Kanye West to Jewish Adidas employee: 'Kiss a picture of Hitler every day'
An explosive new investigation by the New York Times details how Adidas employees experienced frequent anti-Semitism from Grammy Award-winning rapper and Yeezy designer Kanye West for nearly a decade.
Adidas officially ended its partnership with the rapper and producer, who now goes by Ye, in October of 2022, after multiple virulently anti-Semitic remarks, including a tweet in which the rapper threatened to go "death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE."
However, West's pattern of anti-Semitism dates back to at least 2013, according to the Times' reporting.
At the start of her report, Megan Twohey detailed how, in his initial meeting with Adidas executives at their German headquarters in 2013, West expressed his dissatisfaction with a proposed shoe design by taking a marker and drawing a swastika — the display of which is banned in Germany — on the design. He also reportedly told Jewish Adidas executive Jon Wexler, who at the time was Adidas' global director of entertainment and influencer marketing, to "kiss a picture of Hitler every day."
He ain’t right. Seriously, There’s something wrong with him.
Yes.
People are constantly outraged by what he says, but the guy is actually sick and needs help.
Instead, yes men and the media just fuel his mental breakdowns.
Unless you're going to support involuntary commitment it's fair game to ridicule him. He will never seek help and until he does I will view him as the terrible person that he is. If he does seek help my opinion will change.
Also, his young fans model their behavior on him. Public ridicule is probably the only option to hold that back.
He didn't deny that when asked; he has mental issues and stopped taking his medication according to his Letterman interview.
Right, but at a certain point not taking your medication and acting like an idiot aren’t just ‘oops, I did a goof’ things. Especially after a decade of this sort of behavior.
Your mental illness isn’t your fault. But it is your responsibility.
Exactly if I refuse Adderall and drive I put myself and others in danger. If it’s denied to me and I’m actively coerced by society to drive it’s different but if every choice is mine so are the easily expected consequences.
Given someone of Kanye’s wild wealth, it absolutely wasn’t an issue of coercion.
Yes, I suffer from the exact same condition as Kanye, and while that may at times explain my erratic behavior, it never excuses it, not does it absolve me of the responsibility of dealing with the consequences of my words or actions. The way people treat Kanye's mental illness is insulting and infantiling, especially when Kanye himself seems to take no steps to reconcile it with his responsibility for his own actions.
Fuck Kanye and fuck anyone who tries to excuse his bullshit because "he's not well."
Not really, not when you can't see it's not affecting you so negatively.
When the world press is declaring you a neo-Nazi based off your direct quotes and actions and you still don’t take the medication, yes it is your choice and responsibility to continue those actions.
Delusion is a huge thing in many situations, where he likely feels justified when unmedicated.
And it can be moreso for wealthy people. It can be easy to fire people who say "maybe you should tone down the 'Hitler loving' stuff' and only keep yes men around who will tell you that you're doing great no matter what you do.
Obviously, the wealthy people who fall into this trap are still responsible for what they do. This isn't an excuse. However, it can help explain why some wealthy people say idiotic things that their staff should have stopped.
Which is part of the mental illness that he should be getting treated for, which he can do as a fully grown, hyper wealthy man.
Stop making excuses, or choosing to be a bad faith debater. Kanye is responsible for his reprehensible actions period.
Saying just because someone is rich they they are responsible for mental health conditions which control them to this extent is pretty gross.
Every person is responsible for themselves, despite their mental health conditions. It is unfortunate some people have additional struggles, but that doesn't absolve them the work of being decent. I literally suffer from the exact same kind of bipolar disorder as Kanye; my erratic behavior is never excused just because my brain is different, and I am still responsible for the consequences of all of my words and actions despite my additional struggle.
Stop making excuses for a shitty dude that doesn't need more apologists
I heard you the first time.
Delusion doesn't absolve you of responsibility. A person who is deluded isn't blameless, they're just guilty and deluded.
Medically that is not the case.
He has a mental illness, but mental illness doesn't make you a racist.
Always has been. Honestly not sure why it took people so long to see it.
No kidding. But it's been turned into a reality show and not an involuntary comittal
lmao, did you not know who this guy was before?
Does anyone know where I can find a full video of his Alex Jones interview where he’s completely out of his mind? Everything on YouTube is a commentary of it and I’m not giving Infowars a penny by visiting their site.
Edit: https://archive.org/details/ye-and-alex-jones-break-the-internet-in-must-see-new-interview_20221202
The best part was that Alex Jones and whoever that other chud was were actually trying to be voices of reason lol.
You know you're bad when someone like Alex Jones has to be the voice of reason.
Watching Alex Jones keep trying to throw him lifelines and him swat them away as the white supremacist sat on the side nodding and grinning was beyond amusing.
Does Ye actually believe that Hitler wouldn't have sent him to a concentration camp?
Mental illness is a hell of a drug.
And, ironically, it's a second reason why Hitler would have had him killed. People with mental illnesses ended up in death camps alongside Jews, political prisoners, and people deemed "members of a lesser race."
Gay fish.
Do you like fish dicks?
Why isn't he charged with hate crime. If I said the same I'd be prosecuted
No you wouldn't, at least in America. For better or worse, free speech is pretty strongly protected.
Hate speech. Do you not have laws
1st Amendment makes it impossible to criminalize hate speech by itself. Violent hate speech, sure. Calls for racially motivated cleansing, sure. Just saying "\ is evil and worthless" is unambiguously protected. Unfortunately.
Hate crimes require a crime other than hate to be crimes.
Not a crime:
Murder:
Hate crime:
Speaking only for the American legal system in a broad sense. This might vary in some jurisdiction e.g. lowering the threshold for harassment if hate speech is used, but I can't speak to all of that.
This was in Germany
Pretty sure it's illegal as fuck in ze Deutschland
It is
You wouldn't be. The First Amendment would protect you against criminal charges for just expressing hatred towards a group.
Now, if you took action to harm a group and your speech was part of that attempt, then you could be prosecuted for a hate crime.
Now, this might seem like a bad thing. Why shouldn't we make "saying hateful things" a crime? The problem (well among the many problems) is "who decides what's a hateful statement?"
Most people would agree praising Hitler (for anything other than being the guy who killed Hitler) is hateful. What about praising Thomas Jefferson? He was a founding father and did laudable things in his life. On the other hand, he owned slaves and raped at least one of them. So would praising Thomas Jefferson be a hate crime?
Also, what if the Republicans came into power again and gained the ability to decide what is criminal hate speech? Imagine if hating black people, LGBTQ people, Jews, Muslims, etc was allowed, but even mildly criticizing white Christians was criminal hate speech.
Yes you would.
The US' first Amendment doesn't protect you from german Law. And this happened in Germany.
Ah, you're right. I missed that significant detail. If Kayne had done this in the US, he would have been covered by the First Amendment (though Adidas would have been within their rights to cut off their deal because they didn't want to work with someone like him). By doing this in Germany? The First Amendment doesn't apply then.
So much for the redemptive power of watching 21 Jump Street
This is from long before 21 Jump Street miraculously cured him, this is from his antics as far back as 2013
Kanye West looks like a black Garth Brooks.
Not to be confused with Dark Garth Brooks, Chris Gaines.
Darth Brooks
ayyy^lmao^
Darth Brooks?
He should check for brain cancer.
He has bipolar and he's rich. Either one of those factors could cause someone to say and do shit like this
Being bipolar or rich doesn't make you a neo nazi.
No, but some mental issues could lead to paranoid and conspiratorial thinking.
Doesn't excuse it of course.
Upvoted, but it does. You do ridiculous things with certain issues.
It excuses the behaviour right up until there are meds you can take to become better and you intentionally don't take them. Then you are right back at being responsible for everything you do.
It’s still not that simple, as it’s at least in part the condition that makes it so they don’t want to take their meds or be treated.
I am talking about when you are on meds and receiving treatment and then stop taking them. In the case of Kanye he often stops taking them because he has stated that they make him less creative.
Bipolar disorder treatment is complex, often medication will act differently in different mental states. You might be low energy and depressive, so they prescribe a medication that might have a stimulating effect, then it pushes you into a manic state and you need something less energizing. It's very common for people with bipolar to decide to stop taking their medication.
No but they do not help.
I would say that they CAN make someone more vulnerable to it especially when they’re untreated
It quite literally can.
Symptoms from the NHS website:
Those are things that can lead someone to act like he does.
When people saying 'mental illness doesn't make you racist', it makes me think what does make a person racist? Paranoia, anxiety, delusion, trauma, are tied to it often. I kind of think racism could be seen as a mental illness in itself.
Exactly. Kanye is bipolar, rich, and he’s a fucknut.
Same way ou can have chicken-pox and AIDS at the same time.
They are not mutually exclusive.
What? From the guy who said "I like Hitler?" I am shocked. Shocked, I say!
What if Kanye actually showed his picture of "Hitler" and it turned out this whole time he was actually thinking of Charlie Chaplin?
Yeah, I guess that sounds like something he'd say.
Hitler would "love" to have him as a fan.
The real crime was the hologram of his wife's dead father.
The news has been so grim that that Kanye being Kanye actually feels like a much needed levity piece.
Wow. That is so extreme of Kanye.