Masked Ye takes the hood off in Alex Jones interview

On Thursday, formerly Kanye West, Ye appeared on the right-winged conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ InfoWars in his latest downward spiral that looks to only get worse by the day.

“It’s the most frightening thing,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. “This is happening in the greatest country on the planet.”

After fawning over Hitler’s fashion sense and architectural design, Ye was the only one unhinged at a table with Alex Jones, who was recently ordered to pay $965 million in damages to those who suffered from his lie that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax, as a “horrific cesspool of dangerous, bigoted Jew hatred.”

Even still, Ye took Antisemitism to a place even Jones wasn’t comfortable with publicly co-signing.

he had alex jones stress laughing you know how crazy that is pic.twitter.com/nx8M4hzE5v

— CNRAAD 🇲🇦🇸🇳 (@Iightworks) December 1, 2022

“I see good things about Hitler,” Ye said before veering into Holocaust denialism. He later defiantly said Jewish people ‘are not going to tell him who to love.’

“Every human being has something of value that they brought to the table, especially Hitler,” Ye furthered.

“Kanye West is a deranged Anti-semite,” New York Rep. Lee Zeldin, one of the few Republican Jewish members of Congress who lost his bid for governor this year, told POLITICO in a statement. “I want absolutely nothing to do with that lunatic. He’s totally bad news.”

Though Ye’s recent statements have caught many by surprise, others saw his fall off coming years ago.

J. Cole Tried Telling Us About Kanye West With This Verse From 5 Years Ago 🫣 pic.twitter.com/B8Gr0QDms1

— Snippet Highlights (@snipethighlight) December 2, 2022

When Jones brought up Nazis, Ye said, “They did good things too, we have to stop dissing the Nazis all the time.” He went on to say he did not like the word ‘evil’ next to Nazis.

“I do love Hitler,” Ye said. “I do love the Zionists. I love everyone.” He later clarified, “I love Jewish people, but I also love Nazi’s.”

Shortly after accusing Phoenix Suns PG Chris Paul of sleeping with his then-wife, Kim Kardashian, on Thursday evening, Elon Musk tweeted Ye’s Twitter account was suspended (again) for violating the company’s rules against incitement to violence when he posted a tweet containing a Swastika.

Though hateful words and intentionally trolling provided West with yet another jolt in his mismanaged-at-best public relations and post-cancel “Presidential” tour, with each passing public appearance Ye proves just how unqualified he’s always been to lead anyone anywhere.

“This was a mask-off moment, to hear Ye just outright say that he admires Hitler,” said Megan Squire, deputy director of data analytics at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Ye’s open embrace for Hitler is only shared by those who hate all others except Aryan white males. Born into his Black skin, Ye will never truly be accepted by people like Jones who publicly praise him as a “savant” while parading him around like a useful idiot in the same way the GOP has Hershel Walker.

Sitting beside Jones, a man ordered to pay for his own lies, Ye’s words have too reversed his fortunes and closed many of the personal and professional relationships which he had built over his entire life.

It’s well known the company you keep says a lot about you, and in recent public appearances, Ye’s only help seemed to come from a known white nationalist and another exiled extremist who was effectively cancelled for his remarks on pedophilia.

I’m more worried about the hundreds of people supporting Kanye posting a Swastika on Twitter than the fact that Kanye posted a Swastika on Twitter.

— Dark Brandon (@DarkBrandon2020) December 2, 2022

While grace has been granted to Ye more times than most, his insistence on disrespecting the horrific legacy of loss and survival of Jewish people has been so consistent that it gives credence to those who worked for him before and accused him of speaking in glowing terms about Hitler.

As a man who admittedly does not read, nor study, Ye receives his information from the same slop troughs as most right-wing extremists and in recent months, his disdain has seemed to persist — if not grow.

“The Jewish media has made us feel like the Nazis and Hitler have never offered anything of value to the world,” Ye said at one point during the interview.

Ye has repeatedly made statements targeting Jewish people or using Jewish stereotypes, resulting in suspensions from Twitter and Instagram, the termination of his company’s work with Adidas, Gap, and the end of many other professional partnerships. After Thursday, the far-right and “free speech” app, Parler, also announced they would not go forward with Ye’s plan to purchase the application.

Ye’s words have real world impact. The global rise of antisemitism is an indisputable fact. According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), 2021 resulted in the “highest number [of antisemitic incidents throughout the United States] on record since the ADL began tracking antisemitic incidents in 1979.”

There were 2,717 incidents last year, representing an increase of 34% over 2020 and the highest on record. The ADL divides antisemitic incidents into harassment, assault and vandalism.

After allowing InfoWars co-hosts to post on Twitter on his behalf, the forever attention-seeking Ye quickly dominated discussions on social media for hours; “Kanye” became the top trending topic on Twitter and, according to Google Trends, searches for “Infowars” spiked during the interview.

The best thing about music is its unifying power. As one of the most influential and globally celebrated musicians of all time, Ye now behaves like a man on a Kamikaze mission, more determined than ever to divide the very people he once brought together.

Ezekiel J. Walker

Hailing from Charlotte North Carolina, born litterateur Ezekiel J. Walker earned a B.A. in Psychology at Winston Salem State University. Walker later published his first creative nonfiction book and has since authored three others related to African American culture. Walker’s books have been taught in college curriculum and added to HBCU libraries. In 2019, Walker began screenwriting and to date has won over 40 screenplay awards and film festival selections. As Senior Editor for The Black Wall Street Times, Walker endeavors to tell empowering stories about powerful people.