Somebody Stop Kanye West

Alice Chung | December 12, 2022

Illustration courtesy: Hyelynn Kim

The musical genius himself once said,

"To my fans, thank you for being loyal and patient. I can't finish the album because there's a bee in the studio."

We’re all familiar with Kanye West’s (Ye) extensive list of infamous quotes throughout his career: he’s never been one to hesitate about voicing his views or standing up for his beliefs. While this generally contributes to his unique and charismatic personality, it can also lead to controversies linked with his name.

Kanye recently wrote an antisemitic comment under a Twitter post that enraged many of his corporate sponsors, a sizable portion of the Internet, and nearly the entire Jewish community. His comment not only lost him over two billion dollars in brand deals, but also sparked a PR crisis that spread like wildfire through the Internet. Ironically, a few days before the hullabaloo, Kanye confidently announced that he was now able to make such comments without worrying about losing his contract with Adidas.

So, what was it exactly about what Kanye said that stirred such a controversy? Kanye expressed his unpleasant experiences with Jewish people in show business, Hollywood, and media outlets. The controversy seems to derive from the fact that Kanye used his limited personal experiences to make generalizations about an entire community of people. Although this is not uncommon on the Internet, when Kanye used the words “Jewish people” in a negative context, the reaction was seemingly swift and utterly brutal.

Comedian Dave Chapelle spoke spoke about the matter in a reflective SNL monologue a few days after. Despite being a fellow black American who has likely faced the same challenges as Kanye, Chapelle quipped about the entire fiasco, stating, he had “broken show business rules... if they’re black, they’re a gang, if they’re Italian, they're a mafia, but if they're Jewish, it’s a coincidence and we should never speak about it.”

At quick glance, it doesn’t seem conspiratorial to think that Jews run Hollywood. There are even entire books dedicated to this topic, such as Neal Gabler’s An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood, exploring how such a thing could have happened (one reason is that filmmaking was one of the few places where Jewish immigrants could work in the US.) However, the influence of Jews or Jewish communities in show business today is much too complicated to be reduced to a single ethnoreligious group. It’s true, Harvey Weinstein is Jewish, but this hardly means that his Jewishness was the motivation for his crimes.

However, beyond pointing fingers, making generalizations, and playing along stereotypes, the bigger question is: why are we not allowed to speak about Jews? History tells us that antisemitism goes back millennia. The Jewish community has suffered thousands of tragedies, with the Holocaust being its most notable emblem of sorrow. Yet, a reactionary and blanket ban on anything resembling antisemitism seems just as curious of a measure as the sources of antisemitism itself.

In the midst of all of this, Kanye seems to be unwell. In a recent interview with another controversial character, Alex Jones, Kanye eclipsed Jones’s reputation, repeatedly praised Hitler, and defended the Nazi Party. We can only speculate on what caused him to say such things. Compared to his earlier comments, Kanye’s behaviors are becoming progressively indefensible: is he a genius beyond our time or is he a person desperately in need of help?

Oh, not to mention—Kanye has also announced a presidential bid for the 2024 US elections.