Kanye wants attention for his hatred.
Attention he doesn’t deserve and I refuse to give him.
Kanye West doesn’t speak for the Black community. Black people do not like Nazis.
And I don’t want us to lose track of the many good people who are standing up to hate and against antisemitism.
For example, Snoop Dogg had an advertisement during the Super Bowl from #StandUpToAllHate with Tom Brady. He’s committed to fighting against, bigotry, bias, and antisemitism.
Billionaire businessman and philanthropist Robert Smith just came back from visiting Auschwitz with me and a delegation of Black leaders including Pastor Carl Day, John Hope Bryant, Malynda Hale, and Victory Boyd.
MANY Black leaders have stood up for the Jewish community and against hatred, and continue to do so.
Like…
My point is this: The Black community and the Jewish community have been together for 100 years.
It's not that all Black people love all Jewish people or all Jewish people love all Black people.
That never happened.
There are some Black people that don't like Jews. There are some Jews that don't like Black people. We all have some terrible cousins, awful uncles.
But that's not the point.
The point is that the best people in the Black community and the best people in the Jewish community and the best people who are both Black and Jewish have come together over and over again. They have made miracles happen when it came to civil rights, social justice, environmentalism, jurisprudence, philosophy, music, art, and theater.
When Jewish people with their cultural commitment to repairing the world and black people with our cultural commitment to justice for all get together, beautiful stuff happens.
The cultural DNA is mixed and you get a double helix of hope for humanity.
And that's what the Black Jewish Alliance represents.
And people who want to tear it down and people who want to sow division are enemies of Black people and Jewish people—and of all humanity.
Let’s stay together.
-Van
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