Kanye West Takes Back ‘Ignorant Compliment’

Image by Getty Images
Kanye West told a Chicago radio station that he wants to take back the “ignorant compliment” he made about Jews.
The rapper referred to a comment he made last month during an interview on the New York City radio station WWPR-FM. In defending President Obama’s difficulty in passing his policies, West said, “Black people don’t have the same level of connections as Jewish people.”
“I thought that I was giving a compliment, but it came off more ignorant,” West said last week in an interview with the Chicago radio station B96. “When I said this comment about Jews having money, and blacks not having money, I think it was, like, a ‘ignorant compliment.’
“I don’t know how being told that you have money is, like, an insult,” he added.
The original comments had raised the ire of the Anti-Defamation League, while Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan defended West and said he should not apologize.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
