Rapper Ice Cube has responded after NBA veteran Kareem Abdul-Jabbar lashed out at both the sports industry and entertainment industries for its lack of outrage over recent acts of anti-Semitism.
“Shame on the Hollywood Reporter who obviously gave my brother Kareem 30 pieces of silver to cut us down without even a phone call,” Ice Cube tweeted on Wednesday, which sparked anti-Semitism accusations.
Shame on the Hollywood Reporter who obviously gave my brother Kareem 30 pieces of silver to cut us down without even a phone call. https://t.co/XRXPu0NRBW
— Ice Cube (@icecube) July 15, 2020
The 51-year-old’s tweet was in response to Abdul-Jabbar’s column published on Tuesday by The Hollywood Reporter.
“When reading the dark squishy entrails of popular culture, meh-rage in the face of sustained prejudice is an indisputable sign of the coming Apatholypse: apathy to all forms of social justice. After all, if it’s OK to discriminate against one group of people by hauling out cultural stereotypes without much pushback, it must be OK to do the same to others. Illogic begets illogic,” he wrote in the column.
Abdul-Jabbar also slammed comedian Chelsea Handler after she shared a video of Minister Farrakhan divulging his own controversial views on Jews.
“Almost 4 million people received a subliminal message that even some Jews think being anti-Jewish is justified,” he said in the video. Handler, who happens to be Jewish, was eventually forced to issue an apology following intense scrutiny.
Julia Lenarz of the American Jewish Committee slammed Ice Cube’s tweet, saying, “If you needed any proof that anti-Semitism is alive in our societies, dozens of celebrities with millions of followers have sent a dangerous message: hate is hate unless directed at Jews.”
Americans Against Anti-Semitism founder Dov Hikind also chimed in to slam the west coast MC’s take.
“Shame on Ice Cube for continuing to show us how vile and repugnant his brand of Jew-hatred is!” Hikind tweeted.
Elsewhere in the column, the legendary Los Angeles Laker also took aim at the entire Trump campaign for “pandering to hate groups” after they sent a fundraising letter accusing Jewish billionaires Tom Steyer, Michael Bloomberg, and George Soros of trying to “rig the November election.”
“These famous, outspoken people share the same scapegoat logic as all oppressive groups from Nazis to the KKK: all our troubles are because of bad-apple groups that worship wrong, have the wrong complexion, come from the wrong country, are the wrong gender or love the wrong gender. It’s so disheartening to see people from groups that have been violently marginalized do the same thing to others without realizing that perpetuating this kind of bad logic is what perpetuates racism,” the 73-year-old wrote in the column.
He continued, “While it’s possible the words were wrong, celebrities have a responsibility to get the words right. It’s not enough to have good intentions, because it’s the actual deeds — and words — which have the real impact,” he continued. “In this case, destructive impact. In 2013, there were 751 reported hate crimes against Jews, but by 2019 the number had nearly tripled to 2,107. That same year, a gunman in San Diego entered a synagogue and murdered one person while wounding three.”
In conclusion, Abdul-Jabbar said, “The lesson never changes, so why is it so hard for some people to learn: No one is free until everyone is free. As Martin Luther King Jr. explained: ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.’ So, let’s act like it. If we’re going to be outraged by Injustice, let’s be outraged by Injustice against anyone.”
