An unfortunate conversation is trending
today thanks to this man, rapper yay,
formerly known as Kanye West.
He's made quite a few anti-Semitic
comments online and in interviews
within the last couple of weeks,
and it's starting to impact people offline.
Over the weekend,
photos of a group of people agreeing with
Yaya's hate speech Sargent circulating.
Now we're choosing not to air those images.
We don't want to give them any
kind of a broader platform,
but we do want to focus on the people
trending who want to make a change.
And focus on the people impacted.
Joining us today is the regional director
of Colorado's Anti Defamation League,
Scott Levin, joining us.
Thank you, Scott.
Your reaction,
the ADL's reaction to something
like this and and adding to this
conversation that is so disturbing.
It is just so disappointing because
what's going on right now is the
normalization of anti-Semitism.
And for somehow or for some reason,
Jew hatred seems to not draw the
same kind of ire or disapproval.
With so many other forms of hatred do
it, it's it's it's shocking and it's
become it feels like more frequent
it is. Here in Colorado we've
had an ever increasing amount of
anti-Semitic incidents year over year.
Our office is being contacted on a near
daily basis not just for anti-Semitism,
but also racism, homophobia, anti trans.
Everything seems to just be so much
more out in the open right now.
So I would, I would guess that. The fact
that people contact you is a good thing.
You do need to know about these things,
absolutely. But it's overwhelming.
It can be. But I think, look,
we're never going to cure this disease of
hatred or anti-Semitism that takes place.
But we what we really like is for
those haters to crawl back under the
rocks where they used to be right now.
And they were scared to do that right now.
They're emboldened.
They're emboldened by people like
this celebrity who opens his mouth.
And when you say things like Death Con 3.
The Jews or you rely on old
stereotypes and tropes to do it.
These have real consequences
in the real world.
These are the kind of things that led to
the attacks on synagogues in Pittsburgh
and Poway last year when there was
a hostage taken in Colleyville, TX.
It was because of the trope believing
that Jews somehow controlled the world
and could free somebody across the world,
that they went and took hostages
during a a Sabbath morning service.
It just, it's so upsetting and nothing
sacred people's and the belief system,
but when you look at somebody like this
that has all these Twitter followers,
that has to be upsetting
even on different levels.
Worked before I came over here today
and Kanye had something like 31 and
a half million Twitter followers.
That's more than twice the amount
of Jews in the entire world.
And as these kind of ugly things
are spread around the world that
he says it has a real impact.
In the real world,
it doesn't matter. All the pushback
has really only takes one person
to really start believing this and
doing something. A serious act,
absolutely. But I think it's important that
we do all speak out against it right now.
You know, the fact that Adidas is about
to release a new shoe that's designed
by by Yaya's company and they're doing
it on the anniversary of the shooting
in Pittsburgh is just disgusting.
So we can say something about that.
That's what we should do, absolutely. At
www.adl.org you can go on and
you can actually sign something,
a hashtag runaway from hate which will
be sent to Adidas to let them know
how you feel about this despicable.
Kind of conduct that yay has done.
So that I guess is the the take away
from this is as is upsetting as it is,
we can all be involved in the
right way and make some change.
That's absolutely.
We have to use our own voices to
speak against hate in America.
We know the 1st amendment lets
people say terrible ugly things,
but we all have our own First Amendment
rights and we need to use them
all the time. Thank you, Scott.
Thank you for joining us.