Lewis Gordon, a professor and the head of the philosophy department at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, told Newsweek that West’s comments have caused harm to both Black and Jewish communities in the U.S. due to the intersectionality of racism and antisemitism.
“When Ye speaks of Blacks and Jews, he also mentions Black Jews or, rather confused, Blacks as Jews or authentic Jews as Black. The confused claim is the basis of his denial of being antisemitic. The confusion to the side, who says there aren’t semitic antisemites and Black anti-Blacks?” Gordon said.
The hip-hop superstar’s comments have been condemned by actors, musicians, politicians and fans alike. West, who legally changed his name to Ye, has been off of social media for a few days now after both his Instagram and Twitter accounts were restricted, but more controversial statements have emerged from clips that did not air on Fox News, after they were obtained by Vice News’ Motherboard. In one, he tells host Tucker Carlson, “I prefer my kids knew Hanukkah than Kwanzaa. At least it will come with some financial engineering.”
At another point in the unaired footage from the Carlson interview, he talks about Black people judging one another, and says, “Think about us judging each other on how white we could talk would be like, you know, a Jewish person judging another Jewish person on how good they danced or something….I mean, that’s probably like a bad example and people are going to get mad at that s**t,” before asking Carlson to edit that out.
Gordon explained that “the nonracial interpretation of antisemitism doesn’t quite play out in practice, since people who hate Jews use all the logic of race and racism when speaking about Jews, and, internally to Jewish communities, one could be born Jewish (through a Jewish mother) and remain so even when, in some cases, one has converted to other religions.”
“So,” said Gordon, “the short answer is this: Wherever there is antisemitism, there is racism. Wherever there is racism, there is often antisemitism. But bear in mind, antisemitism is a species of racism.”
Speaking specifically about West, Gordon said, “It would be patronizing to attribute all his antics to his mental health. Some of what he says he believes wholeheartedly, and some appear as outbursts of narcissistic disorder.”
West has been open for several years about being diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
“There are Black youth who disagree with what he does—his line of ‘White Lives Matter’ T-shirts, for example—and there are those who endorse what he says not because he said it (whether anti-Black or antisemitic), but because it is a point of view they already hold,” Gordon said. “Yes, there are Black people who are anti-Black and antisemitic. Those who are not anti-Black and antisemitic but admire him are no doubt disappointed at what he says. And those who are anti-Black and antisemitic are probably celebrating his behavior.
“We should bear in mind, however, that we are talking about the behavior of a 45-year-old man living in a world that will accept him only as an overgrown boy. What is that but the continued damage of anti-Black racism, which is against Black adulthood or maturity and citizenship?” Gordon added.
He continued, “I wrote a piece back in the early 2000s called ‘The Problem of Maturity in Hip Hop.’ It’s one of those reflections on which I had hoped I was wrong. That we are now discussing popular cultural controversies with grown men in their forties and fifties who have changed their names into branded boyishness or perpetual childhood is hardly progress, at least at the political level, in which so many Black people’s ancestors fought to live with dignity as women, men, or, in the least, adult persons without availability to the highest bidder.”
