Podcast Appearance: Black Skinhead

My appearance on The Re-Education with Eli Lake, talking about the brilliant and bigoted Kanye West

My (first!) podcast appearance, talking with the great Eli Lake about Kanye West. We talk about:

• The origin of Ye’s antisemitic ideas

• Why antisemitism is distinct from other forms of bigotry

• Ye’s unique artistic brilliance

• Why great artists typically aren’t great political thinkers

• The similarities of the ‘artist-addict’ and the mentally unhealthy artist

• Whether social media companies should censor him

• Whether his comments will noticeably increase antisemitism

• Steel-manning Ye’s concerns about his management

Available now all places good podcasts are listened to, including Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts.

---

I’m very happy with how this podcast went - Eli is as sharp as he is kind - though I was also nervous, so stumbled over some points, and left some important ones unsaid.

To make them now:

1. Though I think the impact of Ye’s antisemitism is not particularly significant on an individual level - particularly because of how obviously unwell or unsound he is - he contributes to a rising culture of antisemitism that has led to an uptick in violence and hate crimes, and it needs to be said how utterly repellent this is.

2. His Parler buy is a high-point for the grift of Candace Owens. She seemingly has no values other than self-enrichment, and no shame about how to achieve it, so has convinced a man in distress to burn his money buying a terrible company (both morally, technically, and financially), because her son-of-a-Lord husband is its CEO.