, to me.
One thing that absolutely IS recognized as a symptom of mental illness is conspiratorial thinking. Kanye’s brand of racism is ‘conspiratorial antisemitism.’ I said this in another thread, but still: if a mental illness can convince someone that their friends and family are possessed by aliens (or whatever), then it could probably convince them that the Jews are out to get them.I don’t mind people finding his comments horrific, but when these people are stating with 100% confidence that there is no link between his racism and his mental disorder – as though the mind can be that neatly compartmentalized, as though his condition literally just made him go mask-off and nothing else – that, to me, is questionable.Final point – as I mentioned before, science has shown that pretty much all of us have subconscious racial biases, but we tend to only call people racist when they fail to check those biases and/or act upon them. So even if we accept the premise that Kanye was always internally racist, but that his mental illness just made him act on those biases, should we really be condemning him in such terms? I dunno, it seems to me the opprobrium should be reserved for cunts like Trump, Milo Yiannopolous, Candace Owens, Nick Fuentes and Alex Jones, all of who have enabled this guy’s worst impulses to promote their own racist agendas, and who lack any sort of psychological excuse.
“the opprobrium should be reserved for cunts like Trump, Milo Yiannopolous, Candace Owens, Nick Fuentes and Alex Jones”And that’s where I disagree. There was a point in time where Trump was just a normal guy with a business and some popular TV appearances. When he got older, more vocal, more bitter, and increasingly racist, we all started looking at him differently. Kanye, to me, is just like Candace Owens and Tomi Lahren, but Kanye simply needed time to ramp up. Society has made fun at the guy for 14 years since his whole “I’mma let you finish” moment. When do we stop chalking up the ridiculousness of his character as a medication problem and start to see him for who he has always been? What mental issue or condition makes a person more vocal about their prejudices? Does Roseanne Barr have the same thing? Is it being caused by Ambien or something? I just find that to be an excuse for his behavior… which can’t really be excused.So when you say: “Mental illnesses and personality disorders tend to represent exacerbated feelings, emotions or thought patterns…” Are you able to understand my point when I say that people who think Hitler was a good guy don’t need medication to keep them from saying it? It’s the origin of the thought that matters here. You’re making it out to seem like his lack of medication is just making him more vocal about this stuff, when that’s not really the problem, IMO. The problem is that he’s thinking those things already. You kinda got to that point when you said: “Kanye may have had some level of racial bias against Jews but his condition severely exacerbated this.” But you didn’t really acknowledge that the origin of those biases is what makes him a bad person.Most people don’t think anti-semitic nonsense of this caliber. White supremacy is believed by a statistically small percentage of people compared to those that don’t, and even though “science has shown that pretty much all of us have subconscious racial biases” there’s still a big leap needed to get to a pro-Hitler point of view. The distance between an uncomfortable feeling one might have when a black person approaches them (versus) and the full on appraisal of history’s most infamous genocidal dictators… is an incredibly far stretch. If Kanye was always this racist, but has some mental issue that makes him more intensely vocal about it, then yes, we do need to condemn him (every single time), because it’s not entirely about WHAT he said, and is more so the fact that he was ALREADY thinking it. We should never stop condemning people for spouting racism and praising genocidal maniacs (for any reason), because the moment those things gain ground it can’t really be regained. Neo-Nazis will use that as fuel for their platform, and that alone is reason enough to condemn people for talking highly of Hitler. There should be no concessions to this condemnation when Nazis are the subject.In a history class (I was a history major) I once referred to the Holocaust as the single most important event in modern history, because it serves as an example of how a whole country and all its people could be persuaded into accepting the most horrifying tragedy known to man. It’s truly horrifying to know that when Hitler won a public election, he not only changed the political landscape of Germany for a generation, he convinced millions of people (even from neighboring countries) to help him round up a whole race of people (including children) for an terrifyingly efficient mass execution. People need to remember how this happened and why, or else it will inevitably happen again. There are genocides ongoing in the world right this minute, but Hitler’s Concentration Camps are on a whole different level of diabolical, worsened by the fact that the people of Nazi occupied areas knew what was happening and did nothing about it (and some of them were happy).The people that follow or repeat Nazi ideologies should never be given an excuse, and the reason behind those thoughts should also be given no leeway in public speech. It has to be condemned every time, otherwise they start to normalize and lose their associated horrors.
Yeah, but you can tell a difference between Hitler speaking and Kanye speaking. Hitler had a coherent, though evil, mindset. He said shit that had an underlying logical framework that he can explain. Kanye West is obviously unstable enough that even right-leaning to far-right people who signed on the Kanye train and didn’t jump off at “Death con 3 on Jewish people” are now going “oh, whoops, he’s a literal actual crazy person and the fact the Trump had dinner with him makes Trump look even worse than he already has lately.”No one is taking Kanye West seriously unless they themselves have some sort of mental illness or a significant cognitive impairment. He’s not a Hitler, he’s not even a Donald Trump, he’s the guy who’s a few weeks away from screaming at a parking meter only he’s a centimillionaire.
The words of Kanye’s racism are less important that the origin.Yes, Kanye isn’t Hitler, but Kanye certainly knows who Hitler is and what he did (leading Kanye to say that the Holocaust wasn’t even real). There’s this conspiracy that Kanye is only doing this to make ring-wing people look bad, but what about his kids? Or what about the harassment of his ex-wife? How does that relate to this…? Does his own children understand what he’s doing? Does he have the suppose of his ex-spouse? Even Trump isn’t dumb enough to say verbatim “I see good things about Hitler.” Which almost makes Kanye slightly worse…This whole thing is being misconstrued and excused on Kanye’s behalf because of [mental condition x] in which there is no known mental condition to create thoughts of pro-Hitler anti-semitism, and that’s really what the core of this problem is. People seem to think that if Kanye was simply just medicated then he wouldn’t be doing all this VOCALLY. However, that’s far less important than the actual origin of his biases, which have now amounted to a Holocaust-denying, Nazi praising, and pro-Hitler stance. Whether or not he’s mentally well enough to make those points seriously doesn’t matter when he has a platform to make them… specifically because we as a society should never let pro-Nazi sentiments or ideologies linger in the open air. They have to be condemned every time, or else they start to become normalized and weaponized.“No one is taking Kanye West seriously unless they themselves have some sort of mental illness or a significant cognitive impairment.”You can’t just turn this around on other people that take offense to what he’s been saying, because the intended serious (or trivial) aspects of what he’s saying doesn’t matter when it comes to Nazi ideologies. That’s not a grey area where people can make excuses. It’s a point of condemnation that needs to happen every single time—regardless of any underlying mental illness.
You’re making it out to seem like his lack of medication is just making
him more vocal about this stuff, when that’s not really the problem,
IMO. The problem is that he’s thinking those things already.1. This
isn’t my position. My position is that we do not know the extent to
which Ye’s antisemitism is a product of his mental illness – whether it
is entirely down to his condition, or partially down to it, or not down
to it at all. Thus while he should rightfully be deplatformed to prevent
him from spreading hate, it’s less fair to castigate
him as a morally reprehensible person and say things like: ‘Fuck Kanye, that stupid prick, I hope he goes bankrupt’ etc.And when I say antisemitism, I do not mean the words he is saying but the thoughts/beliefs that are leading him to say these things. I am suggesting that it is possible that Ye, were it not for his mental illness, might have been a perfectly non-racist person – albeit one who potentially might have harbored some low-level racial biases against Jews that are no different from the low-level racial biases that, apparently, most normal people harbor. I am suggesting that it was perhaps his mental illness that took him from that state of being to ‘Hitler was good’; or that it may have turned what would otherwise be a fleeting, intrusive, somewhat anti-semitic thought into a full-blown Jewish conspiracy theory; or that it inclined him towards a style of conspiratorial thinking patterns that resulted in his current beliefs. That, and the influence of Fuentes et al.It has to be condemned every time, otherwise they start to normalize and lose their associated horrors.2. I don’t think that saying, in this one case, that ‘the Nazism might be literal insanity’ is going to make the difference. Either way, the beliefs and the ideology are condemned.3. One more thing I want to mention – though this might not affect the discussion, I just want to put it out there.
Part of my frustration with the AV Club’s write-ups of Ye’s comments – which I expressed in my reply to Inspector Hammer – stem from the way they removed all context and framed his comments as deliberate and purposeful, said with the full knowledge of their implications and consequences. First of all – they were not any of those things. Ye made them in the midst of a spiel, after Alex Jones spoke about antisemitism and the Nazis, where he was all (paraphrasing): ‘I’m a Christian, I love everyone, I love Jews, I love Nazis… There’s good in everyone, there’s good in Hitler… blah blah blah.’
Though there were absolutely elements of provocation and trolling when he said this – implying a kind of shallow knowledge of the effects of what he was saying – this was also surrounded by SO much erratic behavior on his part and obvious mental instability that you really lose some of the picture when you just view the quotes in text. I’m not saying that excuses them, but in the context of our discussion I think it’s worth mentioning.
Well, looks like his recent lapse in mental instability has nothing to do with these current remarks, as he has made numerous other anti-Semitic statements in the past (going back to 2014). So I think this is the end of that being used as an excuse, along with the notion that he was just “trolling” when making his comments on the Alex Jones show.https://www.avclub.com/apparently-kanye-west-has-been-a-hitler-fan-for-quite-s-1849741645https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/kanye-west-ye-settlement-anti-semitic-jewish-hitler-nazis-allegations-rcna54485I’ll highlight some of the key facts after news of a past settlement—in which Kanye was sued for making pro-Hitler remarks in the workplace:• The settlement accused West of praising Hitler in meetings, though West denied the allegations in the agreement, according to NBC News, which cited documents and interviews. (Kanye’s denial at the time is now moot, given the recent circumstance in which this was brought up.)• Six people who have worked with West—whose legal name is Ye—told NBC News the rapper regularly made pro-Hitler and pro-Nazi comments dating back to at least 2018, well before controversy over fresh anti-Semitic remarks led to the collapse of his business empire.• One employee said the comments were so regular they lost count of how many NDAs they signed, while three others told NBC News they were asked to sign multiple NDAs.• Ryder Ripps, a Jewish conceptual artist who worked with West between 2014 and 2018, told NBC News that West openly made anti-Semitic comments and suggested Jewish conspiracy theories in his presence, saying, “He said stuff like ‘Jews have the codes’ a lot.”• CNN reported last week that a business executive who worked with West also reached a separate settlement in response to a hostile work complaint, in part over West’s “obsession” with Hitler.• West was said to be so consumed with Hitler and Nazism in 2018 that he wanted to name his album “Hitler” before going with Ye, according to CNN.Now, one thing I want to make clear is the notion that Kanye’s bi-polar disorder would somehow make light of all this—essentially saying that his inherited mental condition “could” lessen the degree in which all this anti-Semitism is taken seriously. That argument would have more ground if it wasn’t for the fact that during all of Trump’s presidency, everyone was also convinced that Trump was mentally unwell, and saying that his “life-long history of disregard for others and deceit, if correct as reported, are characteristic of a personality disorder on the narcissistic and even sociopathic spectrum.” I can’t recall how many times people latched onto the idea that Trump was mentally unstable, and that HIS FOLLOWERS also had to have some mental problems to be so woefully devoted to him. If that’s even slightly the case for some Trump supports, then what do we think about Kanye’s unwavering support for Donald Trump? If we couple that with his history of anti-Semitic remarks, are we certain that he’s not serious about them? Why is Trump’s level of racism decisively real, but at the same time, Kanye’s own words and support for him “possibly” isn’t…?In 2018, a time when Kanye was noted for making numerous anti-Semitic remarks, he spoke about Trump like this in an interview: “I felt that I knew people who voted for Trump that were celebrities that were scared to say that they liked him. But they told me, and I liked him, and I’m not scared to say what I like.” In this interview, Kanye did make remarks on his own mental health issues and the scrutiny he’s been under, to which his (now ex-wife) Kim Kardashian also made a comment: “Your commentary on Kanye being erratic & his tweets being disturbing is actually scary… So quick to label him as having mental health issues for just being himself when he has always been expressive is not fair.”Just for being himself, ay…? All that is preceded by an extensive history of Kanye being a Trump supporter and terrible person. Remember when he wore the “White Lives Matter” t-shirt? Remember when he made a long pro-Republican speech in the middle of one of his concert tours and after being booed he then cancelled the whole thing? Thing like that are starting to rack up, and it’s impossible to ignore or excuse. Speculating about why is something for a doctor, most likely, but I don’t even think that will matter anymore because the past cannot be changed.So this is where you have work to do, because I technically don’t. You said: “My position is that we do not know the extent to which Ye’s antisemitism is a product of his mental illness…” Which is something notably requiring proof, otherwise it’s just speculation and conspiracy. I don’t have to prove that Kanye West isn’t anti-Semitic (and deserving of total condemnation for it) given his history of Pro-Hitler, Pro-Trump, and blatantly Anti-Semitic remarks. The burden of proof that his mental issues are exacerbating his racism falls on you, and so far all that I’ve seen and read in our discussion has amounted to semi-apologist speculations, with comments like: “I am suggesting that it is possible that Ye, were it not for his mental illness, might have been a perfectly non-racist person…” At this point, I really don’t think that holds up as a possibility, and I don’t even think that matters. That’s basically trying to uphold a different reality (as a positive alternate point) in which all that has happened is simply non-existent—which really isn’t how an anti-reality counterpoint works. To put it that way… Sure, if Kanye had no mental issues at all, maybe it’s POSSIBLE that he wouldn’t be so Anti-Semitic. It’s also POSSIBLE that if George W. Bush lost the 2000 election then 9/11 wouldn’t have happened… I could go further into more possibilities about past realities, but really, what good would that do? What point would that make?As I’m sure you know. Possible ≠ Proven. You have to put in work to make those point. Simply acknowledging the possibility of something doesn’t change our reality. A lot of what you’re saying on that front comes off as woefully apologist when you say things like: “I am suggesting that it was perhaps his mental illness that took him from that state of being to ‘Hitler was good’; or that it may have turned what would otherwise be a fleeting, intrusive, somewhat anti-Semitic thought into a full-blown Jewish conspiracy theory…” When you say things like: “I am suggesting that it is possible, potentially, perhaps…” it doesn’t really hold weight when the entirety of your viewpoint is painted as an unfounded speculation—one that seemingly tries to forgive or forget the reality of what Kanye’s said and done thus far. It comes off as a worsening position given the subject matter here in which the individual we’re discussing has been extremely racist (I mean the guy was drawing swastika’s before getting kicked off Twitter), which is not something to be so anti-reality about. There are discussions worthy of acknowledging such positive possibilities, but this isn’t one of them. I can acknowledge that Kanye West has some mental issues, but I don’t think that rightfully leads to acknowledging a possibility that in another reality… maybe he could be different. That’s not a real point because that’s not the real world we live in, and it certainly doesn’t live up as an excuse for his behavior. If his (now noted) history of anti-Semitism, pro-Hitler remarks, support for Donald Trump and the far-right, sociopathic egoism, religious extremism, and the ongoing harassment of his ex-wife somehow doesn’t allows the public to “castigate him as a morally reprehensible person” in your opinion… then I guess I’m confused about who you’re saving that for and why you’re being so exclusive about it. If you disapprove of what he said, but you want to save your negative perception of him only until your points are proven, then I kinda find that to be a morally inactive position. That amount of leeway should not and NEVER be granted to such racist, anti-Semitic speech.
I feel like I was being pretty civil up to this point, but your repeated bad-faith sideswipes have lit the match on that. So I’m now gonna treat you as hostile, unless you care to retract.
On that note: you can fuck right off with those bullshit insinuations of ‘apologism’. I called out a whole host of antisemitic enabling fucks in my OP – Carlson, Owens, Jones, Fuentes, Yiannopolous etc – and explicitly called for blame to be placed on them. Go nuclear. Open season. But don’t go around acting like I’m a fucking Nazi apologist just because I dare to suggest that, in this one instance, the antisemitism might be caused by mental illness.
Second – you understand that bipolar disorder can be chronic rather than acute, yes? Because if you did, then you’d understand how citing previous examples of Kanye’s antisemitism changes absolutely nothing in the equation. It’s possible he was having a manic episode during these times. It’s equally possible that he was expressing beliefs formed during manic episodes. Who the fuck knows.
That argument would have more ground if it wasn’t for the fact that
during all of Trump’s presidency, everyone was also convinced that Trump
was mentally unwell,So, a bunch of armchair critics misdiagnosing Trump (as far as we know) means that Kanye’s confirmed diagnosis of bipolar disorder doesn’t have any bearing on his beliefs? You understand what a complete non-sequitur this is, right?Y’know, if it was revealed tomorrow that Trump has narcissistic personality disorder, I wouldn’t be surprised. But these two things are not equal. I don’t have a clue what the arguments in favor of that diagnosis are – although I can guess – but I DO know that 1) Kanye himself, in his more lucid moments, has credibly described himself as having bipolar; that 2) other people have confirmed that this is true; and that 3) every aspect of his current behavior comports to the symptoms of a manic episode in someone with BPD. The existence of his bipolar disorder isn’t speculative, it’s confirmed.
The burden of proof that his mental issues are exacerbating his racism falls on you,Yeah, this is bullshit.
YOU are the one making a descriptive claim, here: YOU are saying that Kanye’s antisemitism absolutely has nothing to do with his mental illness, and you are furthermore making the moral claim that ‘if it does, it doesn’t matter.’ You have weak, circumstantial evidence for this, in the form of a Kardashian PR statement, some shit people said about Trump, and evidence of previously existing antisemitism (which doesn’t really change anything).
I, on the other hand, am trying to make the point that we don’t know whether or not the two are linked. But I actually have some pretty strong evidence to the contrary of your claim: the fact that Kanye has a confirmed bipolar diagnosis, and that there appears to be a huge correlation between his antisemitic outbursts and his obvious manic behavior. Furthermore, I make the moral claim that, while we should condemn the behavior and Ye’s enablers, we should refrain from treating Kanye like just any old, fully cognizant racist. The same way I might not walk past a guy screaming at a fire hydrant on a street as though it’s his dead father and say: ‘God, what a dumb asshole. Can you believe he’s doing that?’ Yes, the behavior is assholish, but there seems to be a mitigating factor at play here, and I would be more comfortable condemning that person if I knew that that mental illness did not play a role in that behavior.The truth is that neither of our positions are verifiable or falsifiable until Kanye gets a psyche assessment and gets back on his meds. The difference is that I am advocating holding off on a morally risky course of action based on an uncertain calculation; you are advocating plowing on ahead regardless. then I guess I’m confused about who you’re saving that for and why
you’re being so exclusive about it.
How about… all the people I mentioned above? For all the reasons I mentioned above?
If you disapprove of what he said,
but you want to save your negative perception of him only until your
points are proven, then I kinda find that to be a morally inactive
position.That’s because you, like so many self-righteous jagoffs on our side of the aisle, cannot conceive of any response to anything more nuanced or considered or productive than: ‘FUCK THAT PIECE OF SHIT I HOPE HE BURNS IN HELL!!!!’Imagine, for a second, if all that vitriol was reserved for Pool, Carlson, Owens, et al, and all the other white supremacists/Nazis/hoteps/Black Israelites who have jumped on Kanye’s message – the people who have enabled him, encouraged the spread of this rhetoric, and used it to promote their own agendas.Then, imagine if the response to Kanye himself from the left was – universally – along the lines of: ‘You are wrong. Antisemitism is bullshit. You are mentally ill, and you need help, but right now you are causing fear and suffering to millions of people, and you need to stop.’ And absolutely, by all means, deplatform him so that he cannot continue to spread more harm.That, to me, is a far more effective condemnation of the right and of antisemitism, and a far greater testament to the discernment, humanity and intellectual superiority of the left, than is rushing to publicly flog a delusional, mentally ill person.Because you know that’s what this is gonna turn into, right? The Republican charlatans might be claiming that Kanye is ‘not crazy’ right now, that he is just speaking ‘honestly and openly’ about his beliefs (or whatever bullshit flattery Tucker Carlson spouted before his interview). But I guaran-fucking-tee you that when this is over, that is gonna turn into: ‘Can you believe the woke left behaved so hatefully towards this mentally ill guy?’
“Even Trump isn’t dumb enough to say verbatim “I see good things about Hitler.”” I hate to break it to you buddy, but that ship sailed a while ago. https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/07/politics/donald-trump-adolf-hitler-book-claims/index.html
I stand corrected. I did not hear about this at the time.Trump really is that dumb…
theres a difference between having terrible beliefs and the obvious mentall illness Kanye has. One does not neccesitate the other.
Agree completely with this. I don’t think that a conservatorship is the answer – I’m not sure those should exist at all, frankly – but yeah, he is in bad shape and is surrounded by the worst possible people for him right now.
Something that’s bothered me about William Hughes’ coverage of the Alex Jones interview – less so this particular article – is that it’s framed as West ‘bluntly asserting’ that Hitler was good etc., as though he’s just staring into the camera and saying it deadpan. Meanwhile there’s no mention of the startlingly obvious mental illness that was on full display throughout. I suspect – no, I’m sure – that no-one at the AV Club has actually watched the interview. There is just no possible way to watch it and conclude that Kanye is operating with a full deck. So while his comments are horrific and condemnable, there is strong evidence to suggest that he does not fully grasp what he is doing or saying.
Another thing that makes it a little more tragic is, based on the interviews he’s given post-breakdown, he is clearly REALLY upset about his breakup with Kim Kardashian. It’s not like he tears up when he mentions her, but it’s telling how often his rants end up cycling back to her, and their breakup, and how he wants to save her etc. It comes across as someone who’s been hurt but is trying to cover it up badly, and inadvertently revealing just how much it bothers them.
its very difficult to find the full interview, youtube has removed it
I am *shocked* that the supposedly “free speech” social media company Parler is cancelling someone.
If I had whatever mental illness Kanye has right now, I’d suspect him of being a deep cover left-wing psyops agent sent to destroy the Republican party from within, in the most deliciously ironic way possible.
That would be pretty amazing. Even Matt Walsh, a very religious conservative, said that Kanye is making conservatives go off the deep end because they’re clinging to the notion that anything that pisses off liberals must be celebrated.
Except he’s so overshot the mark that now even Alex Jones is sidling out of the picture. “My cover’s blown! Exfiltrate! Exfiltrate!”
But that’s why it’s so brilliant. The Republicans – particularly the Trumpers – have been courting semi-acceptable extremists and cryptofascists for a decade plus. Now they’ve stooped so low as to latch onto a mentally ill guy who have no qualms about saying the quiet part loud. Now the establishment GOP types are trying to distance themselves for the Trump faction, and the Trump faction looks even more like a bunch of clueless dipshits. It’s great
If they had won the midterms they’d be doubling down, but apparently they’ve actually discovered the floor. I’m really curious how this presidential primary is going to turn out. Nobody thought whtashisname had a chance in 2016, but at this point, half of his presidency is like a pandemic fever dream that everyone – even the big Rs – are desperately trying to forget.
Helluvit is, if the Republican party leaders had stuck to their post- January 6 criticisms and (faux?) outrage at Trump, gone along with impeachment, or at least not crawled back to him (McCarthy, Graham) and publicly re-enabled his bad behavior, there’s a chance the GOP would’ve done better in the mid-terms and maybe wouldn’t be wringing their hands over 2024 now.Kevin & Lindsey are the worst of the flip-floppers, but McConnell is equally if not more to blame, since he presumably could have actually moved Republican votes if he wanted to. One might wonder if he regrets not supporting impeaching 45 now.
Yup. My dream scenario is DeSantis getting the Republican nomination, Trump running as an independent (cause you know he’s gonna run no matter what) and the two of them splitting the right-wing vote and giving the Dems a supermajority. The more shit stacks up to push ‘moderates’ (a term that barely applies to GOP members anymore) away from Trump, the more likely that is to happen. Between the dinner with Ye/Fuentes, the FBI investigation and the midterm failures, Trump is starting to look like a loser, and his constant harping on the election results like pure whining (to the GOP, I mean, it was already obvious to everyone else).In fact, between this article and now, they’ve had another fiasco – the big HUNTER BIDEN TWITTER FILES DROP, which proved absolutely none of the accusations of a cover-up and which not even they could spin into a political scandal. They seem to be (at least partially) waking up to how insane they’ve become. And I wouldn’t know what exactly caused that process to start, I do like to imagine that seeing so many of their compatriots becoming obsessed with someone’s stolen dick pics might’ve been cause for introspection.
Personally, I think that the last administration is so inextricable from the worst parts of the pandemic that people just want to forget it. Regardless of party, hearing “what’s his name” and “President” makes people think “Covid,” and they shut down. It’s arguably a helpful side effect of a really dysfunctional coping strategy.
I would say don’t give them any ideas, but that is their main line of defense against reality. Some of them can compartmentalize the countless conflictions, but most have room in their head for only one thought at a time.
I read the headline as ‘KANYE WEST IS OFFICIALLY DEAD’ and got a bit too happy.
Same. Damn speed reading.
Kanye is over. There is no coming back from what he’s said recently. He’s not going to record some apology video in awhile and be able to dig his way out – he’s never recovering from that. Nor should he.
Career, reputation, and personal finances nuked outta existence….there’s no coming back.
Lithium, Kanye, give it a try.
He should just go ahead and listen to all of Nevermind.
Does Kanye seriously have nobody is his life that can step in and get him in some sort of treatment facility? (Not excusing his bigotry away but he is obviously not 100% well).
He needs to want treatment. Otherwise, it’s useless to try.
So, remember when the AV Club decided to stop covering Trump because…enough? Could be that we’re, you know, there.
I’m pretty sure what really happened is that Kanye has now destroyed his value to the point where he no longer has the financial ability to complete the parler deal.
I’m actually kind of glad Kanye is going on all these right wing shows and saying the quiet part out loud. He’s quadrupling down and vocalizing all the odious things these people believe and have been dog whistling for years, exposing them for what they are. Not that this was Kanye’s intent, but it’s the result of his lunatic crusade.
I don’t think Alex Jones has ever been happened uncomfortable.
“has this ever been happened”You have got to be doing this on purpose.
Truly bizarre how a black man raised in Chicago by a mom who was a brilliant college professor can evolve into an anti-intellectual, willfully ignorant mouthpiece for outright white supremacy. A shameful descent into megalomania and amoral ideologies.