to think Kanye West's racism is going to lead to an increase in violence against Jews?

[smokedsalm0n]

Firstly, I am Jewish, no connection to Israel, I'm not Israeli (not that I need to qualify my post with that) and have lived in the UK all my life.

So, after his recent rantings about loving Hitler, Nazis and the holocaust (torontosun.com/entertainment/celebrity/i-like-hitler-kanye-west-doubles-down-on-hate-speech-on-alex-jones-infowars-show)

I'm feeling very scared and scared for my kids, especially reading recent threads like this:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/secondary/4662884-kanye-wests-harmful-views-tackling-antisemitism-at-school

Kanye is very influential and popular with the younger generation and my Jewish children are already getting more racist comments said to their faces without any fear of retribution. I am genuinely scared for their physical safety. Jews shouldn't have to live in fear, its 2022 ffs not the 1930s!

He’s anti black. Anyone who thinks aligning with him as a black man gives them more credence in their antisemitic beliefs, needs to have their heads wobbled to coin a MN phrase.
The man has literally said slavery was a mindset and black people allowed themselves to be enslaved along with any number of other anti back statements.

I see my sarcasm landed well. Of course it’s not anti-racist. Have you seen their editorial on Ngozi?

Really? And how many of the quarter of a million Jews in this country did you speak to?

Well yes, if they are aligning with him they are racists. And yes, racists do need probably a bit more than a head wobble

But as I said racists will generally use anything to support/justify their beliefs. And just because he's black won't stop his words encouraging anti-semitism. It's not rational thought, of course logically it doesn't give credence to their anti-semitism. But it will.

He's been banned again today. Not sure for how long though.
News - Elon Musk suspends Kanye West from Twitter for inciting violence www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63826675 BBC reporting

But the bullying of Jason Lee was relentless, it went on for months. And it made Jason a target for racist bullying from the entire nation. To this day, bookies make fun of Jason’s ‘pineapple head’.

Let’s not derail the thread, it’s about anti-semitism, but let’s also not minimise the facts about what Jason Lee went through. It was horrific.

And when Frank Clark called Baddiel and Skinned ‘two white middle class boys’, neither Baddiel or Skinner objected to that. They didn’t even stop after that.

I'm not condoning the treatment of Jason Lee, it's up to individuals as to whether they won't accept apologies. Its not an excuse to poison the well with regard to the simmering anti-Semitism though. I'm afraid I didn't see the editorial on Ngozi, I won't touch the Mail. As a member of the ethnic group regarded as the last acceptable target of racism (frequently targeted by the Mail), I couldn't bring myself to pick it up.

@poefaced my, previous comment was in answer to you, I forgot to @ it.

I definitely agree it shouldn’t detract from discussions on anti-semitism.

Islamaphobia is real.

Sorry I don't know what the last ethnic group regarded as an acceptable target is. Could you enlighten me. I honestly didn't know it was acceptable to target any group, well not amongst civilised decent people.

Thinking about it where I live the most acceptable racism is travellers/gypsies. I don't agree with it but it is a sort of default with local people.

@ancientgran it's a common phrase in the sense of 'if you know, you know'.

travellermovement.org.uk/policy-and-publications/the-last-acceptable-form-of-racism

You guessed it!

Err yeah that's my point.

People will rightly point out it's Islamophobic to assign blame or question or demand answers from Muslim people on topics like Middle Eastern human rights abuse, terrorism, etc.

But the same people see nothing wrong with demanding answers from Jewish people about Israel, or blaming them for the actions of another country's government.

@ancientgran ...though I'm sure some gatekeeper of racism will be along to put me straight.

There are many untouchable gatekeepers here sadly.

@Ytterbium slightly gratifying to see someone doing just that earlier, and calling for me to be banned got their own comment removed instead. Petty? Yes, but still satisfying.

Your comment was deleted. Rightly so. My response to that was deleted. I know you have a bizarre axe to grind but please at least try and keep up.

Thanks. I couldn't think for a minute, then I ran it through my mind and thought how vile people are about travellers. I wasn't sure if it was more of a thing in a smallish town as they are a significant presence whereas people in a city might be less aware/bothered.

I think many times criticism of Isreal gets mistaken for criticism of Jewish people everywhere. And if you level criticism at Isreal then you're labelled anti-semitic, possibly as a way to shut the criticism down.

I don't believe there is more anti semitism than Islamaphobia or any other racism in this country. Obviously its all wrong, and I'm sorry OP is going through it.

I didn't say it was more prevalent.

I said it was considered acceptable to derail conversations about antisemitism by talking about Israel, and also acceptable to demand answers from Jewish people about Israel, and to say 'oh well it's understandable that people have negative feelings about Jewish people because of Israel.'

To compare it, it is NOT considered acceptable to derail a conversation on Islamophobia by saying 'oh well terrorism gives them all a bad name,' or to demand answers from Muslim people on Middle Eastern countries' conduct, or to say 'it's understandable that people have negative feelings about Muslims due to XYZ.'

I had a Jewish coworker at my last job who was aggressively questioned on Israel/Palestine by another coworker at a work event. I don't believe he would have dreamed of doing the same to any of our Muslim coworkers on the topic of terrorism, or the Middle East, etc. In any event he didn't, he just did it to that one colleague.

So you say 'it's all wrong' but that is not the attitude that comes across.

It's not equal in that every presentation of the racism is the same, ie conflating Isreal and Jewish people vs say treatment of people in some gulf countries and Muslims.

But it is equal in the sense that there is not more antisemitism than there is islamaphobia or any other type of racism.

If it's any use I used to work for a large police force, I look fairly typical of one stereotype of Irish, not the black hair and fair skin (my sister got that one) I got the ginger and freckles. Now I am also teetotal, from a mixed protestant/catholic family, have no allegiance to the IRA and at the time had two young children and rarely got out.

So it is the 70s, IRA bombings are going on. I happened to work on the same corridor as the anti terrorist squad and when I was at lunch one day one of the ATS officers came into my office and asked my colleagues if I talked about the IRA, did they know I went drinking in known IRA pubs/clubs (they choked at that one but he assured them he'd seen me) and he asked them to keep an eye on me and let him know if there was anything dodgy he needed to know, he felt me getting a job on the same corridor as the ATS was very suspicious.

It certainly makes you think when you are suddenly "the enemy" in fact public enemy number one at the time.

To anyone who has never experienced it I can promise you it isn't a nice feeling.