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Kanye West to Proud Boys Founder: ‘Jewish People, Forgive Hitler’

Surface Magazine's DesignDialogues No. 6 With Hans Ulrich Obrist, Kanye West And Jacques Herzog - Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images/Surface Magazine
Surface Magazine's DesignDialogues No. 6 With Hans Ulrich Obrist, Kanye West And Jacques Herzog - Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images/Surface Magazine

Less than a week after Kanye West praised Adolf Hitler in an interview with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, West – flanked by white supremacist Nick Fuentes – sat down with Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes to demand that Jewish people “forgive Hitler.”

The 45 minute episode titled “Saving Ye” on the alt-right video platform Censored.TV, opens with McInnes spouting off his desire to “prevent Ye West from becoming an antisemite or a nazi” and to “talk him off the ledge.” In the same breath, McInnes voices his hopes to show West that “our problem is liberal elites of all races,” then proceeds to name two black leaders, Kamala Harris and Barack Obama, as a “major problem.”

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McInnes, the co-founder of Vice who left the media company in 2008, was banned from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram in 2018 for promoting content related to violent extremist groups and hate speech. His interview with the rapper coincides with a storm of media attention stemming from a Yeezy fashion show in October in which West displayed “White Lives Matter” shirts.

West, whose face is covered with a mask, begins by boasting that the backlash from his previous interview has been “awesome for a presidential campaign” before blaming Jewish people for Hitler’s “reputation” and comparing abortion to “genocide.” West also reiterates his claims that “Jewish people control the majority of the media, along with banks, along with real estate, along with malls.”

Earlier in the episode, West claims “that there is a collusion of Jewish attorneys and managers and everything else you can think of” that “give America porn.” He also cites his ex-wife, Kim Kardashian, who he claims is used to “sell it.” West – who allegedly used porn to bully and control his staff – comes back to this point later on, saying that porn “destroyed” his family and that women in porn are the “products of pedophilia.” Throwing out female empowerment in favor of body shaming, West adds that women on Instagram “showing their bodies” in their 30s and 40s are freezing their eggs because they haven’t “lived the dream of having a husband and kids.”

Perhaps sensing an opportunity to give his male ego a much needed boost, McInnes goes on to call “spinsters who don’t pay attention to the time” the “new journalists” who are out to “cancel” and “sabotage family men.”

At one point, McInnes gives West a hypothetical question. “So you’re president of the United States,” says McInnes. “It’s day one and someone walks in and they go, ‘So what are we going to do about these Jews?’ What do ya say?” West replies, eliciting giggles from Fuentes and McInnes: “Jews should work for Christians. I’ll hire a Jewish person in a second if I knew they weren’t a spy and I could look through their phone.”

When asked if he has chosen a running mate, West says he considered Candace Owens (who wore a matching “White Lives Matter” shirt at the show) but that he has a problem with Ben Shapiro who is “in control of Candace Owens’ voice.” Owens is a talk show host on the Daily Wire, which Shapiro co-founded.

Despite spending the majority of the interview denouncing the Jewish community and women who haven’t given birth before the age of 30, West ends the interview by professing his love for “everyone.” Alluding to his campaign, which has yet to be filed, West says that “the rules of the country will be based on the bible.”

“Jewish people can’t tell me who I can love and who I can’t love,” he continues. “You can’t say, you can’t force your pain on everyone else. Jewish people, forgive Hitler today.”

West’s comments tie back to a recent Rolling Stone piece by George Chidi, who writes that on “some base level, white racists love hearing a Black voice articulating ideas that they can’t say themselves in public without blowback.” As Chidi points out, men like McInnes and Fuentes get “to wear blackface with Ye” as their “based proxy.”

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