Sometimes people talk about "cancel culture" as really being "consequence culture"--you have a right to free speech, but not consequence-free speech. The picture above depicts banners unfurled over a busy highway (the 404 in LA) reading: "Honk if you know", "Kanye is right about the Jews", and "Goyim TV TV Rev. 3:9 John 8:44." They were put up there by a notorious hate group: the Goyim Defense League. They are appalling, not amusing, and they are inspired by the inane ramblings of an irresponsible man with a big bullhorn.
So, they are amplifying what Kanye said--to amplify their own message of hate. Kanye sympathized with their message, and they are showing him the exact sort of love he should have expected, because of course, other haters were going to notice.
Who else notices? People who see that banner in their community and feel a tightness in their stomachs, People who were just singled out even though they have done nothing at all--but exist.
I don't like revisiting this so soon--but the reason a figure like Kanye loses platform or business deals is because that speech has an effect. He isn't thinking about who responds to that speech and what they do. It isn't that he's responsible for what someone else does--he's just making them feel better about their choices. He's not being edgy or controversial--it's the same hate as preached by thugs and has no edifying value. His previous accomplishments don/t elevate it--but his profile makes it more visible for recruitment by groups like the above.
Maybe it affects his bank account that he's "canceled". It's not his place of worship that has to hire security. It isn't his families' headstones being desecrated. It isn't his place of business that would be vandalized by symbols of hate or his physical safety he fears for. And his co-optation of Jewish identity with Black Israelite conspiracy shit just feels like trolling. It feels like he's daring people to make something of it, hoping one identity camouflages that he is using the same hate that white Christians have used.
Occurring against the backdrop of a rise in anti-Semitic sentiment and political Christian nationalism it's shocking. Seeing it celebrated by hate groups is instructive.
2 comments:
I still don't know exactly who this Kayne Ye yahoo is, though I gather he's married to a member of an alien species from Star Trek: Lost in Space, one of his in-laws is an in-it-for-the-publicity transvestite and he's running for president? Some kind of gangsta' strait out of Hollywood? I guess it is more important than the polar vortex that's gonna' blow through here next week with twenty-below average temps, 70% of earth species gone in the past 50 years and Voyager, our spacecraft we sent out 50 years ago with a gold plaque reading "Come Eat!" has detected a massive anomaly just outside the solar system that's headed this way.
I think it a privilege to watch history unfold ...
Addendum: please don't mistake my ire as directed at you.
That's tomorrow morning's first post ...
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