Last month, several celebrities posted quotes from Louis Farrakhan and it became a thing. I did not write about it because A) I don’t want to go into the lengthy backstory of why Farrakhan is anti-Semitic, problematic and offensive and B) I didn’t believe that most of those celebrities even understood or knew the Farrakhan backstory, they were just posting his quotes because they saw other people doing it. The anti-Semitism conversation has come up alot in recent months around Black Lives Matter and racial justice protests, and people continue to show their asses about their lack of education. Which leads me to this: Nick Cannon has been fired from ViacomCBS because he said some really strange and offensive stuff about…how black people are the “true Hebrews.”
ViacomCBS is ending its long-running relationship with Nick Cannon after he made anti-Semitic comments on his podcast. In the June 30 episode of “Cannon’s Class,” the actor and TV host interviewed Professor Griff, a rapper who was a part of Public Enemy before leaving the group after making anti-Semitic remarks.
On the podcast, Cannon said Black people are the “true Hebrews” and talked about anti-Semitic conspiracy theories involving the Rothschild family.
“It’s never hate speech, you can’t be anti-Semitic when we are the Semitic people,” Cannon said. “When we are the same people who they want to be. That’s our birthright. We are the true Hebrews.”
A ViacomCBS spokesperson released a statement to Variety, saying that the company’s relationship with Cannon is now terminated.
“ViacomCBS condemns bigotry of any kind and we categorically denounce all forms of anti-Semitism. We have spoken with Nick Cannon about an episode of his podcast ‘Cannon’s Class’ on YouTube, which promoted hateful speech and spread anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. While we support ongoing education and dialogue in the fight against bigotry, we are deeply troubled that Nick has failed to acknowledge or apologize for perpetuating anti-Semitism, and we are terminating our relationship with him. We are committed to doing better in our response to incidents of anti-Semitism, racism, and bigotry. ViacomCBS will have further announcements on our efforts to combat hate of all kinds,” the company said.
On Monday, Cannon said on Twitter and Facebook that he has “no hate in my heart nor malice intentions” and doesn’t condone hate speech. He also said that he holds himself “accountable for this moment” and takes full responsibility for his actions.
Variety is minimizing or glossing over some of Nick’s most outlandish and offensive claims on the podcast, like when he claimed that Jewish people control the global banking system and that Louis Farrakhan has always been right about everything, and that “Zionists” have “too much power.” The whole thing was a greatest hits of anti-Semitic conspiracies found on neo-Nazi, alt-right and white supremacist sites and forums. I have no doubt that Nick Cannon is profoundly ignorant, but he absolutely has access to avenues to educate himself. He’s completely wrong and ViacomCBS is right to tell him to GTFO.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
He Dr. Sebi’d himself out of a job.
NC is also a problematic misogynist POS. He’s a troll too. I remember he came for Oprah after she did that special where she interviewed the two men who accused MJ of molesting them. He posted a pic of her at some industry party with Harvey Weinstein “demanding” she explain herself. He can go f@ck himself.
I have been seeing pics of her with many questionable people lately… Epstein, kissing Weinstein on the cheek, promoting John of God
Yes, my apologies. BW always have to explain themselves. Of course, Oprah knew these men were rapists and pedophiles 🙄. They didn’t hang out with any other celebrities but yet Oprah is the only that needs to explain herself.
I’ve never heard of this John of God guy, so I looked it up. They did an episode about him on her show like 10 years ago, and then some follow up in 2012/2013. Someone in her position is going to interact with thousands and thousands of people. Some of them are going to turn out to be monsters.
I’d rather give her crap for her long time support and promotion of Dr Oz and Dr Phil.
I’ve lived in the Gulf and the Levant and I’ve heard the conspiracy theories he’s alluding to a million times. It goes something like this:
“The Jews are conspiring to control the world. American politicians are all Jewish. The Jews control all global banking. The Rothschild family owns all the Central Banks in the world and are worth 22 trillion USD.”
I heard this from intelligent, well-educated, well-travelled people. From a peace-and-love-hippy. From just about everyone. I have literally printed out the religions of every member of the Senate and the House and all the Presidents etc. to show to people. I’ve had arguments with people where I’m trying to explain that the Central / Reserve Bank of my country (Australia) is not owned by the Rothschilds, it is owned by the people of Australia with independent governance and checks and balances. There are a lot of people who believe these conspiracy theories down to their bones.
I haven’t heard the one about African Americans being the “true Hebrews” but there certainly are African Jews. Indeed, a large number of Ethiopian Jews (known as Beta Israel) were rescued from Sudan in the 80s (I know a former navy seal who was part of the rescue operation) and from Addis Ababa in the 90s. You can see the wonderful influences Ethiopian cuisine (which is amazing) has had on Israeli cuisine when you go there. There are/were also Jewish communities in India and other parts of the world. Israelis certainly aren’t all white or entirely of European descent. They come from communities around the Middle East, from Africa, from India and other parts of the world too.
It’s interesting that it’s common to perceive Semitic as Jewish when in fact Semitic technically refers to people who speak Semitic languages including Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic and Maltese. Arabs are Semitic too. And yet antisemitic has become anti-Jewish. That’s pretty much the only way we use it these days.
In any case, he seems like a conspiracy theorist to the hilt with a healthy dosage of antisemitism. I have no idea why he would feel the need to deny non-black Jewish people their identity. The conspiracy theories about Jewish power are pretty common amongst people who are really anti-Israel – it all ties together.
He is a black supremacist. And his twitter is full of people agreeing with him that jews and white people are animal like and lack souls. Nick Cannon is no better than the MAGAs. I hope they fire him off the masked singer too. Chapelle was right!
Wait….what did Chapelle say?
Chapelle said fuck Nick Cannon. Youtube it! Its a skit basically. It doesnt mean that Chapelle hates Nick, but he does imply that he doesnt think Cannon is funny.
Black supremacist is not a thing. please stop promoting ignorance that minimizes African Americans
Then what is the right term?
Then what would you call a black person who believes blackness is the “superior race”? It is a thing according to wikipedia and google, and it makes sense that its a thing. So maybe dont tell me what words to use. Google it yourself and learn something?
Wrong. It might be rare, but it is a thing. There are absolutely some Black people who believe in the superiority of the Black race and consider others inferior. I came upon a site run by a Black supremacist some years ago and I remember how he kept referring to white women as “cave women”.
Black Lady Here. Yes, Black Supremacy is a thing. Stay in your lane. Thank you.
Farrakhan is the first person who would admit he is a black supremacist.
Read up.
Let’s talk about how he didn’t apologize, even in a ‘sorry you were offended’ kind of way. He doesn’t believe he’s being harmful or even that he could be misinformed.
Also, I was told once I should write it ‘antisemitism’ instead of ‘anti-Semitism’ because there is no ‘Semitism’; it’s simply the word we use to convey someone is being hateful to Jewish people. But I’ve never read or heard anything about it elsewhere and thought I’d ask about it here.
I hadn’t heard that before, but the ADL agrees that there should be no hyphen. https://www.adl.org/spelling
Thanks for mentioning it.
Thank you for the research!
He has a whole long winded ‘apology’ on his facebook where he ends it with retracting his apology. His followers are just as hateful as him. Don’t read the comments unless you want to rage and throw up.
Awful. That’s just gross and mean all around.
the statement he released came off like he was doubling down on the it’s all the Jewish cabal controlling the media & banks trying to destroy me (without actually saying Jews). Apparently we white Jews aren’t Semitic we’re all white Europeans that stole being Jewish from real Jews. 95% of what I’m seeing is his supporters 100% agreeing with him and saying it’s not antisemitism plus Jews never did anything to help Black people and are everything bad he said. It’s incredibly demoralizing. On the bright side, both sides of the political spectrum still hate us and will always hate us no matter what so at least I know where I stand?
That’s heartbreaking and gross. It’s not fair that so many people are so willfully ignorant and bigoted and they don’t deal with the consequences, you do. And it’s especially ridiculous that we’re having this conversation only because Nick Cannon is a jerk.
Nick Cannon is under the illusion that getting his BA from Howard this year makes him some sort of an academic of great caliber. I applaud him for having a desire to learn but he does realize that he married & procreate with the elusive chantuese right? Disqualified
How is MC the problem? She’s vain, sometimes a little ridiculous about how thin she wants to look. It’s a shame because she already has enviable face Skin hair and body, why make yourself seem insecure?
She doesn’t say stupid things that hurt people. She’s a domestic abuse survivor. She stands up for Black lives without resorting to far fetched conspiracies about white and Jewish people . She seems to be raising her kids right.
Her Instagram is pleasant, but not shallow, and never annoying. I remember when they broke up and she said she’ll never comment on his turban. I got the impression that she was so very over him, like she found out something that was a total turn off. Here it is, his ignorance. I dumped someone like that too. It’s not the same ideas of trumpers but I think the same kind of personalities get obsessed with these hateful conspiracy theories. My ex wasn’t hateful to any culture but his arrogance and hate for facts and research was such a turn off. Because when I challenged him seemed so stupid and unable to explain the far fetched beliefs. In contrast my current partner may say some ignorant things here and there about Jewish people since he was raised like that (arab from Arab country and his dad says that kind of stuff) but when corrected he acts rationally and I think it’s been quite a while that he said anything. Ignorant men are such a turn off! I’m also thinking of 2 of my friends husbands , Who convinced my friends not to vaccinate their kids or to do it late, because of their « internet research . » I’m sure MCs new man is much nicer and calmer.
Antisemitism is a problem with BLM. But most antisemitism is not Currently from BLM. It’s a big part of white supremacy Terrorism and Islamic terrorism too.
MC is most definitely NOT the problem. I love her in all her glittering butterfly glory & I also think she’s a vain idiot. I guess in a not so nice pot shot at MC I was making fun of Cannons history of stupidity. You’re right though & I retract my MC mention.
NC has been really losing it the last few years. He kept trying to start a fight with Eminem and released 3 “diss tracks” to try to get Em to respond. It was really sad and thirsty. Em sent a tweet that was somehow better than all 3 of NC “diss tracks”
They both suck. Louis Farrakhan too, he’s been awful for years.
I thought he’d lost it with his anti choice rhetoric a couple of years ago but now? See ya
Why does there always have to be THAT guy. I didn’t even know NC was still actively working, so I’m happy to continue to ignore him going forwards.
I’ve seen a lot of these conspiracy theories on social media about Africans being the “real” Hebrews. I’ve also seen a fair amount of people saying that the Native Americans were actually black, and that the reports of Africans being brought to the Americas on slave ships are lies.
As a black person and first gen American, these theories just make me sad, because they are obviously rooted in feelings of inferiority and self-hate. It’s as if being black/ African is not good enough, and they have to believe that they came from somewhere else.
This is why I think it’s important for schools to teach about African history *before* slavery. And not just Egypt, but West and Central Africa. People need to know that we have a rich history and culture of our own, long before slavery and colonization.
A lot of it could stem from self hate. But there is also that certain personality type that just reeks with self importance and arrogance. Cannon strikes me as one of those.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has identified an antisemitic hate group based in San Diego who espouses the idea that Native Americans, Black people, and Latinx peoples are the true 12 Tribes of Israel. That group has a specific name that I don’t want to type because I don’t want to give it more attention, but a search on ADL’s site will turn up an article that profiles them.
I think that most if not all extremist, supremacist movements are first expressions of fear and self-loathing. Like any cult, they’re often started by charismatic narcissists who recruit lost, scared, angry people who feel generally disconnected from society and are manipulated into becoming true believers. The major difference between hate groups and cults, however is that violence is directed outward with hate groups, while most religious and nonreligious cults tend to isolate and abuse/murder only their members. There’s plenty of violence and abuse toward members within the hate group atmosphere, too, but their uniting purpose is to commit violent acts against the segments of society their leaders have deemed targets. So while I think you’re correct to note that there is an underlying anti-Blackness within this group’s espoused ideology, it’s also just part of a really simple, consistent framework of disconnection used by other groups that don’t share these specific beliefs but want to control their members.
This idea is basically Mormonism.
Very true! I think the hate groups go a lot further than that, but there’s also an interesting coincidence between the Mormon “black people are black because of the curse of Ham“ thing/“black people are black because their spirits were bad during pre-existence or whatever” thing and the hate groups’ “white people are the devil.”
Anthropology major and current teacher here. I’m always so disappointed at the extremely narrow focus when it comes to teaching Black history in America. It’s basically…they were slaves, then they were freed, then Jim Crow, then MLK, and Black people lived happily ever after. (And because I’m in NYC, we throw a little Harlem Renaissance in the mix at the high school level.) I really didn’t learn more until I spent time in Africa on research projects. African history is so rich and beautiful and often completely BADASS. It’s disgraceful to reduce Black people to just “former slaves.” Black kids need to be taught how amazing their ancestors were. White kids need to learn about it so they won’t grow up to be racist MAGA types who think Black people should just shut up and be grateful for every tiny crumb we throw their way.
My nephew just graduated from HS so I asked him about what Black American History was covered and it sounded like they get a Black History module and if they want to learn more they have to join the schools BSA. It’s an absolute disgrace that I didn’t learn about the Tulsa Race Massacre until I saw Watchmen. It’s a disgrace we weren’t taught about Black Wall Street or how everything that is referred to as a “race riot” in US history was really white racist rampages (which isn’t the image conjured up when you hear the words “race riot”). It’s a disgrace we didn’t learn about redlining and that we got a very sanitized education on the civil rights movement. All of that was by design because I think they knew that if impressionable & idealistic minds knew the truth, we wouldn’t have been so complacent with the status quo
This sounds like Black Israelite talking points. For those unaware, it’s essentially a cult that pushes these ideas that blacks are the real Jewish people. I wonder if he has been sucked into the cult. They have a pretty strong power base in NYC, DC, and Atlanta.
There’s a chapter in south Louisiana, too.
They have a chapter in my city. They basically stand on street corners and scream at people. They are also viciously misogynistic. They are pro black man, not woman. They attack any black woman they view as insufficiently submissive to men. My dad worked with one years ago and come to find out that he beat his wife to death and is serving a life sentence. They are genuinely toxic, evil people.
ironically, they’re not a liberal group
My grandfather started a civil rights organization in the 60’s which included people of various cultures. I’m a 58 black woman who lived and went to school in an area that was majority Jewish. I never had a problem with a Jewish person. I was brought up to judge a person as an individual. When others start talking about others, I make my comment then remove myself.
He’s anti-adoption too. He’s just a horrible person who got away with his hatred for so long.
Wow. Whos against adoption. Thats just mean. There are so many kids in need of homes.
I am not anti-adoption, but the modern system of adoption has huge systemic problems including predatory “crisis pregnancy centers” that manipulate women into giving up their child to wealthy white Christian couples.
As a non-Christian, we could not find a single agency in our red state that would work with us specifically due to our religious beliefs.
I’m glad he was fired. This is reprehensible. Nick Cannon knows better. His aunt was the esteemed Rev. Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon, the first African-American woman ordained in the United Presbyterian Church. She was the best professor I ever had, and knowing her changed my life. Nick undoubtedly had all the access to her he would have wanted. She could easily have advised him about Farrakhan. Familiarize yourself with the actual Cannon family worthy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katie_Cannon
“The Hinges Upon Which The Future Swings”
https://www.africanatlanticdaughters.com/2016/04/26/the-hinges-upon-which-the-future-swings/
Thank you for sharing this — Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon sounds like an amazing person and just reading the first few lines of the article about teaching Afrocentricity is compelling. I will definitely dive in later!
He’s also a hypocrite. His ex-wife is mixed race (including being 1/2 white). His twins are mixed people. Is he going to tell his kids that they are bad because they are lighter skinned then him? How does his reconcile this with his own family?
I’ve actually known people like this – who have relationships or relations with people of other racial backgrounds but turn around and say bigoted stuff, and I always struggle to understand it. Do they see them as different because they’re “yours” as opposed to everyone else?
I think he said melanin=soul. So his kids being mixed would mean they do have some soul. Just not as much as Nick?
That’s what I’m trying to figure out! If he’s arguing that white people have less soul, does that mean his 1/4 white kids (Mariah’s mom is white) have less than him? Or does he see them as outside of it? Like, I see how some black people can embrace this worldview, but Nick is surprising, given his marriage and children. You’d think he’d feel differently.
I’ve known NC to be extremely problematic after he went off on a rant against pro-choice a while back. He’s always been a dangerous-thinking whackadoodle & I’m having problems now trying to understand why people are just waking up to this. People will tell you who they are….& NICK did a LONG TIME AGO.
I just wanted to say that while I appreciate that we don’t give a lot of room or space for any extremist groups on this platform, a serious conversation should be taking place about the whitewashing (and I mean that in all the ways) of Louis Farrakhan.
LF sand the NoI have a long history of antisemitic and separatist ideology that they hide behind political rhetoric and what they call Islamic faith, but in the current model looks a lot more like Scientology in practice (members now actively study Dianetics and are trained as auditors). Though they claim to seek the intellectual, moral, social, and economic liberation of their members, they function like a cult and claims of member abuse — especially the abuse of women — are rampant. The SPLC tracks the NoI as a hate group.
LF has *always* been problematic and took the politicized rhetoric of the NoI to new nadirs of hate every time he’s ever opened his mouth. But many celebrities — including white celebrities — have recently found some of the things he has said about the intersections of race and class, and how white supremacy fuels so much of our society’s systems and boosted his signal because we’re *not* having important conversations about hate groups in this country. A broken clock can be right twice a day and if it has Louis Farrakhan’s face on it, it spews hate and should not be glorified or amplified for any reason. Whenever LF makes a salient point, he usually backs it up with 10,000 words of psychobabble and violence, but he also knows how to reach white audiences, and can at times seem almost reasonable and normal. But lots of people, like Chelsea Handler, don’t know how manipulative he is because, as a society, we don’t talk about race in meaningful ways, and that includes honest discussions about antisocial responses to oppression. Even this article calls out the extremist beliefs of people like Nick Cannon as “white supremacist” talking points, but in this context they’re not. Though these groups share some overlapping beliefs, black supremacist groups exist and do a lot of harm, mostly in their communities (because if you’re not one of them, you’re the enemy too!). Black supremacy is *not* what Terry Crews thinks it is, but it is no less real, and not talking about it all puts their leaders in prime positions to infiltrate the mainstream and more importantly, reach disaffected, malleable young people, through celebrities and athletes.
I’m not saying we have to talk about it here all the time, but we should be talking about it. LF and those like him cultivate their power in the silent darkness.
weird tidbit about Nation of Islam: they have some weird ass relationship with Scientology
Hope that Fox does the right thing and fires him off The Masked SInger. I will be boycotting the station if they do not. Sad because I love many of their shows.
I just read they are standing with him after he issued his half-ass fake apology.
Definitely boycotting The Masked Singer, and anything else he’s a part of.
Wait…. Mariah is half jewish…. this is crazy. Imagine how she and the kids must feel.
She isn’t half-Jewish. She’s Irish, Black, & Afro-Venezuelan according to Wikipedia.
I don’t really think she’s half Jewish
He shouldve been fired. Good riddance!
I read his statements, it looks like Nick Cannon lost his mind.
I love how people give half-ass apologies only after getting called out, and dropped from companies. I don’t find it the least bit sincere, and I highly doubt that he would have apologized on his own.
#nickcannnonsfakeapology
#saynotonickcannon