Culture

Why Sarah Silverman Is Getting Slammed For Condemning Kanye West’s Anti-Semitism

Silverman has long been accused of racism against Black people and other minorities.

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Comedian Sarah Silverman is getting some backlash after condemning the apparent radio silence on Kanye West’s recent anti-semitism.

“Kanye threatened the Jews yesterday on Twitter and it’s not even trending,” the comedian, who is Jewish-American, wrote on Twitter earlier this week. “Why do mostly only Jews speak up about Jewish hate? The silence is so loud.”

The comic attracted pushback because of the implication that non-Jewish people — including Black people and other people of colour — only go into bat for themselves; whereas many of these groups have been actively fighting against white supremacy (which includes anti-semitism) for a very long time.

“We as Black people have warned the entire world for over a decade,” wrote one Twitter user. “The thing is, *you* ignore anti-Black racism, so *you* missed the multiple warnings.”

“Sarah, stop it,” another woman added. “Black women have been ringing the alarm about Kanye for years when he attacked us,” she said with reference to Kanye’s many anti-Black comments in the past, “but YOU stayed quiet.”

Others pointed out that Silverman must follow very few Black people on social media if she was was seeing such few responses to the rapper’s anti-semitism. “Um… I’m not sure who you follow. But Black Twitter has been all over this. So it’s not MOSTLY Jews. Please call out exactly WHO are SILENT.”

Notably, Sarah Silverman has been criticised for Blackfacing in a 2007 sketch and also trafficking in the N-word for cheap laughs.

As Silverman seemingly didn’t speak up about Kanye West’s anti-Black racism in the past, her comments pose questions as to whether only condemning racism when you have skin in the game is a genuinely anti-racist act.

“The thing that kills me is I was talking about white people,” Silverman later said, clarifying her initial tweet, “but here we are.”


Image credit: Photo by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic, Getty Images