Giving Kanye more attention is exactly what he wants – and it’s incredibly dangerous

Ellen Fitzpatrick

He needs to be de-platformed.

If you haven’t had the luxury of seeing or reading all the comments Kanye West has made in the last week alone, I’m actually jealous of you.

I understand that writing this piece is exactly the opposite of its intention, but at this point something needs to be said – the media is giving Kanye the exact thing he’s looking for and we need to stop.

It’s not news that Kanye makes outlandish statements and has horrific and dangerous opinions on literally everything. Kanye is aiming to be controversial, he wants people to talk about him and have his face plastered everywhere. He’s trying to stay relevant by making these comments and the more we allow him to do it and give him a platform, the worse he’ll get.

If you were lucky enough to be oblivious to what he’s said over the last week, let’s do a recap. Since December began, Kanye appeared on Alex Jones’ podcast Infowars. If you know anything about Alex Jones, it’s that he’s a right wing conspiracy theorist and after the comments Kanye made, even Alex himself tried to change the subject.

Kanye appeared on the show completely covering his face and praised Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. While he made claims that he loves Jewish people, Kanye also made comments that he “likes Nazis”, “loves Hitler” and that not only did Hitler have some redeeming qualities, he could actually see “good things about Hitler.”

The following day, on December 2nd, Kanye then shared a photo of the Star of David combined with a swastika on Twitter, which led to him being banned from the social media platform for a second time as he violated their guidelines against inciting violence, which Twitter owner Elon Musk confirmed.

Over the weekend on Saturday Night Live, comedian Colin Jost addressed the Kanye comments, making a joke that he didn’t think he was “off his meds” anymore, more that he’s just immune to them. While it was said as a very obvious joke, we can’t blame meds for this. There are plenty of people in the world and in the public eye that are bipolar, none of them are so openly hateful the way Kanye is.

I’ve written about Kanye’s comments before, I’ve gone on the rant about blaming Kanye’s mental illness for his behaviour. This has nothing to do with mental health, Kanye is just showing his true colours.

We’ve seen how he treated the mother of his children, how he has treated women in general. We’ve seen his endless support for Donald Trump and now we’re seeing his utterly disgusting and dangerous opinions.

There are a lot of his fans that are young and impressionable, people who are listening to his comments and may not be fully educated in the events of the Holocaust or the treatment of Jews in the lead up to, during and after World War Two.

To make things extremely clear, the Holocaust is one of the most horrific incidents in human history, it’s completely true and absolutely happened. This is a sentence nobody should have to make clear. This part of history is recent, there are still living survivors. People had to endure a sickening act and can still recall the events they experienced, so someone of his fame and notability making comments like this is only inciting more hate.

Anti-semitism exists because of people like this. Prejudice continues to exist because of attitudes like this being perpetuated in the media. Relaying Kanye’s comments is harmful.

If we’re going to discuss Kanye in the media these days, we have one way to do it. While what he says is unfortunately news and is being reported in that way, follow up pieces debunking his ideology and sharing the truth about what Jewish people endured is the only way to ensure there is nothing to back up his statements.

Kanye is looking for someone to give him a platform to spew hate and by giving it to him we are only enabling him.

News is news and as a journalist, especially one working in entertainment media, I understand when a celebrity makes an outrageous comment it becomes a story and we need to cover it. But there is a fine line between an outrageous statement and a dangerous one, so when we’re dealing with Kanye, there needs to be a fact-checking element.

The best way to derail his comments is to stop giving him the attention he so desperately wants. By this, I mean inviting him on podcasts, TV shows or for interviews. If he does appear on one and it becomes news, we correct his statements with real facts. By unfolding what his words mean is our job, and writing pieces like this is one way we can combat hate in the 21st century.

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