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.”

  • maaj@lemmy.ca
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    8 months ago

    Damn, I hadn’t thought about Kanye in over a year and a half.

    • li10@feddit.uk
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      8 months ago

      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.

      • Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca
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        8 months ago

        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.

        • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Also, his young fans model their behavior on him. Public ridicule is probably the only option to hold that back.

    • ABCDE@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      He didn’t deny that when asked; he has mental issues and stopped taking his medication according to his Letterman interview.

    • Taleya@aussie.zone
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      8 months ago

      No kidding. But it’s been turned into a reality show and not an involuntary comittal

    • nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca
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      8 months ago

      The best part was that Alex Jones and whoever that other chud was were actually trying to be voices of reason lol.

      • kromem@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        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.

      • TechyDad@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        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.”

    • TechyDad@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      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.

        • TechyDad@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          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.

    • xkforce@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      He has bipolar and he’s rich. Either one of those factors could cause someone to say and do shit like this

        • can@sh.itjust.works
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          8 months ago

          No, but some mental issues could lead to paranoid and conspiratorial thinking.

          Doesn’t excuse it of course.

            • Fisk400@feddit.nu
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              8 months ago

              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.

              • li10@feddit.uk
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                8 months ago

                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.

                • Fisk400@feddit.nu
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                  8 months ago

                  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.

          • cmbabul@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            I would say that they CAN make someone more vulnerable to it especially when they’re untreated

        • li10@feddit.uk
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          8 months ago

          It quite literally can.

          Symptoms from the NHS website:

          • being delusional, having hallucinations and disturbed or illogical thinking
          • doing things that often have disastrous consequences
          • making decisions or saying things that are out of character and that others see as being risky or harmful

          Those are things that can lead someone to act like he does.

          • tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            8 months ago

            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.

        • Hackerman_uwu@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          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.

  • AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    The news has been so grim that that Kanye being Kanye actually feels like a much needed levity piece.