Tag: Dwayne Wade

ViacomCBS announced early Wednesday that the media company had ended their relationship with artist Nick Cannon after the singer/host made wildly offensive anti-semitic comments on his podcast.

On the podcast, called ‘Cannon’s Class‘ and which can be found on YouTube, the “Masked Singer” host repeated anti-semitic conspiracy theories often subscribed to Louis Farrakhan, whose organization the Nation of Islam, has been classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“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.”

Cannon also went on a long, rambling rant about the Rothschild family, devolving often into the kind of circular reasoning that makes very little actual sense.

Given the recent focus on all forms of social justice, many have rightly called out Cannon for his words and demanded accountability. Still, the host has gotten public support from some of his famous friends including Diddy and former NBA star Dwyane Wade.

In a since deleted tweet, Wade showed his support for Cannon after Viacom fired him, saying “We are with you, keep leading,” along with an emoji of a raised fist.

https://twitter.com/DwyaneWade/status/1283460478945996801

The tweet spurned much backlash as many called out Wade for supporting Cannon and not acknowledging the severity of what he said.

Wade posted another tweet two hours later, clarifying his first tweet.

I want to clarify my now deleted tweet. I was not supporting or condoning what Nick Cannon specifically said, but I had expressed my support of him owning the content and brand he helped create 🙏🏾

— DWade (@DwyaneWade) July 15, 2020

Though Cannon has issued an apology for his words, it’s not nearly enough.

“I have no hate in my heart nor malice intentions,” he said on Twitter. “I do not condone hate speech nor the spread of hateful rhetoric. We are living in a time when it is more important than ever to promote unity and understanding.”

To be clear, Cannon’s comments were reprehensible and not the kind of thing that can be easily glossed over.  It’s fair to say that if he truly believed what he said on the podcast, it would take some serious commitment to unlearning that kind of thinking.

To see Wade support him, even in the context of his business rights, is equally disappointing, considering the track record he and his wife Gabrielle Union, have of trying to empower marginalized groups.  Both have advocated vocally and powerfully for their child, who is transgender, yet Wade failed to extend that level of empathy and equality towards the group that Cannon maligned.

It’s a regrettable lapse in judgement and hopefully Wade can fully see past his friendship with Cannon and acknowledge the ways in which what he said was not just needlessly harmful but perpetuates to the systemic oppression of a marginalized group.

Cannon’s comments also come on the heels of DeSean Jackson’s anti-semitic Instagram posts, revealing a troubling trend of two oppressed groups turning against each other. That history is complicated and deep, and as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar pointed out in a recent editorial in The Hollywood Reporter, even more reason to be unified in the fight against injustice.

These famous, outspoken people share the same scapegoat logic as all oppressive groups from Nazis to the KKK: all our troubles are because of bad-apple groups that worship wrong, have the wrong complexion, come from the wrong country, are the wrong gender or love the wrong gender. It’s so disheartening to see people from groups that have been violently marginalized do the same thing to others without realizing that perpetuating this kind of bad logic is what perpetuates racism.