opinions & letters
Why I Wouldn’t Sign the
Petition to Cancel Kanye
BY REBECCA SUGAR
T he Change.org petition calling on Adidas to
cancel its partnership with Kanye West (aka
“Ye”) fl ooded my inbox and social media feeds a
few days ago. Many of my Jewish friends, outraged
by Ye’s recent antisemitic comments, were rightly
upset and wanted to do something.

But they shouldn’t have done this.

Summoning corporate America to punish those
with disfavored views is a dangerous idea, espe-
cially for Jews. It leads to bans on ice cream
sales on the “bad” side of Israel’s “Green Line”
and the cancellation of Zionist and conservative
speakers who say the “wrong” things. Jews
should trust CEOs and international corporations
to adjudicate socially acceptable discourse and
mete out consequences only slightly more than
they trust the media, humanities departments
and the United Nations to do the same.

Over-investing in Jewish celebrities and
their “allies” who have selective antisemitism
antennae and have made this cancellation cam-
paign their passion project is also ill-advised.

Welcoming their support is one thing. Harnessing
their power to infl uence companies to penalize
those we fi nd reprehensible is another. Once we
give them that power, we can’t control how they
use it or to what ideological ends.

Ultimately, we have to accept that Ye has a
right to say absurd things about the Jews. And
we have the right to point out how absurd he
is in doing so. He isn’t even creative enough to
come up with an original scapegoat for his frus-
trations. Ilhan Omar, Bella Hadid, Louis Farrakhan
and a long list of others have walked the same
tired Jew-bashing path before him. If his creative
juices are that diminished, perhaps his Adidas
line wasn’t worth buying anyway.

That is how free speech and free markets are
supposed to work. The people refuse to buy
the bigot’s narrative and his $300 shoes, thus
diminishing the power of his toxic message.

Companies respond to people’s spending habits,
not their personal sentiments. The job of those
“fi ghting antisemitism” is to persuade people
with a fl ood of rational speech that counters the
irrational rant of a guy with a gripe.

Ye has surely been silenced and attacked for
his past political views by media executives,
some of whom were Jews. But that kind of cor-
rupt manipulation is motivated by profi t, fear,
ideological fervor and partisan commitment, not
Judaism. The hope is that if enough people reinforce
the idea that stereotyping Jews is a technique
utilized by the aggrieved, the majority will reject
it. It may not be as gratifying as getting a con-
tract canceled, but legitimizing the corporate
cancellation tactic simply because we feel we
have a legitimate target is short-sighted at best.

It never stops at “legitimate” targets, and it often
overlooks inconvenient ones. That is never good
for the Jews. JE
Rebecca Sugar is a freelance writer and philan-
thropic consultant in New York.

letters Column Blurred Distinctions
Ian Haworth is confused (“Both the Left and the
Right Have Turned on Jews,” Oct. 20).

First, to cherry-pick several really poor and
misleading examples to prove the point that no
one in America cares about the Jews is just out of
step. And Haworth provides no substantiation for
the claim that there is no political home for Jews in
America. There are, indeed, too many loose lips,
crazies and haters (especially white supremacists)
in America (and around the world), but Jews are
not the only people that are targets of their vitriol.

What is seriously missing from Haworth’s op-ed
is any attempt to separate the Jewish people and
the state of Israel’s right to exist and fl ourish from
the actions of the Israeli government and radical
West Bank settlers.

Many leading Jews in America have, perhaps
purposefully, also blurred this distinction. But
many Jews and non-Jews in America have distin-
guished love of country and Jews in general from
some of the things the government of Israel has
done. Mark Twain perhaps said it best: “Patriotism
is supporting your country all the time, and your
government when it deserves it.”
The continued presence of the hawk Netanyahu
among Israel’s top leaders does not help matters
any, nor does Israel’s lack of full support for
Ukraine in its fi ght against Russia. JE
Frank L. Friedman, Philadelphia
Kanye West
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