An explosive new investigation by the New York Times details how Adidas employees experienced frequent anti-Semitism from Grammy Award-winning rapper and Yeezy designer Kanye West for nearly a decade.

Adidas officially ended its partnership with the rapper and producer, who now goes by Ye, in October of 2022, after multiple virulently anti-Semitic remarks, including a tweet in which the rapper threatened to go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.”

However, West’s pattern of anti-Semitism dates back to at least 2013, according to the Times’ reporting.

At the start of her report, Megan Twohey detailed how, in his initial meeting with Adidas executives at their German headquarters in 2013, West expressed his dissatisfaction with a proposed shoe design by taking a marker and drawing a swastika — the display of which is banned in Germany — on the design. He also reportedly told Jewish Adidas executive Jon Wexler, who at the time was Adidas’ global director of entertainment and influencer marketing, to “kiss a picture of Hitler every day.”

  • li10@feddit.uk
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    edit-2
    11 months ago

    It quite literally can.

    Symptoms from the NHS website:

    • being delusional, having hallucinations and disturbed or illogical thinking
    • doing things that often have disastrous consequences
    • making decisions or saying things that are out of character and that others see as being risky or harmful

    Those are things that can lead someone to act like he does.

    • tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      11 months ago

      When people saying ‘mental illness doesn’t make you racist’, it makes me think what does make a person racist? Paranoia, anxiety, delusion, trauma, are tied to it often. I kind of think racism could be seen as a mental illness in itself.