An explosive new investigation by the New York Times details how Adidas employees experienced frequent anti-Semitism from Grammy Award-winning rapper and Yeezy designer Kanye West for nearly a decade.

Adidas officially ended its partnership with the rapper and producer, who now goes by Ye, in October of 2022, after multiple virulently anti-Semitic remarks, including a tweet in which the rapper threatened to go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.”

However, West’s pattern of anti-Semitism dates back to at least 2013, according to the Times’ reporting.

At the start of her report, Megan Twohey detailed how, in his initial meeting with Adidas executives at their German headquarters in 2013, West expressed his dissatisfaction with a proposed shoe design by taking a marker and drawing a swastika — the display of which is banned in Germany — on the design. He also reportedly told Jewish Adidas executive Jon Wexler, who at the time was Adidas’ global director of entertainment and influencer marketing, to “kiss a picture of Hitler every day.”

  • circuscritic
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    1 year ago

    Hate crimes require a crime other than hate to be crimes.

    Not a crime:

    Fred calls a black person the N word

    Murder:

    Fred kills a black person

    Hate crime:

    Fred kills a black person while screaming the N word and wearing his Klan hood.

    Speaking only for the American legal system in a broad sense. This might vary in some jurisdiction e.g. lowering the threshold for harassment if hate speech is used, but I can’t speak to all of that.