Ed Sheeran/Macklemore

[WallyHilloughby]

what are your thoughts on this whole debacle?
quite frankly I’m sick and tired of artists using concerts etc as some political forum

They are, however, the same person.

Why do you think that the person who previously dressed up as an obviously antisemitic caricature on stage chose to stand on stage talking about how evil the world's only Jewish state is? Why not climate change? The awful situation in Sudan? The plight of the Afghan women? The Epstein files? Men's mental health? Drug addiction?

I mean, we can't possibly know, and he would certainly deny any connection, just like he denied dressing up as a massively antisemitic caricature.

But you cannot insist that people should ignore it and feel comfortable with it. "Man with previous history of antisemitic behaviour goes on stage to talk about Israel" isn't a concert I'd want to be at or promote.

The costume is bad though.

But you cannot insist that people should ignore it and feel comfortable with it. "Man with previous history of antisemitic behaviour goes on stage to talk about Israel" isn't a concert I'd want to be at or promote.

Where have I said that people should ignore it, nevermind insist that? I've said that I don't know what the intention was behind the costume, that's all. That isn't me insisting that anyone ignore anything. If you don't want to go to a Macklemore concert don't go, I've never been to one I'm not about to start insisting that others do.

I think it’s an unfortunate photo but can’t see a nazi salute. I see an ignorant or hateful person using his stage in a way I find disgraceful.

if he genuinely had no idea about this sort of characterisation and others on this thread also are ignorant of it, it’s actually quite troubling. I grew up in the shadows of the Holocaust in a way my children (thankfully) do not. We had survivors as members at our synagogue, our Hebrew school regularly had them speak to us at events, we read loads of books about it… our family tree has a big gap in the middle as do most Jewish families. But my kids don’t really know about this in the same way and I’m not sure they’d recognise this imagery (well my daughter would now at 13 but my son maybe not). I think everyone knows that black face is horrifying but not everyone knows that this precise look is equally horrifying for me.

I can think and feel several conflicting things at the same time

• Israel has a right to exist.
• I personally need Israel to exist for my family’s safety. I hope I never need to flee, but my ancestor’s experiences show me that a Jewish family with nowhere to escape to will never be safe
• Shooting children is bad. Kidnapping children is bad. Imprisoning children is bad.
• Hamas is a blight on humanity.
• Netanyahu is too. As is Trump (which is related to everything here as the states has a lot of input into this mess)
• Using your stage to protest whatever is your right. But maybe not if you are a guest on someone else’s stage. But if you have always been clear about who you are then being surprised by it is odd. I still have no idea what Ed Sheeran thought would happen.

My grandmother is a survivor of an antisemitic shooting at her assisted living facility in 2008. My father is a survivor of a shooting at his synagogue in 2016. My great grandparents survived pogrommes in Russia. My daughter was chased home from school by teenagers yelling Free Palestine. In a vacuum that’s not that dramatic but when I look through everything that’s happened to my family and others, a famous person dressing in a hooked nose to perform a piece about bargain shopping followed by this same person on a bigger stage 10 years later shouting about destroying the only Jewish country while thousands cheer… it’s unsettling at best.

You seem very determined to argue that Macklemore probably didn’t know he looked like an antisemite and besides it was years ago therefore irrelevant to him talking about Israel now.

I would suggest that someone who is naive of the issues to the point that they don’t recognise blatant antisemitic imagery (I assume you didn’t which is how you can possibly think Macklemore might not) then this probably isn’t something you should be opining about.

What a strange assumption? I just don't assume that everybody knows everything I know.

When I was younger my grandparents used to get jars of marmalade with tokens on to collect golliwogs. I had no idea that a golliwog was supposed to be a caricature of a Black person. They didn't look like any Black people I'd ever seen. I genuinely thought they were just characters like a Pokémon or a moomin. How was I supposed to know differently when no one ever told me? I don't know what age I was when I found out what they really represented and I don't deny that the imagery is racist(just like I haven't denied that the imagery of Macklemores costume was antisemitic), I just honestly didn't know because no one had told me and I hadn't come across it anywhere else.

We only know what we know at any given time, if we are then corrected and keep denying it, like if I kept insisting that golliwogs were just like Pokémon or Macklemore kept insisting that the costume was fine instead of apologising, then there is a problem but can you really get angry at someone for just being ignorant to the meaning of a caricature because they've never actually come across it before?

I applaud the artists speaking up for Palestine and its children, the starvation, the bombings, the killings - it's heartbreaking. I applaud the artists who have dropped out of Ed's tour in support of Macklemore. .

As do i 👏

What an incredibly offensive and ignorant comment. You are showing your ignorance ( or maybe it is what you would like to believe) if you think that people supporting Palestine and speaking out against the genocide in Gaza are doing so because it is "trendy".
Have you not seen the thousands and thousand of marches globally? Are you not appalled by the horrific death toll in Gaza?
Would you have thought people speaking out against the Nazis were doing it because it was trendy?
Ed Sheeran has taken a side by not taking a side. To be silent during a genocide is being complicit with the oppressor.

'Complicit with the oppressor' - language straight out of Marxist TikTok?

The reason people say it's trendy is that coincidentally, 95% of the luvvies in the world have chosen this particular issue to be militantly self-righteous about. All at the same time. It's not an equal spread of concern about the various pressing and terrible wars/issues afflicting the world. Add to that, they all come out with the same basic slogans and soundbites and are very rarely capable of a thoughtful discussion. All suggests jumping on a trend rather than actually deeply understanding the issues and independently forming their own opinions.

In fact, when someone does sound thoughtful and form their own opinions (e.g. Ed Sheeran) the luvvies and activists are enraged and demand conformity. It is very clear that this is not a black and white issue, as evidenced by the range of views in our own government, for example. The pressure to conform on the left actually suggests this is more than a 'trend', it's an in-group signifier, a test of loyalty. For all the shouting about dead children, the test of loyalty is actually what matters to them.

Go look at boy george’s feed and you’ll see lots of what you are looking for.

Desmond Tutu actually... maybe you should brush up on your Marxism.
How do you know that the people that are protesting against the genocide in Gaza are not equally concerned and horrified by other global conflicts?
Hundreds of thousands of people globally are active in protesting against the genocide.
You write about protesting against dead children as though it was trivial, not an horrific war crime by Israel. Shame on you.

This 👇

Ed Sheeran has taken a side by not taking a side. To be silent during a genocide is being complicit with the oppressor.

This is such absolute bollocks, this demand for performative purity. Ed Sheeran doesn’t actually owe you anything. Neither does anyone else. People policing everyone to see if they are saying the correct words, at the correct time is helping no one. To suggest that a musician is complicit in genocide because he doesn’t want someone going on about it at his concert is just wankery. Is Macklemore complicit in the genocide going on in Myanmar because he isn’t going on about that?

And the purity spiral eventually eats itself. You’ll find that you said slightly the wrong thing and it won’t be good enough and then the mob will be after you too.

Boy George has kept his own hostages attached to radiators, he is a man that needs to focus on himself first.

Why is Ed Sheeran thoughtful but everyone else happens to be luvvies on a bandwagon?

Is that not bias?

He also says free Congo, Free Sudan, free Cuba, free those in American under ICE, that suggests more than it just being a bandwagon.

What a load of nonsense. As an example of freedom of art and expression, music is of course political! Has the OP never heard of Live Aid, or Mandela’s 70th birthday concert? Concerts can be both political and effect change for the better

Holocaust inversion. Lovely.

Oh wait, you're the poster who called October 7th "retaliation". I shouldn't be surprised.

And you are the person that sides with the Israel and the Genocide. Nice.
I am proud to stand in solidarity with Palestine and will do so always.

I am? Where exactly did I do that?

There isn't and wasn't a genocide.

@NancyThompson I am afraid you are very very wrong.

International bodies and human rights experts have concluded that Israel's military actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide, and have warned that third-party nations and supply companies share responsibility for complicity. 1, 2,

United Nations Findings

• Genocidal Acts: A United Nations commission of inquiry reported that Israeli forces committed four of the five acts defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention. Read more details on the BBC News coverage. 1]
• Targeting Civilians: The UN findings state that actions include mass killings, intentional starvation, destruction of healthcare systems, and the targeted killing of children. 1, 2]
• Leadership Responsibility: Investigators concluded that top Israeli leaders deliberately incited these acts. Israel has rejected these reports as false and based on propaganda. src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/nOda0SlHZww?start=11" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen> 1,

International Experts and Scholars

• Genocide Scholars: The International Association of Genocide Scholars passed a resolution stating that Israel's actions match the legal criteria for genocide. 1,
• Global Warnings: International investigators warned that allies supporting Israel risk legal and moral complicity if they do not act to stop the violence. 1,

This whole episode highlights a bunch of over privileged, virtue signalling folk from Ed Sheeran, Macklemore to the people in the audience shouting Free Palestine.

What does any of it actually achieve?

Does it help your everyday Gazan?
The survivors or bereaved of Oct 7th?
Any kind of Middle East peace process?

That would be a resounding No.

The whole episode is embarrassing and highlights the ignorance and naivety of those involved.

Our lovely neighbours ran a charity for years to try to bring peace to Israel and Palestine and to encourage positive dialogue.

There were no marches, no shouting slogans but years of painstaking care, diplomacy, hard work, love and commitment.

This is driven by antisemitism, unsurprising from the UN.

https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/united-nations-israel-and-anti-semitism

This was ten years ago and things have got so much worse.

That being said, "The commission said its latest report, external was "the strongest and most authoritative UN finding to date" on the war. However, it does not officially speak for the UN."

It's the opinion of three people.

Well then, everything's eating it's own tail. I'm actually tired of people leaping up for their turn on the soap box to 'call out' people who are trying to voice support for Gaza in what they perceive is the wrong way. It's equally privileged and 'virtue-signalling', to coin that hideous phrase.

Even if they're doing it clumsily, or 'wrongly,' I generally prefer people giving a shit, talking about it, trying to understand the issues and not being oblivious to the awful suffering of other people, than the alternative.