Kanye West continues to face backlash over his antisemitic comments, this time being condemned by SAG-AFTRA — the very guild he’s a member of.
On Friday (December 9), the union (better known as the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) issued a statement on Ye’s behavior and said it doesn’t condone his comments about the Jewish community.
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“SAG-AFTRA abhors and condemns the antisemitic statements being made by Ye, formerly known as Kanye West,” the statement began. “The use of anti-semitic imagery and tropes by high profile individuals on social media and elsewhere is not harmless ranting. It is ignorant, hateful and has real-world consequences. The tired debunked stereotypes peddled by Ye and others only serve to further divide us as a country and debase us as a society.”
It continued: “Hate speech and the use of hate imagery is often a precursor to violence. The normalization and mainstreaming of antisemitic and racist views has already resulted in a rise in violence against Jewish people and organizations in this country and elsewhere.
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“Such viewpoints and statements are unacceptable by anyone and SAG-AFTRA stands with and supports the Jewish community in fighting against prejudice, hate speech and threats of violence from any source.”
SAG-AFTRA concluded: “You need only look back less than a century to see evidence of what happens when antisemitic ideas are allowed to proliferate unchecked. We say, never again.”
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The latest condemnation of Kanye West comes on the heels of him having his honorary degree stripped by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
“The School of the Art Institute of Chicago condemns and repudiates Kanye West’s (now known as Ye) anti-Black, antisemitic, racist, and dangerous statements, particularly those directed at Black and Jewish communities,” SAIC said in a statement. “Ye’s actions do not align with SAIC’s mission and values, and we’ve rescinded his honorary degree.”
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The move comes in response to a petition created by a group of students calling on SAIC President Elissa Tenny to rescind Kanye’s honorary degree. The petition reportedly had over 4,000 signatures as of earlier this week.
Kanye West was recently banned from Twitter for a second time after he shared a photo of a swastika inside the Star of David, a symbol of the Jewish faith. Despite considering himself a “free speech absolutist,” Twitter owner Elon Musk announced that Ye’s tweet violated the company’s policies.
“I tried my best,” Musk tweeted in response to a fan asking him to “fix” Kanye. “Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended.”
Ye also received a ton of backlash for repeatedly showing love to Hitler during a recent appearance on InfoWars where he thanked the former German leader for creating the modern microphone and inter-state highway system.
“Well, I see good things about Hitler also,” Kanye said. “I love everyone and Jewish people are not gonna tell me, you can love us and you can love what we’re doing to you with the contracts and you can love what we’re pushing with the pornography, and this guy who invented highways, who invented the very microphone I use as a musician, you can’t say out loud that this person ever did anything good, and I’m done with that.”
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He continued: “I’m done with the classification. Every human being has something of value that they brought to the table, especially Hitler.”
Ye then doubled down on his love for Hitler in an interview with Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes in Los Angeles. Ye demanded that Jewish people forgive the former German leader, who was responsible for the mass murder of over six million Jews during the Holocaust, telling them they should just “let it go.”
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Yeezy returned to the music scene in the midst of the chaos on Wednesday (December 7) to release a song tentatively titled “Someday We’ll All Be Free,” which heavily samples the Donny Hathaway hit of the same name.
The soulful track references his infamous “Death Con 3” tweet and was removed from Instagram hours after he posted it.
