Rhymes With Queasy

In 1998, I watched the Super Bowl with my best friend. We were supposed to be writing a column for our high school newspaper about the commercials; it turned into one of my favorite pieces I’ve co-written. Since that year, watching the game has become secondary to watching the commercials (and that’s saying a lot for someone born and raised in the hometown of the Pro Football Hall of Fame!).

If you watched the game on Sunday, you may have noticed a commercial for Stand Up to Hate, an organization I’ve previously written about. What caught the attention of many was Snoop Dogg’s participation in the commercial, a choice that seems to contradict his public support of President Trump (including performing at the Crypto Ball during Trump’s second inauguration).

(Editor’s Note: Even while writing that sentence, I had no idea where it would go next - a true testament to the wild times we’re living in.)

But did you notice the Kanye West commercial? Maybe not, unless you were particularly interested in his call to action.

West’s commercial was filmed selfie style on an iPhone in a dentist’s chair. He asked people to visit his website, an online storefront. The only item available for sale was a t-shirt featuring a large, centered swastika. The online store is now unavailable, with Shopify receiving overwhelming backlash to the use of their commerce platform and responding that they determined their terms of service were violated.

This followed a week of Kanye’s increasingly antisemitic social media posts on X, declaring his love of Hitler, that he would never apologize for his Jewish comments, and most startingly claiming that he is a Nazi. His account on X has no posts available, though it’s not evident if he deleted those himself or if he was deplatformed.

But this is how mainstream antisemitism has become:

• This commercial aired on Fox, a major broadcast network, during the largest live televised event of the year. The ad was allowed to be aired because there “was no standards issue with the spot itself.”

• People bought the shirt. It remains unclear if any orders were fulfilled.

• West, known to be antisemitic, has lost partnerships in the past (including a shoe deal with Adidas) over his comments. And yet he continues to have platforms and opportunities to further endanger the lives of Jews. According to the Anti-defamation League, at least 30 incidents of antisemitism can be directly linked to Kanye.

I’ve seen calls on social media to not say Kanye’s name and to not give him attention or power. I feel very strongly that the opposite is true — we should name him as often as possible in this context. We should call out the behavior of someone whose antisemitism has been previously publicly addressed and continues. I also say that because when I shared about the commercial on my own social media platform, I discovered how many of my friends weren’t aware of Sunday’s incident or had forgotten about his recent comments. And because this all felt subversive — the ad didn’t tell you what you would find in the shop, an intentional decision — it needs to be brought into the light.

Imagine, if you will, in the same televised football game seeing a public service announcement about why people shouldn’t hate you because of your religion and a commercial from a man promoting merch to hate of you because of your religion. While I can’t speak on behalf of all of my Jewish friends, I can tell you that I’ve discussed with more than one the strong desire to scream into an abyss. The phrase most often exchanged in texts and DMs with my Jewish friends is, “I’m so tired.” And while there’s no end in sight into conversations about modern and mainstream antisemitism, I’m hopeful that we can engage more allies in understanding what is happening and pushing back on the companies and platforms that allow this to continue.