I wouldn’t recommend trying to make that distinction to your significant other after an argument 
Asking sincerely, has Macklemore said anything in the past that was antisemitic? There’s no excuse for that costume, but I’m trying to figure out if this was part of a pattern or a one-off.
Seems to be some kind of pattern:
I don’t believe him. And i wouldn’t have believed your suggested apology, either, although that one sounds more like, “i won’t do it again”. What did he think his costume was supposed to look like?
When i saw the photo, my first thought wasn’t , “that’s jew-face!”, it was, “is he playing Tevye in amateur theater somewhere?” And i don’t really have a problem with a gentile dressing up as a Jew for a neutral or respectful reason.
But a non Jew dressing up as a Jew to sing about being frugal seems pretty offensive.
I mean, coincidences happen, and “Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action” is sometimes a good way to grant grace (even if it’s a James Bond villain kind of grace). I’m probably too willing to believe folks’ apologies, and if he’d made an apology that took full responsibility for being clueless and promised to do better, I’d accept it provisionally [edit: part of the provision being that I’m not the party that needs an apology in the first place, he’s not feeding into gross stereotypes about me].
But he didn’t, so the whole thing’s moot. His apology basically blamed other people for reading into his costume and made himself the victim. Even if he were incredibly clueless, which seems unlikely, it was a shitty apology.
This is peak Babale here. We started trying to discuss important issues, and now we’re parsing 17 year old Tweets in an effort to discern the precise personal beliefs of one particular D list celebrity.
I actually don’t think this incident is as irrelevant as you imply; a lot of the little details about this incident go to the heart of popular debate about the war, from the involvement of Robert Kraft to antisemitism in Palestine advocacy. Plus, it’s broken containment and involves names many Americans know, which sort of creates importance.
No, you started with playing buzzword bingo.
Maybe you should blame your ideological allies. You guys could have easily just not defended the obvious antisemite. But for some reason, not defending obvious antisemitism seems impossibly difficult for the pro-Palestinian movement, outside of a handful of people like LHOD.
I think the big picture is that this is an outrageous example of an oligarch using his economic power to punish someone for exercising his right to free speech.
It’s possible to argue, based on his history, that Macklemore is such an obvious hateful anti-Semite that this extreme measure was reasonable. But I feel pretty certain that anyone making that argument, and digging up cites to support it, is trying harder to justify Kraft’s actions than Kraft himself did.
Defending the right of people we disagree with to peacefully express their opinions is kind of fundamental to the philosophy of liberalism, which I believe you claim to subscribe to.
Indeed, but I’m also familiar with the Paradox of Tolerance.
Well, what’s your standard? Should everyone who says “Free Palestine” be shunned by polite society? Even if, like Macklemore, they explicitly deny being anti-Semitic? That’s just not a remotely feasible proposal in 2026 America.
I’m sure you’re currently typing up a post that pretends that all Macklemore said was “Free Palestine” and how could that possibly be objectionable to Liberal values?
The thing is, that’s bullshit. People who talk about Sinwar the way I quoted above are not liberals, and when they come crying to me about liberal values, I can only think of this quote:
When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles.
Stop being a useful idiot for an ideology that detests you and wants to destroy everything you find valuable, like racial and religious tolerance.
Called it.
No, I don’t think that anyone who says “Free Palestine” should be shunned by polite society. I do think that anyone who glazes Sinwar or praises people who do should be shunned by polite society, though.
You realize how hilarious this part of your post is, right?
I mean, Elon and Trump both explicitly deny being racist, so I guess it’s all good!
If you told me 5 years ago that someone to my left would be arguing that if someone does something racist but explicitly says that they weren’t being racist we should take them at their word, I’d have recommended a mental institution.
I agree that explicit praise of Sinwar is well beyond what should be tolerated. I do not agree with the validity of your favorite argument tactic of saying “This person once said something nice about this organization, which proves that they are thoroughly familiar with the organization and completely endorse everything they have ever posted online”. Once you decide someone is your enemy, you refuse to give them the benefit of any doubt whatsoever and assume they are lying if they deny holding reprehensible beliefs.
Sure you do, if it’s about someone to your right. If someone “said something nice” about an organization that praised the KKK, and that person didn’t immediately denounce them when this came to light, you would (rightly [no pun intended]) call them the fuck out.
You are completely blind to bad faith behavior from your left. You seem completely convinced that it’s impossible for there to be Illiberalism on your left flank and you bend over backwards to interpret anything a left wing person as favorably as possible to avoid calling them illiberal.
Thing is, that’s exactly how Republicans behaved towards their right flank, which is how the Tea Party and then MAGA took over.
I just can’t tell if you’re doing this because you want to “own the righties” the way they always wanted to “own the libs”, or if you actually agree with more of that far left flank than you want to let on.
To me this is where it gets fuzzy.
And not trying to play gotcha or anything … but for me it is often useful to consider the mirror image.
So yeah praising Trump or Bibi, who are supportive of whatever word we use is from point of view bad shit. Do I want to be giving them a stage to do that? No. Do I support their right to do it? Yes. Is it hate speech? No, independent of if one believes that Trump and Netanyahu have uttered hate speech.
But no clear bright line. Praising Hitler would cross . So hard to say where it crosses.
I do draw a distinction between someone who just obviously is a racist but denies it and someone who is willing to cross the line and openly identify as a racist. The former agrees with the basic premise that racism is bad, and is thus vulnerable to arguments that force him to acknowledge his actions are racist and change his behavior, even if only to avoid social disapproval. As much as I detest Trump, I would rather have him as President than Nick Fuentes or David Duke.
Yeah, but that’s just a false equivalency. Trump and Bibi are odious shitbag politicians. Sinwar was a terrorist. Praise for a politician I disagree with and detest is not the same as praise for a murderous terrorist.