What is anti-semitism? Antisemitism is the hatred or discrimination against Jews as a religious or racial group. Antisemitism exists in part because Jews have served as scapegoats—those who are irrationally blamed for societal problems—for over two thousand years. Humans often create divisions in their societies, based on racist beliefs that divide people into “in” groups and “out” groups. Antisemitism also happens when we blame groups of people for tragedies or changes we can’t explain or control. Antisemitism is constantly repackaged to reach new generations in new contexts and has been a big problem popping up recently in the U.S., due in part to what Kanye West and Kyrie Irving are saying about it. 

The NBA player Kyrie Irving posted a video on twitter of an Antisemitic film (Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America) last month, and he received a lot of backlash from it. For a week after Irving posted the link to the film, he declined to apologize or say that he held no antisemitic beliefs, prompting the Nets on Nov. 3 to suspend him indefinitely. He has since apologized, but the fallout continues. On Nov. 4, Nike condemned hate and antisemitism, and suspended its relationship with Irving effective immediately. and the rapper Kanye West also stated his opinion about antisemitism on twitter about the situation on podcast and meetings.

Kanye West also reveived backlash because of antisemitic remarks. Over the last month, rapper Kanye West, now also known as Ye, posted antisemitic tropes on his social media accounts, shared antisemitic conspiracy theories with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, and later, on social media, threatened violence against Jews. Since launching a presidential bid during the week of Thanksgiving, he has gone on a media tour, going after Jewish people on podcasts and traveling with an entourage of known antisemites. In his latest appearance on the InfoWars talk show hosted by provocateur Alex Jones, Ye, alongside white supremacist Nick Fuentes, said people should “stop dissing the Nazis” and exalted Adolf Hitler.

In order to understand the perspective of Eagle scholars and staff, I interviewed several people in the building about what they thought about recent antisemitism trends:

Mr. Harris (Scholar Life): People should create their own views on what antisemitism is. You cannot be antisemitic if you are Semitic. Millions of black people are descendants of the Semitic people and a lot of people don’t know that.

Mr. Joseph (Guidance Counselor): There is a lack of understanding of the Jewish culture and the Jewish people, and it’s misunderstood what they represent. An example of that is the Kyrie statement, people misunderstood what he stated on twitter. To follow, there is a lot more hate in this country. In reality, we should spend time learning about the Jewish culture.

Christopher Cannady (Class of 2025): I think Kanye is a very good guy, you know, it just seems like he has a lot on his plate right now, because of recent events, and he’s not in the right mental state. Maybe the things he’s saying he doesn’t really mean and if he does, when he receives backlash it will be harmful to his career. And that’s what the people did, they let him know they didn’t like what he said.

Anonymous (Student): Controlling antisemitism can take away from freedom of speech, because you can say something you hate, but can’t make a threat. You can say you hate a certain race but you can’t threaten them to fear for their lives.

Savion Kimbrough (Class of 2025): I feel like Kyrie Irving’s backlash was warranted but not warranted at the same time. He claimed he didn’t know that the documentary had antisemitism in it and he apologized and donated towards Jewish foundations and they still tried to cancel him. They cancelled his brand, his shoes, all of his money, and I just feel like that wasn’t right for something that he didn’t know was happening.

Dexter Wright (Class of 2024): Ugh in my opinion I don’t think the backlash is justified, because they both, especially Kyrie, said he doesn’t have anything against Jews.