Opinion | Antisemitism affects you, too

Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, recently made antisemitic comments praising Hitler and Nazis. We can’t keep disregarding his comments as harmless ramblings. We have to consider the harm they are causing and decide what each of us is personally going to do about it. Wikicommons

“I like Hitler,” were words uttered by Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, in Alex Jones’s InfoWars. 

The rapper has a history of various antisemitic comments, especially in recent months. But we are way past it just being antisemitic comments that people can easily write off. Ye is praising Hitler and Nazis and saying they brought good to the world.

That is not to say that his previous antisemitic comments have been harmless. But now it’s gotten to a point where even known far-right commentators and politicians are finding it difficult to brush off.

It’s terrifying to me that Ye has been making antisemitic comments for so long and it took him quite literally praising Hitler and saying he agrees with the Nazis for some people to finally condemn his comments.

This is the same guy who in previous years said that slavery was a choice. How did he get away with so much with his platform nearly intact?

Emilia Cuevas Diaz, opinions editor

And even now it’s incredibly unsettling to know that no matter how many people come out to explain why what he’s saying is wrong or to condemn his bigotry, we continue to give him a huge platform. No matter what he does, Ye always has a place to spout his beliefs.

But even if we take Ye out of the equation, it won’t solve the problem. What does it say about our current political and social climate that it takes for someone to go as far as saying they like Hitler before some of our politicians and public personas finally release a statement saying they disagree with his views?

These comments are dangerous. They have real life consequences for the Jewish community. From far-right extremists celebrating on social media platforms like Parler to a group of people hanging a banner saying “Kanye is right.” And it’s only a matter of time before these groups are emboldened into taking action in the real world. 

So why do so many people find it so easy to just brush them off as unimportant until they get to this extreme?

I want to challenge those who are not part of that community. The Jewish community is aware of how harmful Ye’s rhetoric can be. Are you?

Historians and Holocaust survivors are already warning us about the similarities between present day America and pre-Nazi Germany. They are asking us to see these similarities and take action. They are asking us to do better.

The last generation that experienced and remembers the holocaust is starting to die. If we don’t pay attention right now, if we don’t listen to their stories and make changes, I fear for what our future will look like. Eventually there will be no one left to warn us of the signs. What will we do then? 

We have to remember the atrocities that were committed in the Holocaust so we can stop them from happening again.

So many people think that the antisemitic comments don’t affect them because they are not Jewish, but when a public figure starts praising Hitler almost no one is exempt from being affected by it.

We often think of the Holocaust as exclusively Jewish people. And they were the group with the biggest number of victims. But sometimes we fail to truly consider how many groups Hitler’s regime targeted.

The fact that we barely recognize how many minority groups were affected by the Holocaust means we’re starting to forget. And if we forget we’re doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. 

In the concentration camps the yellow star that identified the Jews wasn’t the only symbol present. There were a number of different triangles with different colors, all identifiers of different identities the Nazis targeted.

The red triangle was for political prisoners — meaning this triangle identified social democrats, socialists, liberals, trade unionists, communists and anarchists. The green triangle was for “professional criminals” and the purple one was for Jehovah’s Witnesses. The pink triangle was used to identify gay men, and the brown was for Romani people. The blue triangle was for immigrants and forced laborers.

Next time you think bigoted comments like Ye’s only affect the Jewish community, think of the triangles and then I hope you do something about it that goes beyond angrily posting online.

We are at a crucial point in history. Right now each of us gets to decide how we’ll be remembered by future generations. Will we take action against bigotry and hate or will we stand by and let it take its course unopposed?

Next time you’re faced with a situation where you can either act or ignore hate I want you to consider this before you choose: if we were to place the classification systems from the concentration camps in today’s America I would get three triangles. How many would you get?