Did you read the article on the relationship between Kanye West and Adidas on the front page of yesterday’s New York Times? If not, I suggest you do, and read it through, although it runs about five pages. Why? Because I think it shows a lot of what’s wrong with the world today.

Now, I guess Kanye West is or was some sort of a rap star or something. From this, you can assume that I have never (consciously at least) listened to any of his music. And don’t want to. But I guess is must be good at what he does, because Wikipedia says that he has sold 160,000,000 records (not sure what a “record” is these days) and won 24 Grammys.

He also is in the shoe business, having had some sort of an arrangement with Adidas for the last ten years. Now, I don’t know really what this means, except that his name on a large number of shoe designs has made Adidas Adidas (or at least allowed Adidas to remain Adidas) and – along with his music royalties – has made Kanye West a billionaire.

He is also someone who suffers from mental illness. And it appears his mental illness – perhaps a serious form of a bi-polar condition – along with his ego, and presumably emboldened by his success, has made him a rather dangerous figure, subject to personal outbursts and acts of irrational behavior, but also someone expressing strong antisemitic feelings (he is a Holocaust denier) and and someone engaged in an apparent bromance with Adolf Hitler, and another with Donald Trump.

It’s all too much, for sure. But one thing it has not seemed to have done is slow down his sale of shoes. And it hasn’t hurt Adidas.

You can go to azlyrics.com, and look at the lyrics to hundreds of his songs. I sampled a few, and they are not the kind of lyrics I would recommend for people under or over 18. They promote all the wrong things, they use the infamous “n-word” over and over, but they must hit a chord in a lot of people. Shouldn’t society be discouraging this, rather than encouraging it?

And, as the article points out, Adidas is a German company, and West (I guess his name is now Ye, which is hardly even a syllable, much less a name, IMOH) confronts them with swastika imagines, antisemitism, and Holocaust denial (all of which is illegal in Germany)” and they turn aside and sing “My God, how the money rolls in”.

“I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.” Remember that? Remember when Twitter suspended him for posting a picture of a swastika? Did you see where the Times says West told a Jewish Adidas manager to kiss a picture of Hitler daily?

We are clearly facing an antisemitism problem in the United States and the western world today. As I have said before, I think this is mainly a result of Israel bashing by those who believe that the entire Middle East is God-ordained Muslim country, and by those who have strong anti-colonial feelings and believe that Israel is a European colonial outpost in someone else’s land. Were it not for this, we would still be facing traditional antisemitism to be sure, but not to the extent we see it now. By letting uber influences like Kanye West double down on antisemitic tropes and images, we only make the problem worse.

A few days ago, when I wrote a post about campus antisemitism, I talked about the influence of anti-colonial thinking on “progressive” or “left wing” academics, and how this has now spilled over to feelings about Israel, forming the basis of antisemitism activities on campuses, along with expected Muslim anti-Israel feelings and how, as Jews generally oppose this overall, the anti-Israel feelings morph into general antisemitism. Some thought I was overplaying the anti-colonial aspect of the problem. I was gratified, therefore, because when Edie and I watched David Harris interview Charles Asher Small, the executive director of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, on TV last night, on the subject of campus antisemitism, Dr. Small immediately talked about anti-colonialism studies at major universities.

He then added something that I know nothing about and said that ISGAP was soon to issue a major piece on the subject: large amounts of money coming in (some illegally) from Arab countries – he cited Qatar particularly – to American Universities to set up programs to study anti-colonialism and other subjects, controlling much of the curriculum development in ways to lean to anti-Israel support. We will see what this is when it is released.

Where did we see the interview? On JBS, the Jewish Broadcasting Service, which you receive in Washington on FIOS on channel 798. Worth looking at their schedule and picking what interests you.

Until tomorrow….where I will try to pick a more uplifting subject.