To also defend Macklemore while being bewildered that I am doing so: his point is clearly that he wants all people to be free from violence and oppression (not free while anybody is in jail etc.); his message is broader than “states should stop picking on other states”.
In fact, people often complain that critics of Israel don’t seem to give a hoot about things like Sudan, which are worse! He is arguably using the intense focus on the Israel and Palestine conflict to draw attention to neglected conflicts elsewhere.
He’s advocating, like his CUAD friends, for the right of Islamists to rape, torture, murder and abduct civilians of the wrong minority ethnic groups that haven’t accepted Arab and Muslim supremacy.
That's a pretty implausible mental model of his intentions and desires IMO. I think he is probably just a dummy, and snookered by omni-cause activists. I don't know the man, but that seems much more likely than him being a rape-enthusiast or Arab supremacist.
It's doubtful he's specifically thinking "CUAD is a fan of torturing and raping and burning innocent people alive, and that's awesome!" Most likely he's just an idiot who doesn't bother learning the very first thing about any of the things he's spouting.
Which is "better" in the "Macklmore himself probably isn't irredeemably evil" sense, but not much else. I don't think, for example. that people should get a pass for cheering on neo-Nazis just because they didn't bother to learn what they are or google any of the words they're saying.
“No DSA members and fans cerebrated rape and murder on October 8” is a fascinating statement, considering CUAD co-founder, DSA member and future Democratic House rep Darializa Avila Chevalier did just that.
It’s like how all the Palestinians are innocent victims who love peace, except the 5000 that invaded Israel to rape and torture civilians.
Macklemore is a dope addict with delusions of grandeur, he should be mocked and shamed until he leaves the media spotlight and goes back to being a nobody in Seattle with the rest of the nobodies in Seattle.
But interestingly, he brought up Sudan and the Congo, so presumably he’s aware that Islamic jihadists are slaughtering religious and ethnic minorities in many countries. Multiple genocides, widespread sexual violence, shouting Allahu Akbar before killing Christians, Jews, Hindus…or maybe he just googled “current genocides” to not seem antisemitic lol
It fits with "free all people in America living in fear of this terrorist organization ICE!" Jeff's interpretation of "free_______" requiring some sort of external conflict does not.
My thoughts about him can be divided into three parts:
1. I think he earnestly believes in the cause he is speaking for
2. In terms of the points you could criticize as extremism, I don't think he understands the full gravity of everything he is saying, because like many well-meaning people, he has remained closed off to any nuanced or dissenting opinion that may help clarify those things as being "pro-genocide."
3. Despite 1 and 2, the fact he hasn't been relevant since 2015 is at least partially motivating his hopping on the activism bandwagon.
I doubt Macklemore wants to build a bomb or stab concertgoers to death, but you go too far in defending him. You're right (below) that he's a dummy who was snookered by omnicause activists. I get that the "vibe" of his comments was very much "peace for all" but many of his other assertions completely betray that vibe. The fact that he was snookered and amplified ignorant views, including praising hateful, immoral groups very much deserves criticism. What he was doing contributes to moral decay, even if it's out of ignorance.
The idea that he's bringing attention to neglected conflicts is nonsense. Who listening to his remarks would be the tiniest bit more enlightened about the state of any of those countries? I'm pretty knowledgeable but even I struggle to wrap my head around the meaning. Free Lebanon. From who? The Lebanese state that has attempted to reach a peace agreement with Israel? Hezbollah, who uses brutality and force to ensure that the country is dragged again and again into costly violent conflict with Israel? The Israelis who keep returning fire when attacked by Hezbollah? Given the people whose ideas Macklemore is channeling, it's probably the third one, but that's a very stupid take if you actually know the conflict. I see no reason to sanewash his mention of any of those countries, given his demonstrably deep political and moral ignorance.
Israel now occupies part of Lebanon and has murdered and displaced people. Are you spewing disingenuous nonsense? Or are you just not enlightened about the state of that country?
Honestly, I am not confident that you’re right or wrong. I don’t know that he knows what his point is. Rage Against the Machine wasn’t entirely coherent with their politics, and they at least had the brains to make decent music.
We should have mocked RATM more when we had the chance. Tom Morello wears CCCP hats and spreads communist talking points while hawking a fucking Master Class course.
There seems to be intense focus and obsession with the Israel/palestine conflict. While there is immense tragedies on both sides, there are other grave tragedies occurring in the rest of the world that doesn’t get any attention. See Uighurs in China. There are actual concentration camps there. More mosques have been destroyed then built in Gaza. But guess who owns TikTok and won’t allow such knowledge to have airtime?
That’s what’s most upsetting. It’s the double standard. You can be upset at Israel and the government and demand accountability, but the same fervor should be applied elsewhere in the world. I don’t see that.
I don’t think anyone is objecting to him expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people. We are objecting to a man with a history of antisemitism acting like Israel is the aggressor in this war by failing to mention Oct 7 and Hamas, and who, by saying “free Palestine” is saying that Israel shouldn’t exist. There were reports written by Jewish attendees that they felt attacked and frightened as he riled the crowd up to scream about the supposed evils of Israel. This is not the venue for this kind of thing and Kraft did the right thing to not give him a platform. No one is taking away his right to free speech.
I don't disagree, though I think this is par for the course for a celebrity who likely lacks complex or nuanced thoughts of the issue and is just hopping the "current thing" bandwagon.
In any event, I'm of two minds. I think deplatforming a performer over politics on the grounds of "safetyism" is the exact kind of behaviour from the late 2010s we were trying to stop. I also think it only creates a Streisand Effect that gives him a higher profile. That said, the cries from the left about free speech and people being "cancelled" for their politics fall on deaf ears where I'm concerned given they were the ones giving full-throated support to deplatforming any speech they don't like. I have no doubts that if a performer expressed pro-Israel or anti-Hamas opinions and was deplatformed, they'd support it. So while I agree with them in theory on the issue of speech, I at least maintain they don't take that position out of any principle.
There is nothing complex or nuanced about genocide. You are either for it or against it.
Bandwagon? We are heartbroken from three years of this horror show. Stop trying to play down the reality. We see what's going on. I don't care what religion you are.
1. The complexity and nuance I'm referring to is in the OP I was replying to, which you willfully ignore because you use the word "genocide" as a thought-terminating cliche. I'm not saying that isn't the case, and the ICJ may well one day make that determination, but it is being weaponized in this instance to shut down any counterpoints you don't want to respond to.
2. Considering I know people who have no knowledge of the region, don't seem to talk about any other atrocities in the world (to his credit, Macklemore is probably the first to do so), and tend to repeat 20 cent buzzwords they heard on IG, I'm inclined to think it's somewhat of a bandwagon. That doesn't mean people don't care about it, but there's some "current thing" effect going on.
3. I'm not a Jew and I'm not "pro-Israel," in the sense that I do think the government is committing atrocities and war crimes. I'm not trying to play down any reality. You're arguing with straw man argument you wish I made rather than what I am saying.
It's irrelevant whether people talk about other atrocities or not We are talking about the Israeli genocide of Palestinians and that doesn't change because someone doesn't mention Sudan, for example. And even though Macklemore did that, he was still condemned. You can't win with Zionists, the goal is to put everyone on the defensive and insist they condemn Hamas and constantly refer to how terrible Oct 7 was.
I don't care what religion you are and you are a Zionist if you can not see the undeniable horrors happening every day and know that is a genocide. No one is weaponizing the word genocide. It is a genocide and there is nothing to discuss. There are no counterpoints. Israel is an occupying force that has terrorized the Palestinians for decades. They are in the wrong!
I didn't willfully ignore anything, it very much sounds like you are referring to Macklemore when you say: for a celebrity who likely lacks complex or nuanced thoughts of the issue and is just hopping the "current thing" bandwagon. My response suited that comment.
“free Palestine” is saying that Israel shouldn’t exist.
Free Palestine, is saying that we want freedom for all people. Any other interpretation is frankly nuts. If the only way Israel can exist is by oppressing another people, well then something is very wrong.
Yeah, what struck me was that I was like, didn’t he get in trouble years ago for something antisemitic pretty much the last time I heard about him? And oh yes, he did, over a decade ago - therefore I am old.
No, you are grasping at straws. But, for the sake of argument, even if it were true that he was a total antisemite, what he said and says is true. He is on the right side of history!
Israel is a terror state that is committing genocide.
We always hear about Oct. 7, what about all the Oct. 7s that Israel has and still continues to commit. They have killed 1000 people since the so called ceasefire. The other day, a little girl and her father were murdered by Israeli soldiers on her way to school. Please get out of your bubble. Jewish trauma is fully exploited by political Zionism.
What are you talking about? We hardly ever hear about Oct 7 anymore.
Terror states don’t let arab Israelis vote and participate in government, and do not warn people when they are going to attack buildings to root out terrorists, and they certainly don’t allow humanitarian aid into the area they are fighting. Israel has done all of these.
To present a one-sided, context-stripped, double-standarded (that's now a word) perspective, one that completely ignores the absolute evil of Hamas on the other side, is at the very least sanitizing hateful bigotry. If you consider all the context of his words and actions, there's more than enough reason for venue owners to not want to host this, especially when that's not who they agreed to host or who fans bought tickets to hear.
Saying Macklemore's speech was not bigoted is like saying the girl at Burger King who shouted "Free Palestine" at a Jewish customer wasn't bigoted. And using his additional context as cover is like pointing to Fuentes or Piker doing that one video where they said "antisemitism is bad, I love Jews" and being satisfied that they're not the hateful bigots they've repeatedly shown themselves to be.
I hate censorship too, and this will certainly elevate Macklemore and the stupid movement that somehow wants to Free Palestine without sparing a single vowel to condemn Hamas, but we have to draw a moral line against hateful bigotry or it will normalize and tear apart our social fabric.
Did you read what I wrote? All he had/has to do is condemn Hamas and we'd all be fine with his advocacy for Palestinians and criticism of Israel. But he won't because that would lose him his entire base of support.
No, he does not have to say anything before he stands up for Palestinians. No one does. We can stand up for them without playing this game. See the thing is, even if we say the things you guys want us to before we’re allowed to criticize Israel, you’ll come up with another demand. Because it’s just a ploy to demonize supporters of Palestine. We are always told we are antisemitic, so Macklemore makes a beautiful statement about his Jewish brothers and sisters. We are told we never mentions Sudan, so he mentions Sudan. But nope, it’s not good enough. Nope, he’s still antisemitic. It’s never good enough, it’s never enough! Or words get twisted and taken out of context.
Every day another Palestinian is murdered, tortured, harassed and on and on. Your average person who is not bought or heavily indoctrinated, surprise, surprise, is heartbroken by it. So you guys can call us antisemitic or Hamas supporters, but everyone now sees these accusations for what they are.
Zionists do not have the moral upper hand and do not get to decide how people criticize Israel.
No no no. You're putting words in my mouth. You didn't have to say anything before. You can lead with Free Palestine. You can follow with "Israel is commiting war crimes". And then you just have to add "and Hamas is also terrible because they play a critical role in the suffering of the Palestinians".
If you can't even bring yourself to say that, then you're clearly too cowardly to upset the Hamas sympathizers in your movement. And you are definitely not actually helping the Palestinians, who need more than anything for Hamas to be vanquished if they're to ever have peace. But since you care more about destroying Israel than saving Palestinians, you'll stay silent. You're the monster, the worst kind who thinks they're the angel.
In fairness to Macklemore (can't believe I'm saying that), even though the war in Sudan is an internal conflict, both sides are authoritarian and kind of evil, so removing them would free the locals of their presence. (Of course, given the area's track record, that would probably just result in a new bunch of kind of evil authoritarians taking over.)
As to the Congo, Rwanda occupies a fair portion of the country, using the presence of former genocidaires as an excuse to sit on and extract the country's mineral wealth.
Now, whether Macklemore actually knows or understands any of this is a whole 'nother question. (Though the answer is probably no.)
Please, the RSF is much much worse than the Sudan army. The Sudanese army doesn't always fight nice, but the RSF has extermated entire populations of black Africans.
I have zero problems with Kraft cancelling Macklemore. Free speech means that Macklemore won't be arrested like someone in China comparing President Xi to Winnie the Pooh. Macklemore is free to be as dumb and misinformed as he wants to be. Kraft doesn't need to put up with that crap in his stadium. Two totally separate issues.
And, the difference with cancel culture is that Macklemore isn't being "cancelled" for alleged stances or failure to parrot the current orthodoxy. He chose to express and endorse hateful and disgusting things. Also confounding two totally separate topics. If an avowed Nazi gets cancelled that's completely different than Jimmy Kimmel in blackface twenty years ago.
I really should stop getting worked up over Macklemore because this is so dumb, but what if he donned a KKK hood before his next song? Would we be OK with that? Still calling out Robert Kraft for not allowing that in his stadium? I bet more people would cheer on Kraft. What is this bizarre Palestine fetish going on right now that people are becoming fanboys for Hamas?
I, too, should stop getting worked up over Mackelmore because this is so dumb :).
But I think this sort of reasoning can be pretty dangerous, and was a staple of cancel culture. There's a level of bad thing a person could do at a concert where most people would think it's clearly reasonable for a stadium owner to step in and say that they don't want that act to be at their stadium. That's useful to point out because it illustrates that the question isn't a matter of absolute principle as much as it is a question of whether what Mackelmore did was bad enough to justify a pretty extreme and unusual intervention by a stadium owner.
My problem with this is that we're not very good at handling the question of how bad any act of speech actually is, especially when we're comparing an insult to one group (say, Black people) to an insult to a different group (Jews, or Zionists, or however you want to frame this). And so this sort of argument tends to push toward the conclusion that if a particular intervention in speech is ever justified, it's defensible to address a broad range of offensive speech.
I'm Jewish and I find Mackelmore celebrating CUAD to be really obnoxious, but it's really not in the same league as putting on a KKK hood at a concert. That would be a fairer analogy if he'd explicitly praised Hamas or Hezbollah, but praising a group that praised Hamas and Hezbollah while also declaring himself to be for peace isn't the same thing.
The example from back in the day that comes to mind was the decision by a bunch of websites to block Firefox in protest of Brendan Eich being CEO. Eich had donated money to the effort to overturn gay marriage in California. Something many people who defended this said at the time was: would you have a problem with this if he'd donated to David Duke, or to the KKK?
In both cases, the problem is that any set of free speech "norms"--rather than explicit free speech legal protections--tend to fall apart on contact with the absolutely most hateful, extreme or offensive legal speech. We can either insist on following those norms even in extreme cases, or we can see those norms erode for essentially all forms of controversial speech, or we can maintain a sense of perspective about different kinds of offense.
I thought the person probably didn't know what Macklemore actually said in that concert. Also praising cuad is not a big deal.
Kraft also did more than ban Macklemore from his stadium, he started a whole movement to ban him from all the Stadium for Ed tour and over something that wasn't even that extreme.
Honestly some of the stupid anger at this stupid person and situation is the boiling over of a decade-plus of not being able to escape left wing politics in culture. In media, film, gaming, sports and especially music, you just can't go to a thing anymore. Watching the hardcore and heavy music scene all fall in line around mask mandates and vaccine requirements while hocking $50 t-shirts and crying about capitalism just makes you want to lose it.
Hamas has single-handedly humiliated "israel" and esposed it as an apartheid, genocidal state with no morals or rule of law. What's "disgusting" about that?
From this rant, it's clear you don't actually know what he said at that event.
Kraft also did more than ban Macklemore from his stadium, he started a whole movement to ban him from all the Stadium for Ed tour and over something that wasn't even that extreme. What the dude said wasn't that extreme
“What if he donned a KKK hood”, but he didn't do anything comparable to that at that event. People trying to use their nonsense stuff about his banal free Palestine stuff to dreg up 2015 nonsense which Kraft nor most of his haters didn't care about till he mentioned Free Palestine again. He did a whole apology tour in 2015 that got even ADL to publicly acknowledge his apology, apparently that means he can't sing in public anymore in 2026.
Free speech is a matter of norms as well as laws. I can imagine a slightly different scenario where I'd consider Kraft to be in the wrong even though no one's getting arrested: suppose Macklemore observes a strict shut-up-and-rap policy in his actual shows, but gives out all the same idiocies in an interview; Kraft hears about it and decides to punish him by banning him from Gillette. Now we're a lot closer to what's objectionable in cancel culture.
In the actual situation, it's easier to side with Kraft. One of the free-speech norms is that we ordinarily shouldn't demand that people facilitate the spreading of views they find odious. You shouldn't punish people for what they say when you're not around, but you don't have to provide them a stage.
Macklemeore has hardly been "cancelled" 🤣 His popularity has gone off the charts, and doubled his social media followers overnight. It's Kraft that will pay the price..
Imagine wanting to make Macklemore popular. He was the butt of every joke in rap music for almost two decades until he decided to latch on to the Hamas-initiated conflict in Gaza.
I don't know about you, but I think the effort these people put into vilifying and ridiculing anyone who wants a genocide to stop is quite sad actually.
Might be good to mention the double standard here. Macklemore dressed up in a blatant Jewish caricature. If he has worn blackface, he'd be cancelled and disowned by the very same people who are defending him now. That crowd has zero credibility, nor any consistent principles for artistic expression.
The ADL accepted his apology and Kanye West plays at Kraft stadiums.
Stop dredging up stuff from over a decade ago to make a point that doesn't even work and start focusing on the genocide in Palestine. Children are being murdered. This is about humanity, not religion and ethnicity. Just humans doing horrible things as humans too often do.
Well, the Cuban people really do need to be freed. Though I'd be pretty surprised if Macklemore had the right idea about who they need to be freed from.
That's true but somewhat misleading. Israel is occupying five unpopulated military outposts along the border. I think that should end, but the idea that Lebanese civilians are living under Israeli occupation akin to those in the West Bank is incorrect.
Seems a bit weird to be upset about my point about Hezbollah. They are also bad! They've assisted Assadist forces in the Syrian War, which has claimed about nine times the casualties of Gaza to date. One would think that caring about Palestinians would extend to the thousands of Palestinians killed and hundreds of thousands displaced in the Syrian War.
And now you are being disingenuous about what your comment implied. You also seem quite uninformed.
Israel is occupying a part of Lebanon. They have displaced and murdered people and have stated they have no intention of ending the occupation. They demolished villages and murdered a woman who ran a turtle sanctuary. They used white phosphorous to scorch the earth.
They are stealing land. What a surprise!
What's weird is that anyone tries to defend this. Other than pure racism or insane indoctrination, which leads to dehumanization, it's mind blowing.
I just don't understand the argument, seems so clear to me: Macklemore and everybody else has free speech rights in America; however, nobody is obligated to pay him to spout his garbage free speech. Proverbial wisdom is right, "he who pays the piper calls the tune."
Kraft is in the Epstein files. So no. And he solicited trafficked women for sex. Please don't defend him!
So, it's pretty gross that Sheeran threw his long time friend under the bus for a man like that. Ed Sheeran has money and fame and with that comes power. He could have stood up to it and said nothing else. He would have come off like a hero. He didn't even have to mention Palestine.
Furthermore, you want a world where billionaires decide who can perform? I don't!
And you do realize that Kraft had no issue with Kanye performing, or?
Did you bother to read the link I posted? Even if it's out of ignorance, it's still problematic and harmful to eulogize people who are explicitly very very very pro-terrorism as if they are wise truth-telling social justice heroes.
No, I didn’t bother, because sanctimoniously posting links about XYZ being “problematic” and expecting everyone in the world to read them is bad praxis.
I already can fucking intuit that CUAD are at best severely misguided jackasses running interference for a murderous movement and ideology. I don’t need to read their own writing on Substack, because I’ve read dozens like them over the years.
It’s still not legitimate to hold people to an impossible standard of having read every single statement by every single source they cite. Macklemore most likely saw some one-sided SJP and CUAD videos, was shocked and horrified, and merrily toddled off to fight for the cause of social justice. That’s how this stuff works. People are stupid and have anchoring bias. That’s a reality we have to DEAL with, with a real and effective politics and media strategy of our own, not just go around demanding that everyone read up on their sources, even if that’s what they epistemically SHOULD do.
I posted the link because I felt that even Jeff's examples did not underline quite how crazy and pro-terrorism those people are. To me that seems like important context
I highly recommend you to watch the video of the US congress giving Netanyahu a standing ovation.
Are you now going to tell me that Israeli officials are moral and good?
It's very interesting how people can see terrible ongoing violence as moral and good and anyone who stands up to it as a terrorist.
I don't know enough about Sinwar to make an informed opinion, but I do know he wouldn't have become the person he was if Israel didn't do the horrible things they did and still do to the Palestinians.
You could say the exact same thing about Netanyahu. You know his brother was killed by terrorists, right? Maybe he wouldn't have become the person he was if the Palestinians didn't do the terrible things they do to Israelis.
Context exists, but ultimately people are responsible for choosing their own actions.
So, if someone came into where you had been living for centuries and took your home as theirs and murdered your family and ethnically cleansed your people, you would be the terrorist for resisting? I shouldn’t even have to ask because in your heart you know full well the answer and so do I and so does everyone. But you must remain dishonest to defend Zionist terrorism.
A common liberal criticism leveled at Cancel Culture at its height was "these tactics will be used against individuals and causes you support." Once destroying celebrities for their Problematic™ views becomes normalized, the argument went, what's to prevent it from being used against views you share?
The fact that it would one day be conservatives and not progressives using defenses like "it's really just Consequence Culture" or "it's only Censorship when the government does it" was similarly predicted.
In Ed Sheeran's desire to remain apolitical we see an answer to the question posed upon Dolly Parton's passing -- "Why don't any contemporary artists have audiences like Dolly's that span political and cultural divides?" One reason is that modern audiences are much more insistent on knowing performers' stances on various political issues and will not accept "no comment" as a response.
"One reason is that modern audiences are much more insistent on knowing performers' stances on various political issues and will not accept "no comment" as a response."
I guess that makes me a dinosaur, since I greatly prefer STFU and sing the song, accept the award, whatever, than to hear any political blather. I still listen to and enjoy a lot of 1970s-early 80s Pink Floyd, even though Roger "Ezra Pound of Rock" Waters has become such a tool. I prefer to judge the art, and not the artist, even if the artist won't STFU.
So during the Holocaust if an artist had said, no comment, you would think, ah well, that's fine? No, you wouldn't. You'd think, what a coward not to use their platform to end the horror.
This is a genocide. It's about humanity. Everyone should be trying to stop this. And please don't come back with the pathetic this is not a genocide, blah, blah, blah.
Are you really comfortable with the fact that since the so called ceasefire, Israel continues to murder Palestinians? Children on their way to school? Israel soldiers are admitting they purposely murdered civilians. Even the NY Times who infamously published one passive headline after another during the height of the slaughter, is now reporting that Israel uses rape as a weapon.
This is openly and ardently funded by Western powers who then make every excuse to excuse and promote the atrocities, especially the US. How on earth cans anyone not speak up?
Yep, I remember thinking about a decade ago that this would get done to the left, and wouldn’t you know it, MAGA adopted the cancel culture and grievance politics. Go around saying “white people have no culture,” and “men are trash,” long enough, and they’re going to internalize that and learn to use those same tactics right back.
Your take about a venue owner “throwing his weight around” is very odd, Maurer.
Venue owners book acts, decline acts, cancel acts, rebook acts, all the time. It’s kind of part of the actual operations of a venue.
If any venue owner, whether a small club or a huge stadium, thinks there’s been a misrepresentation of what was to be performed, they’re not stifling free speech if they cancel the show, or otherwise curtail it.
Agree 100%. A fading hip-hop artist half-wittedly name checking a college organization with some extremist ideas does not disturb me nearly as much as a rich tool like Kraft canceling said artist. But now there's some back-and-forth about several million dollars that may or may not be donated to Palestine aid... so I think it's all gonna work out swell.
Macklemore saying that he didn't realize that costuming himself to look like the cover model of the August 1937 issue of Der Stürmer could be seen as a Jewish caricature reminds me of Marjorie Taylor Greene saying she didn't realize that attributing ownership of the fire-starting space laser to the Rothschilds was anti-semitic.
Which raises the question, are there people too stupid to be anti-semites?
There are people out there who aren't familiar enough with anti-Semitic iconography and tropes that they wouldn't necessarily link a giant hook nose with "Jewish caricature."
I'm less than convinced that Macklemore is one of them.
We need to stop using the word "Censorship" when everyone involved is a private, non government group. What we have here is a falling out between people involved in a business deal. Macky could have done a lot of dumb stuff that would have gotten him booted. If he had held up a gas station and or used a newborn kitten as toilet paper in a tiktok, I think that would have reached the same effect.
The guy has made some odious remarks and is very possibly an idiot and for sure to be a bigot.
Kraft owns the place, he can pick and choose. He chose no.
I wouldn’t let Macklemore into my house because he’s a bigot, an odious one.
He can be a bigot here in America but an individual can choose who they let into their place, most of us don’t own stadiums but I think it’s his right to keep the guy out
To also defend Macklemore while being bewildered that I am doing so: his point is clearly that he wants all people to be free from violence and oppression (not free while anybody is in jail etc.); his message is broader than “states should stop picking on other states”.
In fact, people often complain that critics of Israel don’t seem to give a hoot about things like Sudan, which are worse! He is arguably using the intense focus on the Israel and Palestine conflict to draw attention to neglected conflicts elsewhere.
He’s advocating, like his CUAD friends, for the right of Islamists to rape, torture, murder and abduct civilians of the wrong minority ethnic groups that haven’t accepted Arab and Muslim supremacy.
That's a pretty implausible mental model of his intentions and desires IMO. I think he is probably just a dummy, and snookered by omni-cause activists. I don't know the man, but that seems much more likely than him being a rape-enthusiast or Arab supremacist.
It's doubtful he's specifically thinking "CUAD is a fan of torturing and raping and burning innocent people alive, and that's awesome!" Most likely he's just an idiot who doesn't bother learning the very first thing about any of the things he's spouting.
Which is "better" in the "Macklmore himself probably isn't irredeemably evil" sense, but not much else. I don't think, for example. that people should get a pass for cheering on neo-Nazis just because they didn't bother to learn what they are or google any of the words they're saying.
“No DSA members and fans cerebrated rape and murder on October 8” is a fascinating statement, considering CUAD co-founder, DSA member and future Democratic House rep Darializa Avila Chevalier did just that.
It’s like how all the Palestinians are innocent victims who love peace, except the 5000 that invaded Israel to rape and torture civilians.
Macklemore is a dope addict with delusions of grandeur, he should be mocked and shamed until he leaves the media spotlight and goes back to being a nobody in Seattle with the rest of the nobodies in Seattle.
“All people should be free of oppression and violence.”
……..
That’s antisemitic!!!!
Good straw man, chatbot.
Nah. That's what Macklemore said.
You think that proves he's an antisemite.
Which is weird, yet very telling. Not in a good way, though.
Look up "Strawman."
This is an extraordinarily generous interpretation… the dead giveaway is that he doesn’t seem opposed to Hamas or radical Islamism.
But interestingly, he brought up Sudan and the Congo, so presumably he’s aware that Islamic jihadists are slaughtering religious and ethnic minorities in many countries. Multiple genocides, widespread sexual violence, shouting Allahu Akbar before killing Christians, Jews, Hindus…or maybe he just googled “current genocides” to not seem antisemitic lol
Why should he oppose Hamas, the legitimate reaistance to an illegal occupation?
Found the racist Jew hater
It fits with "free all people in America living in fear of this terrorist organization ICE!" Jeff's interpretation of "free_______" requiring some sort of external conflict does not.
My thoughts about him can be divided into three parts:
1. I think he earnestly believes in the cause he is speaking for
2. In terms of the points you could criticize as extremism, I don't think he understands the full gravity of everything he is saying, because like many well-meaning people, he has remained closed off to any nuanced or dissenting opinion that may help clarify those things as being "pro-genocide."
3. Despite 1 and 2, the fact he hasn't been relevant since 2015 is at least partially motivating his hopping on the activism bandwagon.
I doubt Macklemore wants to build a bomb or stab concertgoers to death, but you go too far in defending him. You're right (below) that he's a dummy who was snookered by omnicause activists. I get that the "vibe" of his comments was very much "peace for all" but many of his other assertions completely betray that vibe. The fact that he was snookered and amplified ignorant views, including praising hateful, immoral groups very much deserves criticism. What he was doing contributes to moral decay, even if it's out of ignorance.
The idea that he's bringing attention to neglected conflicts is nonsense. Who listening to his remarks would be the tiniest bit more enlightened about the state of any of those countries? I'm pretty knowledgeable but even I struggle to wrap my head around the meaning. Free Lebanon. From who? The Lebanese state that has attempted to reach a peace agreement with Israel? Hezbollah, who uses brutality and force to ensure that the country is dragged again and again into costly violent conflict with Israel? The Israelis who keep returning fire when attacked by Hezbollah? Given the people whose ideas Macklemore is channeling, it's probably the third one, but that's a very stupid take if you actually know the conflict. I see no reason to sanewash his mention of any of those countries, given his demonstrably deep political and moral ignorance.
Israel now occupies part of Lebanon and has murdered and displaced people. Are you spewing disingenuous nonsense? Or are you just not enlightened about the state of that country?
So, free Lebanon from Israel terror!
CUAD does not want all people to be free.
Honestly, I am not confident that you’re right or wrong. I don’t know that he knows what his point is. Rage Against the Machine wasn’t entirely coherent with their politics, and they at least had the brains to make decent music.
We should have mocked RATM more when we had the chance. Tom Morello wears CCCP hats and spreads communist talking points while hawking a fucking Master Class course.
Add “Dumb” to your Evil Socrates moniker.
There seems to be intense focus and obsession with the Israel/palestine conflict. While there is immense tragedies on both sides, there are other grave tragedies occurring in the rest of the world that doesn’t get any attention. See Uighurs in China. There are actual concentration camps there. More mosques have been destroyed then built in Gaza. But guess who owns TikTok and won’t allow such knowledge to have airtime?
That’s what’s most upsetting. It’s the double standard. You can be upset at Israel and the government and demand accountability, but the same fervor should be applied elsewhere in the world. I don’t see that.
I don’t think anyone is objecting to him expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people. We are objecting to a man with a history of antisemitism acting like Israel is the aggressor in this war by failing to mention Oct 7 and Hamas, and who, by saying “free Palestine” is saying that Israel shouldn’t exist. There were reports written by Jewish attendees that they felt attacked and frightened as he riled the crowd up to scream about the supposed evils of Israel. This is not the venue for this kind of thing and Kraft did the right thing to not give him a platform. No one is taking away his right to free speech.
I don't disagree, though I think this is par for the course for a celebrity who likely lacks complex or nuanced thoughts of the issue and is just hopping the "current thing" bandwagon.
In any event, I'm of two minds. I think deplatforming a performer over politics on the grounds of "safetyism" is the exact kind of behaviour from the late 2010s we were trying to stop. I also think it only creates a Streisand Effect that gives him a higher profile. That said, the cries from the left about free speech and people being "cancelled" for their politics fall on deaf ears where I'm concerned given they were the ones giving full-throated support to deplatforming any speech they don't like. I have no doubts that if a performer expressed pro-Israel or anti-Hamas opinions and was deplatformed, they'd support it. So while I agree with them in theory on the issue of speech, I at least maintain they don't take that position out of any principle.
There is nothing complex or nuanced about genocide. You are either for it or against it.
Bandwagon? We are heartbroken from three years of this horror show. Stop trying to play down the reality. We see what's going on. I don't care what religion you are.
1. The complexity and nuance I'm referring to is in the OP I was replying to, which you willfully ignore because you use the word "genocide" as a thought-terminating cliche. I'm not saying that isn't the case, and the ICJ may well one day make that determination, but it is being weaponized in this instance to shut down any counterpoints you don't want to respond to.
2. Considering I know people who have no knowledge of the region, don't seem to talk about any other atrocities in the world (to his credit, Macklemore is probably the first to do so), and tend to repeat 20 cent buzzwords they heard on IG, I'm inclined to think it's somewhat of a bandwagon. That doesn't mean people don't care about it, but there's some "current thing" effect going on.
3. I'm not a Jew and I'm not "pro-Israel," in the sense that I do think the government is committing atrocities and war crimes. I'm not trying to play down any reality. You're arguing with straw man argument you wish I made rather than what I am saying.
It's a genocide!
It's irrelevant whether people talk about other atrocities or not We are talking about the Israeli genocide of Palestinians and that doesn't change because someone doesn't mention Sudan, for example. And even though Macklemore did that, he was still condemned. You can't win with Zionists, the goal is to put everyone on the defensive and insist they condemn Hamas and constantly refer to how terrible Oct 7 was.
I don't care what religion you are and you are a Zionist if you can not see the undeniable horrors happening every day and know that is a genocide. No one is weaponizing the word genocide. It is a genocide and there is nothing to discuss. There are no counterpoints. Israel is an occupying force that has terrorized the Palestinians for decades. They are in the wrong!
I didn't willfully ignore anything, it very much sounds like you are referring to Macklemore when you say: for a celebrity who likely lacks complex or nuanced thoughts of the issue and is just hopping the "current thing" bandwagon. My response suited that comment.
“free Palestine” is saying that Israel shouldn’t exist.
Free Palestine, is saying that we want freedom for all people. Any other interpretation is frankly nuts. If the only way Israel can exist is by oppressing another people, well then something is very wrong.
Saying Israel shouldn’t exist is genocidal which I thought you were against.
I didn’t say that. See what you guys do? I said, if the state can only survive by oppressing another people then something is wrong.
Yeah, what struck me was that I was like, didn’t he get in trouble years ago for something antisemitic pretty much the last time I heard about him? And oh yes, he did, over a decade ago - therefore I am old.
No, you are grasping at straws. But, for the sake of argument, even if it were true that he was a total antisemite, what he said and says is true. He is on the right side of history!
Israel is a terror state that is committing genocide.
We always hear about Oct. 7, what about all the Oct. 7s that Israel has and still continues to commit. They have killed 1000 people since the so called ceasefire. The other day, a little girl and her father were murdered by Israeli soldiers on her way to school. Please get out of your bubble. Jewish trauma is fully exploited by political Zionism.
What are you talking about? We hardly ever hear about Oct 7 anymore.
Terror states don’t let arab Israelis vote and participate in government, and do not warn people when they are going to attack buildings to root out terrorists, and they certainly don’t allow humanitarian aid into the area they are fighting. Israel has done all of these.
With all due respect, human to human, you guys are delusional.
Get out of your bubble!
Sorry if facts bother you.
To present a one-sided, context-stripped, double-standarded (that's now a word) perspective, one that completely ignores the absolute evil of Hamas on the other side, is at the very least sanitizing hateful bigotry. If you consider all the context of his words and actions, there's more than enough reason for venue owners to not want to host this, especially when that's not who they agreed to host or who fans bought tickets to hear.
Saying Macklemore's speech was not bigoted is like saying the girl at Burger King who shouted "Free Palestine" at a Jewish customer wasn't bigoted. And using his additional context as cover is like pointing to Fuentes or Piker doing that one video where they said "antisemitism is bad, I love Jews" and being satisfied that they're not the hateful bigots they've repeatedly shown themselves to be.
I hate censorship too, and this will certainly elevate Macklemore and the stupid movement that somehow wants to Free Palestine without sparing a single vowel to condemn Hamas, but we have to draw a moral line against hateful bigotry or it will normalize and tear apart our social fabric.
“He’s not a Nazi he just really really cares about the welfare of German children.”
If wanting a people to be free is seen as bigoted, then something is terribly wrong with your worldview. All people should be free.
Did you read what I wrote? All he had/has to do is condemn Hamas and we'd all be fine with his advocacy for Palestinians and criticism of Israel. But he won't because that would lose him his entire base of support.
No, he does not have to say anything before he stands up for Palestinians. No one does. We can stand up for them without playing this game. See the thing is, even if we say the things you guys want us to before we’re allowed to criticize Israel, you’ll come up with another demand. Because it’s just a ploy to demonize supporters of Palestine. We are always told we are antisemitic, so Macklemore makes a beautiful statement about his Jewish brothers and sisters. We are told we never mentions Sudan, so he mentions Sudan. But nope, it’s not good enough. Nope, he’s still antisemitic. It’s never good enough, it’s never enough! Or words get twisted and taken out of context.
Every day another Palestinian is murdered, tortured, harassed and on and on. Your average person who is not bought or heavily indoctrinated, surprise, surprise, is heartbroken by it. So you guys can call us antisemitic or Hamas supporters, but everyone now sees these accusations for what they are.
Zionists do not have the moral upper hand and do not get to decide how people criticize Israel.
No no no. You're putting words in my mouth. You didn't have to say anything before. You can lead with Free Palestine. You can follow with "Israel is commiting war crimes". And then you just have to add "and Hamas is also terrible because they play a critical role in the suffering of the Palestinians".
If you can't even bring yourself to say that, then you're clearly too cowardly to upset the Hamas sympathizers in your movement. And you are definitely not actually helping the Palestinians, who need more than anything for Hamas to be vanquished if they're to ever have peace. But since you care more about destroying Israel than saving Palestinians, you'll stay silent. You're the monster, the worst kind who thinks they're the angel.
In fairness to Macklemore (can't believe I'm saying that), even though the war in Sudan is an internal conflict, both sides are authoritarian and kind of evil, so removing them would free the locals of their presence. (Of course, given the area's track record, that would probably just result in a new bunch of kind of evil authoritarians taking over.)
As to the Congo, Rwanda occupies a fair portion of the country, using the presence of former genocidaires as an excuse to sit on and extract the country's mineral wealth.
Now, whether Macklemore actually knows or understands any of this is a whole 'nother question. (Though the answer is probably no.)
Please, the RSF is much much worse than the Sudan army. The Sudanese army doesn't always fight nice, but the RSF has extermated entire populations of black Africans.
The RSF are also financed by the UAE, a government with very substantial investments in Western countries.
The hold UAE and Qatar have on propaganda is a problem. I don't know how we allow Al-Jazeera to operate in the US.
First Amendment.
IIRC, the Sudanese army also participated in the ethnic cleansing/genocide in Darfur and elsewhere.
I have zero problems with Kraft cancelling Macklemore. Free speech means that Macklemore won't be arrested like someone in China comparing President Xi to Winnie the Pooh. Macklemore is free to be as dumb and misinformed as he wants to be. Kraft doesn't need to put up with that crap in his stadium. Two totally separate issues.
And, the difference with cancel culture is that Macklemore isn't being "cancelled" for alleged stances or failure to parrot the current orthodoxy. He chose to express and endorse hateful and disgusting things. Also confounding two totally separate topics. If an avowed Nazi gets cancelled that's completely different than Jimmy Kimmel in blackface twenty years ago.
I really should stop getting worked up over Macklemore because this is so dumb, but what if he donned a KKK hood before his next song? Would we be OK with that? Still calling out Robert Kraft for not allowing that in his stadium? I bet more people would cheer on Kraft. What is this bizarre Palestine fetish going on right now that people are becoming fanboys for Hamas?
I, too, should stop getting worked up over Mackelmore because this is so dumb :).
But I think this sort of reasoning can be pretty dangerous, and was a staple of cancel culture. There's a level of bad thing a person could do at a concert where most people would think it's clearly reasonable for a stadium owner to step in and say that they don't want that act to be at their stadium. That's useful to point out because it illustrates that the question isn't a matter of absolute principle as much as it is a question of whether what Mackelmore did was bad enough to justify a pretty extreme and unusual intervention by a stadium owner.
My problem with this is that we're not very good at handling the question of how bad any act of speech actually is, especially when we're comparing an insult to one group (say, Black people) to an insult to a different group (Jews, or Zionists, or however you want to frame this). And so this sort of argument tends to push toward the conclusion that if a particular intervention in speech is ever justified, it's defensible to address a broad range of offensive speech.
I'm Jewish and I find Mackelmore celebrating CUAD to be really obnoxious, but it's really not in the same league as putting on a KKK hood at a concert. That would be a fairer analogy if he'd explicitly praised Hamas or Hezbollah, but praising a group that praised Hamas and Hezbollah while also declaring himself to be for peace isn't the same thing.
The example from back in the day that comes to mind was the decision by a bunch of websites to block Firefox in protest of Brendan Eich being CEO. Eich had donated money to the effort to overturn gay marriage in California. Something many people who defended this said at the time was: would you have a problem with this if he'd donated to David Duke, or to the KKK?
In both cases, the problem is that any set of free speech "norms"--rather than explicit free speech legal protections--tend to fall apart on contact with the absolutely most hateful, extreme or offensive legal speech. We can either insist on following those norms even in extreme cases, or we can see those norms erode for essentially all forms of controversial speech, or we can maintain a sense of perspective about different kinds of offense.
I thought the person probably didn't know what Macklemore actually said in that concert. Also praising cuad is not a big deal.
Kraft also did more than ban Macklemore from his stadium, he started a whole movement to ban him from all the Stadium for Ed tour and over something that wasn't even that extreme.
Honestly some of the stupid anger at this stupid person and situation is the boiling over of a decade-plus of not being able to escape left wing politics in culture. In media, film, gaming, sports and especially music, you just can't go to a thing anymore. Watching the hardcore and heavy music scene all fall in line around mask mandates and vaccine requirements while hocking $50 t-shirts and crying about capitalism just makes you want to lose it.
Hamas has single-handedly humiliated "israel" and esposed it as an apartheid, genocidal state with no morals or rule of law. What's "disgusting" about that?
SRSLY bro?
From this rant, it's clear you don't actually know what he said at that event.
Kraft also did more than ban Macklemore from his stadium, he started a whole movement to ban him from all the Stadium for Ed tour and over something that wasn't even that extreme. What the dude said wasn't that extreme
“What if he donned a KKK hood”, but he didn't do anything comparable to that at that event. People trying to use their nonsense stuff about his banal free Palestine stuff to dreg up 2015 nonsense which Kraft nor most of his haters didn't care about till he mentioned Free Palestine again. He did a whole apology tour in 2015 that got even ADL to publicly acknowledge his apology, apparently that means he can't sing in public anymore in 2026.
So you approve of genocide, you say. Nazi, much?
If what's happening in Gaza is "genocide," it's the most incompetently executed genocide ever.
Right, like if that was their intention they’re doing it wrong.
You are no better than a Holocaust denier. Despicable!
Free speech is a matter of norms as well as laws. I can imagine a slightly different scenario where I'd consider Kraft to be in the wrong even though no one's getting arrested: suppose Macklemore observes a strict shut-up-and-rap policy in his actual shows, but gives out all the same idiocies in an interview; Kraft hears about it and decides to punish him by banning him from Gillette. Now we're a lot closer to what's objectionable in cancel culture.
In the actual situation, it's easier to side with Kraft. One of the free-speech norms is that we ordinarily shouldn't demand that people facilitate the spreading of views they find odious. You shouldn't punish people for what they say when you're not around, but you don't have to provide them a stage.
Macklemeore has hardly been "cancelled" 🤣 His popularity has gone off the charts, and doubled his social media followers overnight. It's Kraft that will pay the price..
Imagine wanting to make Macklemore popular. He was the butt of every joke in rap music for almost two decades until he decided to latch on to the Hamas-initiated conflict in Gaza.
I don't know about you, but I think the effort these people put into vilifying and ridiculing anyone who wants a genocide to stop is quite sad actually.
Bob Kraft just wants happy endings for everyone who attends concerts at his stadium.....
Bobby Kraft just wants to fuck Asian rub-n-tug sex workers without paying for it..
Might be good to mention the double standard here. Macklemore dressed up in a blatant Jewish caricature. If he has worn blackface, he'd be cancelled and disowned by the very same people who are defending him now. That crowd has zero credibility, nor any consistent principles for artistic expression.
If he put on a dress, he could play for the WNBA though. The rules are a bit fluid.
He did no such thing, it was a generic costume. That it resembled you is your problem.
The ADL accepted his apology and Kanye West plays at Kraft stadiums.
Stop dredging up stuff from over a decade ago to make a point that doesn't even work and start focusing on the genocide in Palestine. Children are being murdered. This is about humanity, not religion and ethnicity. Just humans doing horrible things as humans too often do.
Well, the Cuban people really do need to be freed. Though I'd be pretty surprised if Macklemore had the right idea about who they need to be freed from.
Ditto Lebanon. He means free them from Hezbollah, right? Right?!
Hey, stupid....Hezbollah didn't exist when "israel" invaded sovereign Lebanon.
Is this meant to be funny? Israel is occupying the south as you know. Not funny at all.
That's true but somewhat misleading. Israel is occupying five unpopulated military outposts along the border. I think that should end, but the idea that Lebanese civilians are living under Israeli occupation akin to those in the West Bank is incorrect.
Seems a bit weird to be upset about my point about Hezbollah. They are also bad! They've assisted Assadist forces in the Syrian War, which has claimed about nine times the casualties of Gaza to date. One would think that caring about Palestinians would extend to the thousands of Palestinians killed and hundreds of thousands displaced in the Syrian War.
Now I'm a little sad that no one thought my swipe at Cuba was worth sending a tankie to dump a bunch of Castroite talking points.
And now you are being disingenuous about what your comment implied. You also seem quite uninformed.
Israel is occupying a part of Lebanon. They have displaced and murdered people and have stated they have no intention of ending the occupation. They demolished villages and murdered a woman who ran a turtle sanctuary. They used white phosphorous to scorch the earth.
They are stealing land. What a surprise!
What's weird is that anyone tries to defend this. Other than pure racism or insane indoctrination, which leads to dehumanization, it's mind blowing.
I just don't understand the argument, seems so clear to me: Macklemore and everybody else has free speech rights in America; however, nobody is obligated to pay him to spout his garbage free speech. Proverbial wisdom is right, "he who pays the piper calls the tune."
You like the Epstein class billionaires ruling everyone? Pretty gross!
Wow, that's a big logic skip.
Kraft is in the Epstein files. So no. And he solicited trafficked women for sex. Please don't defend him!
So, it's pretty gross that Sheeran threw his long time friend under the bus for a man like that. Ed Sheeran has money and fame and with that comes power. He could have stood up to it and said nothing else. He would have come off like a hero. He didn't even have to mention Palestine.
Furthermore, you want a world where billionaires decide who can perform? I don't!
And you do realize that Kraft had no issue with Kanye performing, or?
I highly recommend taking a tour of CUAD's substack. They literally speak of Yahya Sinwar like he's the second coming of Christ
https://cuapartheiddivest.substack.com/p/cuad-remains-committed-to-our-demands
And do you think Macklemore’s ever bothered to read it himself? I’ll answer for you: Of course the fuck not.
Did you bother to read the link I posted? Even if it's out of ignorance, it's still problematic and harmful to eulogize people who are explicitly very very very pro-terrorism as if they are wise truth-telling social justice heroes.
No, I didn’t bother, because sanctimoniously posting links about XYZ being “problematic” and expecting everyone in the world to read them is bad praxis.
I already can fucking intuit that CUAD are at best severely misguided jackasses running interference for a murderous movement and ideology. I don’t need to read their own writing on Substack, because I’ve read dozens like them over the years.
It’s still not legitimate to hold people to an impossible standard of having read every single statement by every single source they cite. Macklemore most likely saw some one-sided SJP and CUAD videos, was shocked and horrified, and merrily toddled off to fight for the cause of social justice. That’s how this stuff works. People are stupid and have anchoring bias. That’s a reality we have to DEAL with, with a real and effective politics and media strategy of our own, not just go around demanding that everyone read up on their sources, even if that’s what they epistemically SHOULD do.
I posted the link because I felt that even Jeff's examples did not underline quite how crazy and pro-terrorism those people are. To me that seems like important context
Define terrorism and I think, if you would dare to be honest, you would have to admit that Israel fits in quite snugly and then some.
No
I highly recommend you to watch the video of the US congress giving Netanyahu a standing ovation.
Are you now going to tell me that Israeli officials are moral and good?
It's very interesting how people can see terrible ongoing violence as moral and good and anyone who stands up to it as a terrorist.
I don't know enough about Sinwar to make an informed opinion, but I do know he wouldn't have become the person he was if Israel didn't do the horrible things they did and still do to the Palestinians.
You could say the exact same thing about Netanyahu. You know his brother was killed by terrorists, right? Maybe he wouldn't have become the person he was if the Palestinians didn't do the terrible things they do to Israelis.
Context exists, but ultimately people are responsible for choosing their own actions.
So, if someone came into where you had been living for centuries and took your home as theirs and murdered your family and ethnically cleansed your people, you would be the terrorist for resisting? I shouldn’t even have to ask because in your heart you know full well the answer and so do I and so does everyone. But you must remain dishonest to defend Zionist terrorism.
No
A common liberal criticism leveled at Cancel Culture at its height was "these tactics will be used against individuals and causes you support." Once destroying celebrities for their Problematic™ views becomes normalized, the argument went, what's to prevent it from being used against views you share?
The fact that it would one day be conservatives and not progressives using defenses like "it's really just Consequence Culture" or "it's only Censorship when the government does it" was similarly predicted.
In Ed Sheeran's desire to remain apolitical we see an answer to the question posed upon Dolly Parton's passing -- "Why don't any contemporary artists have audiences like Dolly's that span political and cultural divides?" One reason is that modern audiences are much more insistent on knowing performers' stances on various political issues and will not accept "no comment" as a response.
"One reason is that modern audiences are much more insistent on knowing performers' stances on various political issues and will not accept "no comment" as a response."
I guess that makes me a dinosaur, since I greatly prefer STFU and sing the song, accept the award, whatever, than to hear any political blather. I still listen to and enjoy a lot of 1970s-early 80s Pink Floyd, even though Roger "Ezra Pound of Rock" Waters has become such a tool. I prefer to judge the art, and not the artist, even if the artist won't STFU.
So during the Holocaust if an artist had said, no comment, you would think, ah well, that's fine? No, you wouldn't. You'd think, what a coward not to use their platform to end the horror.
This is a genocide. It's about humanity. Everyone should be trying to stop this. And please don't come back with the pathetic this is not a genocide, blah, blah, blah.
Are you really comfortable with the fact that since the so called ceasefire, Israel continues to murder Palestinians? Children on their way to school? Israel soldiers are admitting they purposely murdered civilians. Even the NY Times who infamously published one passive headline after another during the height of the slaughter, is now reporting that Israel uses rape as a weapon.
This is openly and ardently funded by Western powers who then make every excuse to excuse and promote the atrocities, especially the US. How on earth cans anyone not speak up?
Yep, I remember thinking about a decade ago that this would get done to the left, and wouldn’t you know it, MAGA adopted the cancel culture and grievance politics. Go around saying “white people have no culture,” and “men are trash,” long enough, and they’re going to internalize that and learn to use those same tactics right back.
Your take about a venue owner “throwing his weight around” is very odd, Maurer.
Venue owners book acts, decline acts, cancel acts, rebook acts, all the time. It’s kind of part of the actual operations of a venue.
If any venue owner, whether a small club or a huge stadium, thinks there’s been a misrepresentation of what was to be performed, they’re not stifling free speech if they cancel the show, or otherwise curtail it.
I love when the Epstein class decides who can say what! Especially when they have no issue with Kanye!
Agree 100%. A fading hip-hop artist half-wittedly name checking a college organization with some extremist ideas does not disturb me nearly as much as a rich tool like Kraft canceling said artist. But now there's some back-and-forth about several million dollars that may or may not be donated to Palestine aid... so I think it's all gonna work out swell.
Macklemore saying that he didn't realize that costuming himself to look like the cover model of the August 1937 issue of Der Stürmer could be seen as a Jewish caricature reminds me of Marjorie Taylor Greene saying she didn't realize that attributing ownership of the fire-starting space laser to the Rothschilds was anti-semitic.
Which raises the question, are there people too stupid to be anti-semites?
There are people out there who aren't familiar enough with anti-Semitic iconography and tropes that they wouldn't necessarily link a giant hook nose with "Jewish caricature."
I'm less than convinced that Macklemore is one of them.
The fake beard also makes his "I didn't know" claim substantially less plausible.
If he knew enough to name check CUAD and parrot the talking points and wear the keffiyeh he's steeped in enough of the lore to know what he was doing.
We need to stop using the word "Censorship" when everyone involved is a private, non government group. What we have here is a falling out between people involved in a business deal. Macky could have done a lot of dumb stuff that would have gotten him booted. If he had held up a gas station and or used a newborn kitten as toilet paper in a tiktok, I think that would have reached the same effect.
The guy has made some odious remarks and is very possibly an idiot and for sure to be a bigot.
Kraft owns the place, he can pick and choose. He chose no.
I wouldn’t let Macklemore into my house because he’s a bigot, an odious one.
He can be a bigot here in America but an individual can choose who they let into their place, most of us don’t own stadiums but I think it’s his right to keep the guy out