December 2, 2022

"The naive view is that the refusal to defend West marks a sea shift in black attitudes toward Jews..."

"... transcending the impulse to defend the indefensible just because it was done by a fellow African American. The cynical view is that if West hadn’t first angered black people with his comment that slavery was 'a choice,' and betrayed black leaders with his decision to put on the MAGA cap, the reaction would have been entirely different. West’s accusations... [suggest that] Kanye West has lost his mind. But that doesn’t explain enough. If West had blamed the Iroquois for his woes, that would be unhinged. But he didn’t. He blamed the Jews, and that’s no accident of mental illness. West found a powerful political explanation for his experience, one that already has a pedigree in the black community—anti-Semitism. Look at his accusations again: Reference to Jewish exploitation is de rigueur in writings about blacks and Jews...."

Writes Elliot Kaufman, in "O Ye of Little Faith: The Anti-Semitism of Kanye West The billionaire star is not just crazy. His Jew-hating politics have a history—and a radical potential" (Commentary). Much more detail at the link. But just a bit more, from the conclusion:

Any confrontation with black anti-Semitism incurs risk for Jews, but it is necessary. First, black anti-Semitism places traditional Jews in physical danger every day on the streets of Brooklyn and not only there.... Second, black anti-Semitism has a unique ability to strike at the heart of liberalism... Jewish success and prominence in America—taken by some as a standing insult—have hinged on liberal principles of merit, equality before the law, pluralism, free expression, and individual rights, as opposed to group privileges. Black anti-Semitism, in denying the legitimacy of Jewish success and prominence, is also an assault on those ruling principles. Its deeper meaning is to call the American system a fraud, a manipulation, and a conspiracy.

To call the American system a fraud, a manipulation, and a conspiracy — that's how to say Critical Race Theory without saying Critical Race Theory.

83 comments:

Michael K said...

And Al Sharpton, anti-Semite extraordinaire, visited Obama's White House 80 times.

chickelit said...

To call the American system a fraud, a manipulation, and a conspiracy — that's how to say Critical Race Theory without saying Critical Race Theory.

Pretty edgy stuff, Althouse. Kudos!

Howard said...

This guy is very good at eviscerating a hypothetical strawman. I do agree that folks whom believe in sudden sea changes should shampoo my crotch.

Dustbunny said...

Bravo to your final sentence!

Dustbunny said...

Bravo to your final sentence!

rhhardin said...

It's a war against high group average IQ. The groups that do best must be stealing from our group that does worst, is the idea behind it.

MikeR said...

@Michael "Al Sharpton, anti-Semite extraordinaire". He's a loser who has blood on his hands for the Crown Heights riot. But can you justify, anti-Semite extraordinaire? I couldn't find much on his wikipedia page.

Alexander said...

I think it's perfectly natural and healthy that the most important filter of what is a publicly permissible opinion in our society is how it relates to a bad thing that happened to one group of people from a foreign country, done to them by another foreign group in a foreign country, almost a century ago.

That is a completely normal way for a society to organize itself, its politics, and its institutions of public media and social status. It is the way the native people of a society would naturally organize themselves without any undue or disproportionate outside influence.

Achilles said...

At least Ye is forcing everyone to face up to the wave of violence by black people against Jews.

We also need to be forced to talk about tribalist mentality more generally.

People are at their worst when they judge people by what they are instead of by what they do.

mezzrow said...

Waiting for the "move along, nothing to see here" from the narrative factory.

I give this a week in the spotlight. Then there will be a new thing, unless you're Jewish ofc. For them, this is just the same old hate again and again ad infinitum. Just because Kanye is working an established trope, it doesn't mean he hasn't lost his mind. His genius for garnering attention drives his history in the spotlight, and a little (oh hell, a LOT of) manic craziness fits our zeitgeist tighter than OJ's glove fit his hand.

After all, who else could make Alex Jones seem sane?

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Yes, Ann. Excellent. Agree.

exhelodrvr1 said...

The Squad ...

Chest Rockwell said...

visited Obama's White House 80 times.

Obama met with Farakahn and the media suppresed it before he was elected in 2008. Can you imagine if Ron Desantis met with David Duke. People would lose their minds.

I learned from listening to rap as a youth that anti semitism runs deep in the black community. Hell, racism runs deep in the black community. I think it's a far greater problem than 'white supremacy' which is basically non existent.

tim in vermont said...

Blacks have faced a holocaust within living cultural memory, for lack of a better term, both a holocaust and slavery, and the culture focuses on the holocaust on the Jews, which DID happen, for sure, my mother saw first hand her Jewish friends disappear in Holland, Kanye, but a lot of black Africans died crossing the Atlantic and in slavery, especially in the Caribbean and South America, where the life of a slave was about 3 or 4 years on average, but the Bible focuses on the slavery of Jews during the Bronze Age, and their liberation, and as I said before, if there ever was a first man and woman living in a prelapsarian wilderness, that couple lived in Africa.

Why wouldn't blacks be pissed off about the differences in cultural attention between the one and the other. And why wouldn't believing Christian blacks, and there are a lot of them, wonder WTF?

If he hadn't said "The holocaust didn't happen, so all of this Hitler hatred is unfounded" (I paraphrase and interpolate from his words) I would have a lot of sympathy for his position, but he is an artist, not a politician.

The funny thing is that the only historically documented, outside of the Bible, instance of large numbers of Israelites and, BTW, the Danites (Ancient Greeks) being enslaved is as a result of a huge Trojan War style fleet of ships that came, like was the case at Troy, to pillage Egypt. See the Israel Stele, which is the first recorded mention of Israel, and which also, like Genesis, mentions the Danites. The Israelites were raiders, who were enslaved for good reason. It's no wonder that the Old Testament chose to paper that over.

iowan2 said...

Lots of racists trying to take down a Black Man

Cappy said...

Very good article, glad you posted it.

The big question for those organizations in the Jewish community is when are they going to get off their pencil pushing duffs and go after Jew haters amongst the protected communities?

Dave Begley said...

West is insane. Not worth talking about.

Robert Cook said...

"Hell, racism runs deep in the black community. I think it's a far greater problem than 'white supremacy' which is basically non existent."

The comments on this blog are a never ending source of astonishing and ridiculous statements.

gilbar said...

The actual reality is that if West hadn’t first angered black people with his comment that slavery was 'a choice,' and betrayed black leaders with his decision to put on the MAGA cap, the reaction would have been entirely different.
fify!

good Christ! WHO was the last person on the reservation (or the plantation) that got in trouble for speaking like this?
Jesse Jackson?
Louie Farakon?
Any One?

Clearly, the things that got West in trouble wasn't complaining about "Hymie Town"

Kevin said...

It's still chill to hate white people in general, right?

Even better if you're doing it while denouncing "hate speech".

Kevin said...

"The naive view is that the refusal to defend West marks a sea shift in black attitudes toward Jews..."

That's how to say black people have a problem with Jews in general without saying black people have a problem with Jews in general.

gilbar said...

MikeR said...
. But can you justify, anti-Semite extraordinaire? I couldn't find much on his wikipedia page.

that says a LOT More about wikipedia than Al Sharpton
Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton has referred to members of the Jewish faith as ‘bloodsucking [J]ews’, and ‘Jew bastards’;

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton has referred to members of the Jewish faith as ‘white interlopers’ and ‘diamond merchants’;

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton’s vicious verbal anti-Semitic attacks directed at members of the Jewish faith, and in particular, a Jewish landlord, arising from a simple landlord-tenant dispute with a black tenant, incited widespread violence, riots, and the murder of five innocent people;

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton’s fierce demagoguery incited violence, riots, and murder in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York, following the accidental death of a black pedestrian child hit by the motorcade of Orthodox Rabbi Menachem Schneerson;

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton led a protest in the Crown Heights neighborhood and marched next to a protester with a sign that read, ‘The White Man is the Devil’;

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton has insulted members of the Jewish faith by challenging Jews to violence and stating to Jews to ‘pin down’ their yarmulkes

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

betrayed black leaders with his decision to put on the MAGA cap

This bullshit phrase is your big hint the author is a partisan hack. Why should I give a fuck what else he says?

Spiros said...

I think the Woke believe that "rich people" (i.e., "The Jews") have the power to wipe out poverty but won't.

Bob Boyd said...

IOW, We're not the white people Blacks are supposed to hate. They're supposed to hate those other whites, the ones that we hate. We've created a monster.

Temujin said...

Well...I've mentioned the rampant and accepted anti-Semitism in the Black community numerous times here and elsewhere over the years. It's not new.

This was a very good column and it covered a lot. But, to move past Tim in Vermont's history, which does manage to agree that the Holocaust did happen (I'll pass that onto the Group Leaders that you said that, Tim.) the Jews have seen this in all lands, throughout all of their time. So one might say, what is it about Jews that historically has always brought this about? Yeah. I wonder that too as I've gone about my life, working my ass off, trying to be a good citizen, doing the right things. Giving where I can, helping others when I can. You know, doing that thing you all know as Christian. Knowing my dad fought for this country against the Nazis only to come home and get excluded from jobs, neighborhoods, and opportunities because of his religion. But he worked his ass off anyway and we managed. We were lower middle class, but we managed and now my generation has done better. And I know this is the same story for many of you, from different backgrounds.

Yet- here they come again, for me and my kind. We do our lives. We stress education and work and family, and some of us- many of us- succeed. And when we do, everyone around us says "They have it all. They own everything." Except that we don't, never have, and aren't allowed to, for the most part.

There is one difference between past Jewish generations and this one. This one fights. Like the ancients, this one fights. Not every one of us will be pious Hasidim walking with his head down in Brooklyn and being passive, even when attacked. There isn't a country on earth who wants to fuck with Israel. Those same attitudes are running hot in the veins of many of us here in the US and elsewhere. Just for the record.

Anyway...I remember back in the 60s my dad and I arguing mightily about this happening again. About how anti-Semitism would raise it's head ugly again in my lifetime. As it did many times here in the US in his lifetime, like when it came over the radio from Father Charles Coughlin in Detroit in the 30's and 40's. Coughlin was a big fan of the Nazis (and was also a big supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Funny seeing Kanye with Trump. Politicians will have dinner with many people to get votes.) I told my dad it wouldn't happen again. As usual, my dad was right.

Anyway. I have to get back to ruling the world. Have a nice weekend, everyone.

Ryan said...

There is belief that blacks are the real jews and the jews hijacked the spot. Let that sink in.

Kate said...

Fascinating article. Thank you.

Aside from the history of Black anti-Semitism, the other revelation is that West is unmedicated for 2 years because he distrusts his Jewish psychiatrist. Two years. I don't want to hijack the issue, but holy crap. I hope his money has guaranteed he has security details who keep him from physically acting out his crazy.

Scotty, beam me up... said...

Thank you, Ann for calling it like it is. As I was reading the last sentence of your excerpt, my thought that excerpt explains exactly the core of CRT - blaming other people for why American blacks can’t succeed in America. If other minorities can succeed brilliantly as well as blacks who migrate here from other parts of the world, it isn’t the Jewish people or white people or Asian people or whoever, maybe it’s their own culture and liberals of all races who are keeping them from succeeding. According to Elliot Kaufman, West succeeded early in his career as he figured out what to do differently in his music than his competitors (for the record, I have no use for his or any other rapper/hip hop music and think it is part of our culture’s problems, particularly anti-cop and other violence, but I digress). CRT is being fueled by hate directed at those who are successful, hence their use of the term of “equity”. Besides anti-Semitism being at the heart of Nazi ideology, it has been at the core of Marxism as Jews were persecuted and murdered in the Soviet Union. CRT has been pushed by self-described Marxist elites / intellectuals in the U.S. and I think it was created by Marxists in Germany who had emigrated to the U.S. to flee the Nazis. I wonder how many of the current Marxist elites / intellectuals subscribe to “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” as what Kaufman described in his article historically that has occurred in the American Black community since the 1960’s appears to be heavily influenced by this fake anti-Semetic document (which is being used in Muslim educational systems world-wide today).

who-knew said...

Tim in Vermont said: "Blacks have faced a holocaust within living cultural memory". What does 'living cultural memory' even mean? The Greeks have faced a devastating war with the Trojans in their 'living cultural memory' You may have heard of it even if you aren't Greek. And why would Black Christians be upset that the Bible (written thousands of years before the trans-Atlantic slave trade existed) focuses on the Israelite slaves? Are you suggesting that they don't realize that? There was plenty of cultural attention paid to the evils of slavery when I was in school (and when American History was still taught). We spent lots of time on the slavery driven political fireworks of the first half of the 19th century, followed up by the Civil War, fought largely over slavery.

Lurker21 said...

Are "Blacks" really so monolithic? Or "Whites" for that matter?

I think you have hit on the question he doesn't ask. There's been some discussion in Commentary and other magazines about whether Jews are "White" See "No, Jews Are Not White" by Liel Leibovitz. If I remember correctly, the idea was that Jews were especially vulnerable and their position less secure than that of "White" people, so they constituted a separate category -- not a view that one could expect to be well-received by other "Whites."

Chris N said...

My experience: the black Israelite stuff is fringe by mainstream standards, but the anti-Semitism is a little more mainstream amongst some black folks (so’s anti-white stuff...just like the past hasn’t changed all that much). Cities are mostly where dense populations of Jewish and black folks interact, and the New New Left is well on its way to becoming more politically mainstream there.

Liberation, and liberation theology, make an easy scapegoat for the system while channeling this energy Play identity games, win identity prizes. It’s funny and radical chic to joke about until it isn’t.

I think West May also be playing to anti-Hitler-Year-Zero game of the new New Right, too. Trolling the dice.

Plus, he’s always been a highly creative, bipolar manic depressive...or something like that.

Mainstream the radical, identitarian Left under a naive liberalism (activism is generally good...human beings are generally good...progress is global and right) and this is easily one result.

Mainstream a New, New Right response by thwarting religion, tradition, and the past, while tossing away a less relevant old conservative and republican guard...in favor a more nihilistic, fighting anti-Left cultural vanguard and this is easily one result.

Not all change is good, and all change comes with costs and new problems. You’re not always a (S)elf, floating free of the world. We’re all along for the ride as it’s being created, and somewhat responsible, too.




wildswan said...

Ye, or as we call him, West, is an important person in the black community. Why not make an effort to sit down with him and talk and lay out the reality of what the Holocaust was as well as the proofs that it happened? That Hitler was intent on wiping out the Jews quickly but also others, including all the young black children in Germany who were born during the French occupation of the Rhine by Senegalese troops right after World War I. These children all disappeared and no one ever has found what happened to them.
https://www.bbc.com › news › world-africa-48273570 Being black in Nazi Germany - BBC News
Why not give Ye a chance to talk with someone who knows the history but who can listen as well as talk and who isn't looking for clicks. It isn't really true that "he should know by now." Consider history teaching in the public schools. Consider the universities. I wonder if silencing him will just make his statements, false and awful though they are, seem more true to the community which he is primarily addressing.

Joe Smith said...

Democrats have hated Jews and Israel for years, yet Jews keep voting D.

I will never understand that, nor how any Jew can be in favor of radical gun control...

Joe Smith said...

'It's still chill to hate white people in general, right?'

Certainly.

The democrats were bragging about having no white people in congressional leadership.

They were gleeful.

Yancey Ward said...

If, let's suppose for purposes of argument, that the exact same statements West has made had been made by Hakeem Jeffries, Ilhan Omar, or pretty much any Democrat supporting politician or celebrity, the response would have been crickets from any one in the mainstream news business, and everyone understands this to be the truth, even if they don't have the integrity to admit it. A white Democrat wouldn't as easily get away with it, but they wouldn't be entirely cancelled either- an apology would be eagerly accepted and bygones would be bygones.

West's big "mistake" was dallying around with Trump and Republicans- that puts a limit on any other opinion he can voice without repercussions. Kyrie Irving is finding out the same thing, but his mistake was being anti-Covid vaccines, another issue broadly interpreted as being a conservative these days.

And if you don't believe me, just look at what happens to any conservative black Republican in this country- they are routinely mocked and denigrated by the media relentlessly.

Lurker21 said...

People don't see eye-to-eye on what "White supremacy" could possibly mean. For some it's prejudice. For others it's hatred. Or it could refer to structural inequalities that mean that Whites have advantages Blacks don't: view inequality through a racial lens and there's "structural racism." Or it means a policy of favoring one race above another and laws with privileges for one group and restrictions for another. Or it means a cultural hegemony that makes one group more central in the nation's traditions than others.

I think it's pretty clear that there will always be prejudice, bigotry, and racism in all groups. People will always have an attachment to their own group, and there will always be some people -- far fewer -- who want their race to do whatever it has to do to stay on top. Different groups will always perform and achieve differently so long as they remain separate and identifiable groups. There's no crime in trying to remove obstacles for the underperforming groups, but explaining all inequalities as unfair impositions of White supremacy is fallacious and politically motivated. Making everything about race ignores what people have been able to achieve through their own efforts.

What troubles me is that the Biden Administration seems to believe that anyone who disagrees with their view of America and its future is a White Supremacist and that any commitment to survivals of an older America is akin to support for slavery or segregation. In order not to be a White Supremacist, one has to renounce and denounce everything in America's history that doesn't fit the "Selma, Seneca Falls, and Stonewall" narrative and commit oneself to what many regard as a post-national, post-American future.

Chest Rockwell said...

Please Robert, opine on the problem of White supremacy in America.

There are no cultural, governmental, or religious organizations promoting the supremacy of 'whites', whatever that means.

Butkus51 said...

I forget who it was but somebody once said, "The chickens are coming home to roost"

mikee said...

Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam need to be interviewed about Kanye's statements, stat.

Michael K said...


Blogger Joe Smith said...

Democrats have hated Jews and Israel for years, yet Jews keep voting D.

I will never understand that, nor how any Jew can be in favor of radical gun control...


I think the Democrats turned on Israel when two things happened. One, Israel began to swing right on economics. When Israel was still socialist, Democrats largely loved them. The other event was when Israel won the Six Day War. Bill Mauldin, the cartoonist who was a lefty, used to depict the Israelis as little guys in floppy hats in cartoons. Once Israel became stronger than the Arabs, Democrats switched allegiance.

Shouting Thomas said...

Kanye West is trying to break the “civil rights” alliance of blacks and Jews.

He’s doing this because he doesn’t think this alliance is good for traditional, macho black men.

The issue here is feminism. Jewish women have been the primary source of feminist dogma..

madAsHell said...

The comments on this blog are a never ending source of astonishing and ridiculous statements.


Cookie, how disappointing.

Isn't there a tag for civility-bullshit?

Jupiter said...

"Why not make an effort to sit down with him and talk and lay out the reality of what the Holocaust was as well as the proofs that it happened?"

You might want to go over some of those proofs yourself, before you try to show them to Kanye. Just to make sure they exist.

Lilly, a dog said...

Anti-Semitism is spread by Junk History. It's making a splash in the black community because black activists are now given Pulitzer Prizes for other Junk History like the "1619 Project."

Drago said...

Chest Rockwell: "Please Robert, opine on the problem of White supremacy in America.

There are no cultural, governmental, or religious organizations promoting the supremacy of 'whites', whatever that means."

That's why the marxists have redefined "white supremacy" and racism to mean everything and anything: roads are racist, showing up on time is racist (too focused on "mechanical time"/"clock time" and punishes lateness), studying hard is racist, mathematics is racist, speaking clearly is racist, not speaking clearly is racist, the nuclear family is racist, etc.

West TX Intermediate Crude said...

Everybody here believes in White Supremacy.
By "White Supremacy," I mean that the cultures, nations, and societies developed, maintained, and (unfortunately) evangelized by white people (i.e., Europeans and their descendants) are superior to those developed by Asians or Africans.
White People originally meant WASPS, but they were wise enough to accept multiple other ethnicities and groups into white society to the extent that they lived by the White's rules. Thus, Jews, Italians, Asian Indians, East Asians of all types, Nigerians, and multiple other groups have joined and prospered. Black Americans have joined in lesser numbers because fewer of them want to follow the rules.
There is very little traffic in the other direction. Racism does not explain why most of Africa is a hellhole, or that Asian societies, while economically prosperous, are just not very much fun, and in any event are very unwelcoming of other groups.
I admire the progress that Western Civilization has made, and I am grateful that my people have been welcomed into it.
It hasn't always been smooth or easy, but in the final analysis, White people just do it better.

MikeR said...

@gilbar - thanks for the info.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I find myself like Judge Thomas saying he doesn't have a clue what diversity is. I don't have a clue what anti-semetism is.

Rusty said...

Blogger Robert Cook said...
"Hell, racism runs deep in the black community. I think it's a far greater problem than 'white supremacy' which is basically non existent."

"The comments on this blog are a never ending source of astonishing and ridiculous statements."
And most of those are yours.
I've never understood the lefts antisemitism. Where does it come from?

Gusty Winds said...

So if Kanye was a Biden fan his anti-Semitism would be ok?

BUMBLE BEE said...

As I recall from the 60's, much of the rage against against Jews in my neck of the woods came from being landlords and shopkeepers in "The Ghetto". The many problems Jews were blamed for seemed to stem from the economics of those circumstances. The grudges persist.

Maynard said...

Parts of the Black community have issues with formerly oppressed minorities who have become generally quite successful.

Jews are the most obvious successful minority. However, many AAs have extremely negative attitudes towards Asians. I probably started in the late 70's when Vietnamese refugees came to California and rose out of poverty rather quickly.

That attitude is generalized towards others such as my Korean stepson who faced an awful lot of derision as a HS athlete from AAs.

Balfegor said...

Re: MikeR:

He's a loser who has blood on his hands for the Crown Heights riot. But can you justify, anti-Semite extraordinaire? I couldn't find much on his wikipedia page.

I mean, he incited an anti-Jewish riot that resulted in people actually being killed. It kind of speaks for itself. You could argue, I suppose, that he's just happy to exploit Black anti-Semitism for his own purposes -- he only called Jews "interlopers" and "diamond merchants" when whipping up the crowd, as opposed to shouting about "Jew bastards," "bloodsuckers," or how "Hitler didn't do his job," the way some of the Black protesters he was leading did. But either way, he's more clearly vicious than West, even if you decide Sharpton's just a totally unprincipled opportunist rather than a true blue anti-Semite.

Václav Patrik Šulik said...

This feels like we're watching Roger Keith "Syd" Barrett in real-time, only faster.

At this point, I'm not sure he's going to make it through the year. He needs help, not piling on.

n.n said...

Be wary of anyone exercising liberal license to indulge diversity [dogma] (i.e. color judgment, class-based bigotry), including: racism, sexism, ageism, etc., and anti-Semitism, too. #HateLovesAbortion

n.n said...

People are at their worst when they judge people by what they are instead of by what they do.

Yes, diversity [dogma], especially its doctrine practiced as inequity and exclusion (DIE), that denies individual dignity, individual conscience, intrinsic value, and normalizes color blocs (e.g. "people of color"), color quotas (e.g. Jew privilege), and affirmative discrimination.

dwshelf said...

James Baldwin, in 1967, explained black anti-semitism in a very rational essay.

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/29/specials/baldwin-antisem.html?source=post_page---------------------------

Joe Smith said...

@Michael K

How do you explain support for gun control?

A government (Third Reich) confiscated guns, and then proceeded to round up Jews and kill them by the millions.

Does nobody study history?

Michael K said...

Jews are the most obvious successful minority. However, many AAs have extremely negative attitudes towards Asians. I probably started in the late 70's when Vietnamese refugees came to California and rose out of poverty rather quickly.

Yes, the black's anti-Semitism was largely from envy as the Jews ran all the small shops in black neighborhoods in the 1920s and 1930s. Now, the blacks hate the Asians who have shown how you rise economically even if you can't speak the language.

The other side of this coin is the harassment of black kids who try to do well in school. The "Punk Fashions" of 1960s England were originally begun by kids who thought they could never get a job and dressed as though it was their choice to stay on the Dole. Black's hostility to school is part of that phenomenon.

MadisonMan said...

So if Kanye was a Biden fan his anti-Semitism would be ok?
Okay? No. Commented on by the National Press or Twitterati? Not much would happen at all.

mccullough said...

This DEI bullshit in the Era of Social Media is going well.

The Civil Rights Industry is thriving.

If Kanye West with his tens of millions of music fans is so influential then where are the pogroms?

When people continue to insist there is such a thing as The Black Community or The Jewish Community then this bullshit will continue.

Because of Tribalism is that crucial then the group is responsible for every word and action of a member of the group— the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

So Kanye West is as representative of The Black Community as SBF is representative of the Jewish Community.

Achilles said...

Robert Cook said...

"Hell, racism runs deep in the black community. I think it's a far greater problem than 'white supremacy' which is basically non existent."

The comments on this blog are a never ending source of astonishing and ridiculous statements.

Another typical post where Cook makes a statement he knows is true, but he does understand why he believes this statement or what his belief is supported by.

Most of Cook's thinking is very cult like.

His religious fervor makes the branch davidians look open minded.

wildswan said...

" 'Why not make an effort to sit down with him and talk and lay out the reality of what the Holocaust was as well as the proofs that it happened?'

You might want to go over some of those proofs yourself, before you try to show them to Kanye. Just to make sure they exist."

Here's an article which mentions the exhibit about these children shown at the German Eugenics Exhibition in 1934 as the Nazis showcased problems and goals.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2985333/?page=1: "The Exhibition was opened with great eclat by Herr Goebbels ... Their [the Nazis] main grievance which is described in two separate parts of the Exhibition as 'the saddest betrayal of white race' is the problem of the 600 black [illegitimate children] on the Rhine ... These were said ... to constitute 'the invasion of the black races in Europe.' "
Or there's this:
https://www.dreamdeferred.org.uk/2014/04/the-holocausts-forgotten-victims-the-rhineland-bastards/
And lots more. This history is know at the Holocaust Museum in DC. It's no secret. It doesn't get much coverage because there were only about 20,000 black German citizens and Black Studies departments ignore their murder by the Nazis.

tim in vermont said...

I will just defer to James Baldwin to explain the African American point of view, which is not my own, but I can certainly understand it, and leave it at that. Sometimes people seem to have a hard time discerning the difference between exploring a viewpoint, and stating a viewpoint. I edited out one word, which I feel I should have left in, out of deference to the proprietor of this blog who has forbidden it.

The Jew's suffering is recognized as part of the moral history of the world and the Jew is recognized as a contributor so the world's history: this is not true for the blacks. Jewish history, whether or not one can say it is honored, is certainly known: the black history has been blasted, maligned and despised. The Jew is a white man, and when white men rise up against oppression, they are heroes: when black men rise, they have reverted to their native savagery. The uprising in the Warsaw ghetto was not described as a riot, nor were the participants maligned as hoodlums: the boys and girls in Watts and Harlem are thoroughly aware of this, and it certainly contributes to their attitude toward the Jews.

But, of course, my comparison of Watts and Harlem with the Warsaw ghetto will be immediately dismissed as outrageous. There are many reasons for this, and one of them is that while America loves white heroes, armed to the teeth, it cannot abide bad n---. But the bottom reason is that it contradicts the American dream to suggest that any gratuitous, unregenerate horror can happen here. We make our mistakes, we like to think, but we are getting better all the time.

Well, to state it mildly, this is a point of view which any sane or honest Negro will have some difficulty holding. Very few Americans, and this includes very few Jews, wish to believe that the American Negro situation is as desperate and dangerous as it is. Very few Americans, and very few Jews, have the courage to recognize that the America of which they dream and boast is not the America in which the Negro lives. It is a country which the Negro has never seen. And this is not merely a matter of bad faith on the part of Americans. Bad faith, God knows, abounds, but there is something in the American dream sadder and more wistful than that.
- James Baldwin

If you don't care to understand what black people think and why they think it, maybe it's best that you should just ignore Kanye and accept that you can't really follow what is being said.

Michael K said...

The comments on this blog are a never ending source of astonishing and ridiculous statements.

Another typical post where Cook makes a statement he knows is true, but he does understand why he believes this statement or what his belief is supported by.

Most of Cook's thinking is very cult like.


I don't know if the Soviet Union was a cult. Cook is more like a follower who thinks he's clever.

James K said...

Yes, the black's anti-Semitism was largely from envy as the Jews ran all the small shops in black neighborhoods in the 1920s and 1930s. Now, the blacks hate the Asians who have shown how you rise economically even if you can't speak the language.

But remember how that happened. Blacks moved en masse into formerly (and still) Jewish neighborhoods. This happened in lots of cities: NYC (Harlem), Detroit (12th St area), Rochester (Joseph Ave), Boston (Roxbury/Dorchester), just to name a few places I've lived and whose history I'm familiar with. As though Jews migrated away they kept their businesses. It's not as though the Jews opened businesses in black neighborhoods in order to "exploit" them. Subsequent race riots and high crime forced those businesses out.

Michael K said...

Blogger Joe Smith said...

@Michael K

How do you explain support for gun control?

A government (Third Reich) confiscated guns, and then proceeded to round up Jews and kill them by the millions.

Does nobody study history?


I study history and will take a shot at it :)

The aggressiveness of Israelis, especially early in the history of Israel, was often explained as a reaction to the prohibition of many things in Jews' history. Farming, is one example. Guns and shooting is another.

In peaceful countries like the US, few Jews saw a need to arm themselves. Some of that may have been religious sentiments. I am not Jewish and not prepared to try to explain it but I have read some accounts of Jews deciding to arm themselves having been exposed to violence. I suspect that is an increasing trend. One Jewish blogger, who has given up his blog after his wife died, described being trapped in the Hollywood Motion Picture building during a black riot. He bought a gun the next day.

narciso said...

The black one hundreds and the pogroms informed yabotinskis thought one of the lead founders of the likud

Spiros Pappas said...

My college had an engineering professor who was a Holocaust denier. I don't remember anyone really caring one way or the other.

Why can't Kanye be a jackass?

Saint Croix said...

The comments on this blog are a never ending source of astonishing and ridiculous statements.

Feel free to respond to me, Cookie!

If you're too astonished to reply, that's fine.

I attack you here for your amazing quiet about China and the street protests. I call you, "Mr. Cook." You don't say shit to me. You just sail away, thinking your Commie fantasies.

Or whatever. You called yourself a Communist a decade or so ago. It would be nice to acknowledge stuff like "Communism was tried" or "Communists murdered a lot of innocent people." If you can't say that shit, okay. Anybody who calls himself a "Communist" in the 21st century deserves some serious pushback. Murderous thugs are murderous thugs. Nice people don't like them.

I lost my temper because I said nice things about you on the death penalty thread.

I stick out my neck for you, and what do you do? Commie shit.

Now, I might be totally unfair. Maybe you didn't see any of this. Like Jefferson, I'm a hothead. I need my AC or else.

So I add some humor and I mock the shit out of you on the Tim Cook thread.

You say you're astonished?

You come into a smart room like this one and you announce you are a Communist and we're the silly ones?

Saint Croix said...

Consider the possibility that Kanye wants black people to confront their own racism.

And so he says the most racist things he can possibly say.

And he's "consistent" so he praises white racists.

He divides the world into races.

He says shit about the Jews.

His fans are really stressed out.

And then Kanye announces that we are all children of God. Jesus is Jewish. And race is Satanic.

Now I don't know where he's going. But if he's fighting a spiritual battle in his mind (and sometimes a spiritual battle looks like mental illness to secular people), the Holy Spirit will lead him in the right direction. But you got to fight off Satan all the time. Identify Satan and fight him.

Farrakhan is a Satanic guy, the last time I heard him. Some people are in the grip of Satan and never get out.

(But you can always get out)

I think Jews are hated because they are a tiny, tiny, tiny sliver of the world population, and they are famous, absolutely famous, in the world. Almost like they were chosen by God or something.

narciso said...

Fred lechter?

hpudding said...

Jews are less likely to live in poverty than white American gentiles so they’re less likely to fear being threatened by black Americans in shared spaces - except in Brooklyn.

Jews are more educated than both white American gentiles and black Americans so they’re less likely to fear economic competition from either or be mindlessly manipulated into into seeing either group as adversarial to them.

Get educated, make money, and have no fear of either the Sharptons or their equally ignorant white antebellum ancestors.

Jews can master the art of the complaint as well as anyone, but “mean black man coming for my job or to take down my property values” is really whiny and unbecoming. Only a Trump follower would get off on that.

Spiros Pappas said...

Arthur Butz, mild mannered and nowhere near as crazy as Leuchter.

hpudding said...

I will never understand that, nor how any Jew can be in favor of radical gun control...

Jews don’t follow a religion that worships violence or sees mass shootings as a good thing.

hpudding said...

I will never understand that, nor how any Jew can be in favor of radical gun control...

Jews don’t follow a religion that worships violence or sees mass shootings as a good thing.

hpudding said...

Kanye West is trying to break the “civil rights” alliance of blacks and Jews.

He’s doing this because he doesn’t think this alliance is good for traditional, macho black men.

The issue here is feminism. Jewish women have been the primary source of feminist dogma..


This conspiratorial crackpot stuff is more hilarious than reading about the Illuminati.

Kanye West went hysterical that his friend Charlemagne tha God couldn’t stop his wife from doin’ it down and dirty with a half-Jew named Pete Davidson, whom he screamed about as having a ten inch penis. It’s all out in the open but the cons as usual don’t have a clue about anything.

I return you to your theories and equations on the matter. Narcissistic behavior is usually easily explained though by identifying.a simple personal slight, and in this case the kerfuffle is well known.

Like Trump, Kanye West isn’t any deeper than that.

Bunkypotatohead said...

Wait till Kaufman finds out his rich relatives in Hollywood will be financing the $500 billion of reparations that Calfornia's gov't is planning.

Richard said...

"Blogger Spiros Pappas said...
My college had an engineering professor who was a Holocaust denier. I don't remember anyone really caring one way or the other."

That is not quite true. Scott Shay wrote the book Conspiracy U that discusses Arthur Butz's Holocaust denial. Butz is a mechanical engineering professor at Northwestern University who wrote the book, the Hoax of the 20th Century. Northwestern cited academic freedom as the reason for not taking any action against him.

hpudding said...

How do you explain support for gun control?

Good question.

Some Jews are worse than others in this regard.

You might be familiar with this Jew named “Jesus” who never carried around a sword, never drew an arrow and never flung a stone - despite being wanted for dead by the authorities. And just think how many Roman legions he could have taken out with his armaments! He could have brought down the whole empire and Herod’s sniveling vassal, if only he were armed.

A government (Third Reich) confiscated guns, and then proceeded to round up Jews and kill them by the millions.

It didn’t confiscate any of the Poles’ guns, or the French, or the Greeks’ (who fought valiantly) - all in vain against the superior might of the Reich before falling prey to it. So maybe guns don’t solve every problem.

Maybe the Jews should have had better railroads, so they could have operated their own trains out of those camps. Take that, Himmler!

Does nobody study history?

Jewish history records this event in 70 C.E. where their temple was destroyed and their country dispossessed after fighting a pointless uprising against the might of Rome. So it’s possible they’re more familiar with what weapons can do and what they can’t do, in contrast to idiotic redneck Americans who can’t even go an entire week without a mass shooting of their own people.

Jon Burack said...

Except for Temujin, who is clear and concise, this string of comments was a real slog to get through. Not sure why.

I hope Temujin is right when he describes this generation of Jews as being ready to fight and then says, "the same attitudes are running hot in the veins of many of us here in the US and elsewhere." If this is not true enough yet, it probably will be soon enough. I hope. As for Black antisemitism, whatever its roots (landlords, shopkeepers in the ghettos, Jewish money funding the civil rights movement, whatever the excuse) it is time for Blacks to get over it. (Tim in Vermont, with James Baldwin in tow, is really not one Black people need on their side.) It is in fact THEIR problem, not the Jews' and there are plenty of Black "voices" (as they say) now who understand that competing for the status of chief victim is a mugs game. Those Blacks are the people who must be given attention as the true leaders of their people.














Daniel12 said...

Joe Smith said:
"Democrats have hated Jews and Israel for years, yet Jews keep voting D.

I will never understand that, nor how any Jew can be in favor of radical gun control..."

Have you ever asked?