It seems like the saying there’s someone for everyone is pretty much true.
Over the last couple of weeks, while many pointed accusatory fingers, looked on in disbelief at his latest antics and voiced their dissatisfaction with rapper and producer, Kanye West, a group of folks have chosen to voice their truth: They are on his side. On Saturday, October 22, Neo-Nazi white supremacist group, the Goyim Defense League (GDL), took to the LA 405 highway to display their support of Ye’s anti-Semitic comments and basically praise him. West, who changed his name to Ye last year (2021) on October 9th, stated on Twitter that although he was sleepy, when he woke up he was going to go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE ”. Soon after, the American Jewish Committee spoke out saying that Kanye’s remarks were dangerous.
The Goyim Defense League was inspired and very much motivated by West’s recent string of racist comments. The GDL is headed by Jon Minadeo II who is said to be “infamous in the Bay area for his conspiracy theories and diatribes against Jews on his Goyim TV website and other social networks.” Goyim, in case you were wondering, is a disparaging word for non-Jews in Hebrew and Yiddish and often appropriated by online neo-Nazis. So when seven activists sported banners on the LA 405 highway, it boasted of their animosity. Three banners were hung; the first said “Honk if you know”; the second “Kanye is right about the Jews” and the third, a bible quote said to be a comparison of Jews and Satan. The group were also seen doing ‘Heil Hitler’ salutes also known as the Nazi salute.
The following day, October 23rd, residents in the north-end of Beverly Hills in Sunset Boulevard and west of Benedict Canyon Drive woke up to find about 25 anti-Semitic flyers about the place. These flyers placed the Jews as those responsible for the state of gun control. According to Oren Segal, the vice president of the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) Center on Extremism, “This action is the latest example of how extremists across the ideological spectrum have embraced Ye’s (formerly Kanye West) recent comments,” Further stating that “The group responsible for the antisemitic banners over the highway in Los Angeles espouses its vitriolic antisemitism and white supremacist themes via the internet, through propaganda distributions, and in street actions.”
The antisemitic Goyim Defense League (GDL) who claimed responsibility for the Los Angeles banner, has also decided to use Ye’s comments to pit the Black community against Jewish people, declaring the latter “a universal enemy.” Andrew Anglin, publisher of the Neo-Nazi ‘Daily Stormer’ website, hailed Ye as one of the greatest people to have lived since Jesus Christ, “or at least since Adolf Hitler,” the ADL reported. “Ye is the single greatest person who ever lived in all of history since Christ, or at least since Adolf Hitler. He’s gone full on. He’s not backing down, and they’re gonna have to kill him,” Anglin wrote in an article about the artiste.
What started with his White Lives Matter t-shirt debut then telling Diddy he’s being controlled by Jews on Instagram and on Twitter, letting it be known that he is ready to go “death con 3” on Jews, has resulted in the artiste no longer having a partnership with Balenciaga and talent agency CAA. Currently, Adidas is reviewing their partnership. About his current standing with Adidas Ye said “I can’t say anti-Semitic things and Adidas can’t drop me. Now what? Now what?” Extremists, according to the Anti Defamation League’s Oren Segal, see Ye as someone who can take what they believe mainstream. Sam Yebri, who is a lawyer running for Los Angeles City Council and a recent recipient of an antisemitic flyer, believes that Ye’s remarks give antisemites momentum. “Kanye’s remarks give added air and momentum to the hate that previously was limited to the dark corners of the internet,” Yebri said… “Now it’s popping up in neighborhoods, at people’s homes and throughout Los Angeles.”
