Dave Smith and Robbie the Fire Bernstein analyze Kanye West's backlash, arguing that cancel culture validates conspiracy theories rather than dismantling them. They contend West's claims about Jewish control lack evidence, attributing media dominance to merit and systemic exploitation instead of coordinated plots. The hosts critique the Black Israelite movement as performative absurdity and challenge the "victim mentality" of comparing modern events to Nazi Germany. Ultimately, they assert that power dynamics dictate the severity of speech, urging logical rebuttal over suppression while dismissing global obsessions with West's remarks as unnecessary distraction. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
|
Time
Text
Opposing Cancel Culture00:15:45
Fill her up.
You're listening to the Gash Digital Network.
We need to roll back the state.
We spy on all of our own citizens.
Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
You're listening to part of the problem on the Gas Digital Network.
Here's your host, Dave Smith.
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Heart of the Problem.
I am Dave Smith.
He's Robbie the Fire Bernstein back in full effect.
COVID Jesus, the king of the caulks.
What's up, my brother?
How you feeling today?
I'm doing great.
And let me tell the fans that they got to buy some tickets.
You know, everyone waits the last minute.
They make me all nervous.
I'm like, shit, I got to go to these towns and sell drugs, make back my plane tickets.
So thefireticks.com, load up.
Texas, Austin, and with Justin Silver this weekend, Fat Cats Comedy Club.
So I got good shit going.
All right.
Absolutely.
Go out there, guys.
Go see Robbie the Fire Live.
He's a fucking phenomenal stand-up comic.
You're going to have a great time.
Anyone who's come out to our shows will tell you Rob is killer.
Very, very funny stuff.
And then, of course, you can come see both of us in Poughkeepsie, New York in late November, 25th, 26th.
ComicdaveSmith.com for those tickets.
Oh, and don't forget New Year's Eve.
I'll be back returning to the comedy store with Louis J. Gomez.
All right.
You know what I'm going to do?
I just came up with a great plan.
I'm going to plan shows that don't exist and then just say that they sold out.
So then people stop waiting till last minute.
And then I don't even have to go to the towns because no tickets will have ever been available.
There you go.
Just start building the hype.
Sure, there's no money in it.
And sure, there's no action.
There's a lot of deception, but yeah, you got a plan.
Rob knows what's up.
All right.
So the few things that I wanted to talk about with you today, Rob, that I thought would be interesting topics for the podcast.
I thought, first of all, there's been an insane thing going on, as I'm sure you're well aware, everyone's well aware, with Kanye West, who has been, it seems like thoroughly pretty, I don't know even how to say it.
He's been canceled in the sense that his social media has all been taken away from him, but he's also been doing big interviews.
So I don't exactly know what you call that.
I'm trying to find Yeezys on the cheap.
That's what I'm trying to do.
I want to get dicked out.
Yeah, well, you might be able to now.
Recently, Adidas cut ties with him.
And anyway, he's just facing a ton of heat.
It's a very interesting situation because he is not say, he's just so huge and is such a big cultural figure that it is really, it is something to attempt to cancel him.
Now, of course, what's going on with all of this is that he, you know, Kanye has said a lot of stuff over the last few years.
He's had some moments where he said some pretty wild and provocative things.
I remember he said a couple years ago that I think he said slavery was voluntary or something like that, and blacks were only enslaved because they chose to be something along those lines.
I don't want to butcher.
I don't remember exactly what he said, but it was something like that.
It was pretty wild.
Well, that one makes sense.
Yeah.
No, my thing is, I'm saying he's been on point for a while now.
So he's been nailing it for years.
I don't fault him on the Jewish thing because from what I understand, someone told him that Pete Davidson was Jewish.
And so he's just a little upset right now.
I always knew Pete Davidson would be responsible for leading the second Holocaust by getting us all back in trouble.
And then he'll end up walking.
He'll end up skating fine.
Okay.
So anyway, so there's just a lot of things in this story that kind of converge, a lot of different topics.
And some of them are things that me and you talk about quite a lot, like, you know, kind of cancel culture and this type of stuff.
And then there's also the issue of Kanye.
So what, for people who don't know, what really sprung on this round of him getting in trouble at a different level than ever before is he started going off on the Jews.
But apparently, here's the good news.
We actually really are powerful because we managed to cost some guy $2 billion in one day.
Yeah.
So I would have thought this was all conspiracy.
I'm like, me and you, we got no fucking power.
But apparently you cross us and you're off the map.
It is, it is interesting the way it all goes down like that.
Well, I just think that me and you, we kind of have an interesting, I think, I think a somewhat different perspective on this than most people do.
Of course, as I'm sure some of you know, both me and Rob are Jewish.
We're also, you know, libertarians.
We're also completely opposed to cancel culture and all this stuff.
So it all kind of like, I don't know, comes together.
So I will say, as far as this goes and what, yeah, we also are Nazis.
So there you go.
We've got all of these things going for us.
I think that I don't know that I saw every comment Kanye made.
I know there was there was one thing where he posted something about how he's going to go DEF CON on the Jews.
There was another thing where he posted screenshots that were evidently text messages with him and Puffy.
And he was like, I know the Jews control you and shit like that.
You know, and what's interesting kind of about this too, I saw some clips of his interview with Lex Friedman and his interview with Piers Morgan is that he's not backing down on it.
The typical pattern is that someone says something like this, all types of corporate hell rains down on them.
And then they apologize.
They do a photo op with a rabbi or something and they go, he's been teaching me all about how to, you know, how to talk to Jewish people.
Oh my God, I'm so sorry.
And then if it blows over, it blows over because they did all of that.
This is different.
Kanye is not backing down.
And it's just kind of interesting to see where this all goes.
Sometimes people are, it seems, almost too big to be canceled.
The other interesting thing is that I believe as of today, Elon Musk officially owns Twitter.
So what does that mean for people like Kanye, people like Donald Trump and stuff like that who have been, who have lost their accounts?
Do they get them back?
I guess we don't know.
We'll have to wait and time will tell on that one.
All right.
Maybe the first thing I would say about this is, which I think is something that you kind of alluded to when you were joking around a second ago, is that I just, I am 100% opposed to the canceling of people.
I don't think it's good for anyone.
I don't think it helps any cause.
I mean, I guess you could say it's good for some people, but generally speaking, I don't think it's good.
I don't think it helps.
You know, if you're, if you're a Jew like me and you are, and you're, you find it very concerning that people would be talking the way that Kanye is.
And that's a, that's a huge problem.
As you kind of were poking at before, Rob, I mean, like, how do you make it look when that guy who makes this comment is then just like completely shut out of all of this thing and he's losing money left and right.
And they're writing these articles, kind of bragging, braggadociously saying like, well, he's not going to be a billionaire anymore.
He was on his way, but now he won't be.
He's lost all this money and like future revenue and all of this.
It goes, it just, it does kind of all it does is further like solidify for anyone who has these ideas that, yep, look, man, he could have said something about black people or white people or Muslim people or whatever, but there's this one group you're not allowed to say that about.
And if you do, God help you, you will be ruined.
How exactly is that?
If your concern, if your position is, which I suppose mine is, if your position is that like you don't want to see people talking about Jews this way, it's very dangerous when people are scapegoating Jews, blah, blah, blah.
How is it helpful to like demonstrably show that this is the situation?
You know what I mean?
Like, how, how at all is that helping your cause?
It's, it's like, it's the worst.
What you've seen after all of this is now a huge discussion all over about, oh, how much power do these Jews really have?
Like, that's what, that's what's going on all over social media.
And it's like, I don't know, just strategically from that point of view, you'd go, this is a really stupid way to combat it, especially if you, as I do, and we'll get into this in a second, think it's pretty, it's, it's just inaccurate and wrong to view things through this lens.
So how is it helpful to silence people like this?
So I want to start off.
I have full support of Kanye.
I hope he runs for president.
Even if it's against you, I got to bad Kanye.
My problem.
I might vote for him, even against me.
My problem with Kanye is that he's fucking boring and he takes too much time to make his racist points.
And I don't have the patience to sit there and actually watch this and figure out where he's coming from.
But and maybe this is my ignorance because I'm not a hip-hop fan.
So I don't know Kanye's influence.
I'm not that concerned with whatever he has to say.
He hasn't made a call for violence.
Like give the also, we know that the guy's got bipolar disorder.
He was saying stupid shit when he was running for presidency.
He's going through a divorce.
Just let him run his fucking mouth.
Who cares?
The fact that some celebrity has a, has a bad opinion.
You know what it sounds like when I listen to him talk?
He spent a little bit too much time at the park listening to like these black Israelite people and he has like their ideas like half memorized.
And then he's trying to repeat them and realizing while he's talking that they don't really make sense.
Yes.
Well, look, there is something else too about the fact that like, look, like you said, there's a guy who's definitely had has some mental health issues.
And I also find it to be, there's, there's a weird thing that we do or that I see done a lot in our culture where because we've so, you know, like we've made, you know, being racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, like all these things like such a focus, people will miss the bigger plot.
You know, I see like videos get shared sometimes and they're like, you know, whatever it is, like woman on the on the train yells N-word at people.
And then like, you know, someone will like hit her or something like that.
And they'll be like, oh, this racist woman got hit.
But then when you see the clip of her, she's just an insane person.
Like it's not, I don't know if racist is like the adjective I'd use.
It's like, no, this is a crazy person who like needs help and is screaming all types of insane things at people on the train.
And like, it's almost like this where we go, oh, you know, the issue there is she was racist.
It's like, no, I think crazy.
I think the issue there is that she was crazy.
And in this case, because I guess calling Kanye myself like that, by the way, I'm not suggesting that.
On the same note, even if he's being totally lucid, it's just give him a chance.
It's like, so he made one comment, everyone jumped on him.
And now he's just kind of being like a little bit gangster where he's like, all right, I'm going to press this button because don't fucking tell me what I can and can't say.
It's like, everyone's just got to relax.
Like also, if people are that against it, they don't have to buy a shit.
It's really not that complicated.
Look, I completely agree.
And like, look, you just, you, you don't want to go down a path of this path, which is, I guess, we've been going down for quite a while now as a society.
You don't, the guy is stating his position.
You don't have to agree with it.
And you can also find it like, you know, abhorrent or whatever.
Okay, fine.
But don't, I just don't believe in silencing people for state for having views that you don't disagree with.
Again, he wasn't calling for violence.
He wasn't doing anything like that.
I mean, I guess he said, I'm going DEF CON on the Jews, but no one took that to be a literal, like Kanye is going to be in the streets fucking with a sword going after Jewish people.
He was like saying I'm going to talk shit about them.
Again, it's like, I just don't, I don't think it's good or healthy.
I don't think it's the, it's the like moral response to any of this.
I think that if your position is that this is stupid and ignorant to believe in some type of Jewish conspiracy or something like that, then okay, demonstrate that, then win the argument.
I think that's like, you know what I mean?
Like that's, you're much better off, you know, like whatever, the old dumb cliche, you know, good ideas beat bad ideas.
And that's, I understand that's not always true, but it's still the much better strategic approach for good ideas.
You know, and then on top of that, I would also add, you know, and you see this, right?
Like we saw, I remember when Alex Jones first got canceled off everything.
And there were people like we were amongst the people who were like, whoa, this is like really concerning.
Like right away, we were like, wait a minute.
So you're telling me that all of these major companies clearly colluded together and decided we're all going to unperson someone right away.
And then there were lots of other people who were like, well, no, this is just Alex Jones is so horrible.
And that's why they're doing this to him.
And the thing he did with Sandy Hook, even though that was years ago already at this point, they're doing it just because he denied Sandy Hook.
And that's just like the worst thing ever.
And this isn't going to be a thing that like, oh, this is going to happen to everyone.
This is just for this one uniquely awful person, you know?
And now, just a few years later, we live in a world where people are kicked off all the time for all types of things.
People were kicked off of social media just for opposing vaccine mandates or opposing lockdowns and things like that.
You know what I mean?
It's just every, it's all over the place.
And so there is a real slippery slope argument to this stuff where like the idea of like, oh, we're going to shut somebody down or try to ruin them, you know, through business or through communications or any of these things, because they said this thing that you're not allowed to say.
If you are at all, like, if you are a complete supporter of the regime, if you just think like Joe Biden and the Democrats are the best thing ever and you're so glad that they're running the country and you completely support all of all of it, then okay, maybe you it makes sense for you to feel this way.
But if you're at all an opponent of the regime, if you're a dissident voice in any sense, how can you like not see this and go, oh yeah, that's kind of, this is a dangerous game to play.
Now all of a sudden they can just decide, okay, anything that's over this line means you're unpersoned, means we all go after you and try to ruin you.
Okay, what assurances do you have that that line's going to stay where that line is?
When has it ever stayed where the line is?
Look at every single thing that's considered wildly offensive to say today.
You know, the idea of even like saying there's such thing as boys and girls or something like that, would have no one, even the most like left-wing people would have never thought that was like an offensive thing to say when I was a teenager.
The Danger of Censorship00:03:36
And I was in my 20s, even.
Well, it really wasn't until I was in my 30s that that even became an offensive thing to say.
I don't know.
It's just this is a dangerous path to go down.
And likewise, like, I just think I'm sure, like, okay, when it comes to like social media companies and stuff like that, I um I think that sure, I would agree with like, you know, threats of violence, other types of criminal activity.
I'm sure there are things me and you would see that would be like, okay, I'd understand that being, you know, like banned.
But anybody who's just like making an argument, no matter how dumb you think the argument is, I just think that should be fucking, they should be allowed to do that.
I just don't think it's right to silence people for this stuff.
I think it's just an awful, it's an awful direction for us to go as a society.
Yeah, I'm way more afraid of the censorship than I am people saying dumb shit.
And then also I think the censorship of these ideas is what makes them more attractive, where people are like, oh, you know, that's when people start thinking like, oh, he must have been saying some truth because look, they shut him down.
And, you know, how rich do you got to be where you can just say dumb shit?
You know, like, I feel like you're on your right.
You make a billion dollars.
You're making a company $250 million a year.
You think you're finally in a position where you can be like, all right, I'm going to say some stupid shit because it's going to cost people a lot of money to censor me.
It's almost scary to think that Adidas would rather not weather the storm of him being a PR nightmare for a month than give up $250 million a year.
Yeah.
Well, he also specifically was like antagonizing them, Adidas.
Like he was going like, you can't cancel me, Adidas.
I'll say whatever the fuck I want to say.
And then they were like, all right, we just got him out.
Like, so, you know, look, I think that, again, as I was kind of getting to before, it I agree 100% with you.
As is as, you know, as a Jewish person, I am far more concerned by the negative repercussions from a society embracing censorship in this manner than I am about a few people spouting off about the Jews.
I also think that to whatever concern I have about people spouting off about the Jews, I think it's the worst way to tackle that is to say, well, this is the one thing you're not allowed to talk about.
This is like one area that we will come right down on you if you ever bring this up.
I just, it's like, it's again, I think you are working to give these ideas more fuel.
All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Sheath Underwear, the best, most comfortable underwear I have ever worn in my life, and is the only underwear that I wear.
You got to go check it out.
The stretchy fabric is made of a moisture wicking technology.
You feel these underwear.
You can just tell they're high quality.
And of course, they have the dual pouch system, which keeps your boys separated.
It is a game changer.
I highly recommend it.
And if you're not into the idea of the dual pouches, you don't have to use them.
You can just wear them like regular underwear.
They'll still be the most comfortable underwear you will ever own.
They're particularly good for hot environments.
They keep everything cool and comfortable.
Plus, as the weather's getting cold, they also have gator necks and hoodies and other stuff.
Go check them out.
Sheathunderwear.com.
Get the most comfortable underwear you will ever own.
Use the promo code problem20, and you will also get 20% off your entire order.
That's sheathunderwear.com, promo code problem20 for 20% off your order.
All right, let's get back into the show.
Defining Groups by Few00:15:14
I also think we're so dumb with our celebrities.
It's like you can be an incredible musician and not good at other things or an incredible business.
For example, Floyd Mayweather.
That guy doesn't know how to read.
Guess what, he might be one of the best people to get a boxing or a business lesson from, but if he starts wanting to talk to you about I don't know English literature, he doesn't know anything.
He wants to start talking about politics probably doesn't know all that much.
Maybe he starts talking about the sales and persuasion side of it or like just knowing like how, like people are working in a business deal.
So i'm just saying maybe Kanye is great at a bunch of stuff and he's not that all.
He's not all that good when it comes to his opinion on the Jews and it doesn't really matter.
Yeah yeah no look I I I, I completely agree with you and I agree with what you said earlier.
I mean look, i'm just like I don't know.
I'm unimpressed with the points Kanye West was making.
But like College Dropout was a really great album I don't know was.
I'm not allowed to listen.
Kanye West is one banger away from me, completely forgiving him for all the Jew stuff.
I don't really care, it is just none of this really matters to me.
I also don't like the um Or Kelly could write another hit from prison and i'd be like, go pee on chicks.
Yeah, one one one hit.
Um, we gave him the first, we gave him the first chick.
Society looked the other way.
We're like, all right, he believes he can fly.
He pissed him whatever, we're fine.
It was just like.
It was like 12 kidnappings of girls later that we were like, and you haven't even put out a hit in a while.
I'm sorry, this is gonna we're, we're gonna have to send you to jail.
Um anyway, I also just.
There's something and I and I know we've talked about this before a few different times um, it's not something I talk about that often, but I just don't.
I really, really hate like victimizing, victimization mentality.
I hate it.
I do not feel like a victim as a Jew living in uh, the United States Of America in 2022.
Uh, Jewish people are doing quite well in this country.
Um, I do not believe that it is uh reasonable to say that anytime anyone says something about Jewish power or Jewish influence or something like that, that we, that we go.
This is exactly the 1930s and this is what led to all of my like.
I just don't.
I don't think that's at, I think it's stupid to be on.
I just think it's stupid and I don't think it wins you any favors.
My position is basically, I mean look, my grandfather escaped Nazi Germany and he was the only member of my family to escape Nazi Germany.
Uh, the whole everybody my family was smarter.
They were already here, they were.
There were a few IQ points up and even us Jewish.
So you know, by compared to the regular IQ pool, these are very smart people uh, but look, everyone else in his family got killed and they lived in a real society that turned against Jews and just like horrifically mistreated regular Jewish people, not the Jews who were controlling banks or something like that.
You know what I mean.
It's not like even if you, if you were making the argument that like oh, there were all these terrible Jews who were doing this terrible thing well, like my, my grand, my great grandfather, my grandfather's dad, he owned a shoe store like they didn't do anything wrong to anybody and they just got completely screwed over and and all of them died, except my grandfather, luckily for me.
But he came to this country and he got the opportunity that, like almost everyone In his generation, got like he could work a good life, put his kids in good schools, they could go on to have, and now I have a really great life because of that.
Jewish people in general are doing very, very well in the United States of America.
My position, my feeling on that is that we, you know, if you want to be collectivist about this at all here, we as a people should be kind of grateful to America.
Oh, great.
Hey, thank you.
Like, thanks for letting us come into the society that hasn't mistreated us in those ways and has allowed us to kind of flourish.
So that's kind of my default position.
Not that we should be lecturing everyone else in the country who, if they ever say anything we don't like about how they now inherit all of that evil that this other society that really mistreated us was.
I just don't, I don't know.
I don't like that.
I don't think it's right.
I think it's like it's, it's much more, it's a much better posture and position to have to like appreciate what has worked out.
So I always, that's just like my mentality.
Let's leave the complainy whininess to the gays.
You know, we invented it.
We've handed over the baton to the blacks and the gays to complain about how mistreated they are.
We got Israel out of it.
So my fellow Jews, you we wind with some of the best.
And we walked away with the victory.
We got Israel and we still get plenty of money sent over there on account of the fact of what the rest of the world's going to do with us.
Like let's uh let's let other cultures take their complainy turns.
But it also, I agree with you where it's like, just have some confidence.
I don't think this is going to ruin my life that Kanye said something crazy on the news for a week.
We can all move on.
This is just not that big of a deal.
It's annoying to watch, I guess, people complain that this is anti-Semitic or like, I don't know.
I need to see something actually escalate in my lifetime before I get concerned.
It's like if Kanye making these comments actually resulted that I left my building and a bunch of black kids yelled, hey, that's a Jew, go get him.
Then I might, I might change my mind and go, oh shit, we better be careful.
Nothing like that's ever happened in my lifetime.
I'm not concerned about it.
Yeah.
No, I mean, I've had uh black kids yell at me when I left my building when I was like a kid in Brooklyn, but it was always just that I was white.
They were never even thinking of yelling, Jew boy.
It was just white boy.
Um, so you know, that's a whole different thing.
So take off your yarmul, shave your head and blend in.
It's on you.
Now, I also, by the way, you know, it reminds me, and this, the truth is, and again, I think I see this kind of, I just see it because I see these corners of the internet and stuff.
And then I'm sure there's a lot going on that I don't see.
But I see this.
This is to anybody, to people who either were very like concerned about Jewish influence or the people who are like very interested in that topic, or to anyone who might be on the fence, or probably to a whole bunch of people who just, you know, maybe never even really talked about it before, but aren't are just introduced to this idea now.
I see so many of them taking this as like, yeah, look, this is proof that look, even this guy, Kanye West, who we think of as being so powerful and so rich and so famous, he still spoke out about this group.
And that group is more powerful and more influential.
And so they're crushing him for what he did.
That really does not help defeat the argument, if that's the angle that you're going with.
The other thing, which I've talked about this before, I remember talking about this when I was when I was on, well, I was on his show and then he was on this show when Hotep Jesus came on.
And a bunch of people were giving me shit after that for like, because they're like, look at what he said about the Jews three years ago or something like that.
You know, like, oh my God, he said this thing and that thing.
And I was like, well, look, okay.
How about this?
I'll kind of ask him about it.
And we spoke and I asked him what I thought were like the two important questions.
This really is to me what it all comes down to.
Whatever views you have about like Jews, any other group for that matter.
I go, number one, what are you advocating for?
Like, what do you think should happen to them?
Like, are you advocating for like people to hurt them or for there to be laws against some, you know what I mean?
That like oppress them or anything like that.
And he like, with no hesitation, was like, no, not at all.
He's like, I'm basically like an anarcho-capitalist.
Like, I don't believe in any laws against anybody group of people.
And I was like, okay, that's the most important one.
And then I said, number two, I go, do you like treat people differently or shitty if they are Jewish compared to like, you know what I mean?
And he goes, no, I treat people like individuals.
And in my mind, after that, I'm like, okay, so what are we talking about here?
What else is the concern other than that?
To me, that's basically like the most important two questions.
And then I also go like, well, I don't know.
I have, you know, like a, you know, I've gotten to know this guy.
He's being nothing but respectful to me.
I'm being nothing but respectful to him.
We're both interested in each other's point of views.
If your concern was that he harbors some like anti-Semitism, I don't know if he does or not, but if that was your concern, wouldn't that be better that he's having like a friendly conversation, a respectful conversation with a Jewish person rather than if I'm just screaming at him, like, I denounce you and your horrible views and all this, like, what's that going to do?
It would seem like one would lead to a much better outcome than the other.
So I just don't, you know, I just don't.
And the other thing is that, and I think I mentioned this when we were talking is that the truth is that there are a lot of tensions between the black community and the Jewish community that very rarely get discussed in public society.
And part of this is because they're both voting blocks for the Democratic Party.
And so they don't really like to, you know, everything that's discussed in terms of like racism or stuff like that is always, you know, pitted between like, okay, well, you have like white people, black people.
That's like the big thing.
But they don't really like to get into like the inter, you know, like you never hear a large discussion about like the prejudice between Puerto Ricans and Dominicans or something like that.
But that's another big one.
Like this is people who live in communities like that are predominantly those groups know exactly what I'm talking about.
This is like, there's major racism is not as black and white, no pun intended, as it gets discussed to be.
There's actually, you can chop racism up into like 100,000 little pieces and there's all types of tribalist kind of like tensions.
But I grew up like a couple miles from Crown Heights, New York, where there were like Jews versus blacks riots and stuff like that.
And there's like a lot, there's just a lot of stuff there.
And I don't think, I think what's helpful is to have discussions about it.
What's not helpful is to silence and attack and ridicule anybody who ever speaks up about any of it.
That's just kind of my feeling on that.
Yeah, censorship's the enemy, not Kanye.
Yes.
Okay.
And then I think we should say that there are actual responses to the arguments that he's making or the accusations that he's making that I think pretty definitively win.
And so I don't think, and now none of that ends up in this conversation.
And that doesn't seem to come up at all.
Like the actual response to the accusations that like Jews control the music industry or Jews control the media or like any of this stuff.
And there are actual responses to this stuff.
And it is kind of, you know, I see people who have bought into this stuff saying things like, oh, look, you know, anytime, you know, someone recognizes patterns, they get in trouble.
You're not allowed to like talk about how, oh, there are these patterns of like Jews being in these like, you know, influential, powerful positions or something like that.
The issue at hand, really, when you come down to it, and I understand this is to some degree, I'm just making the old individualist versus collectivist argument, but there is a lot of wisdom to that argument.
And the truth is that they are falling into the same error in thinking that feminists fall into, that progressive leftists fall into constantly.
You know what I mean?
It's all the same thing.
It's like when they would, when they say, like, when some feminist would be arguing with Jordan Peterson, right?
They'd sit down and they'd have these arguments, and some feminists would say something to Jordan Peterson, like she would be like, well, whatever the numbers are, like 95% of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are men.
And Jordan Peterson would say, he would respond with something like, okay, you're defining men by this tiny, tiny, tiny little subgroup of men who have like excelled in this one area and risen to powerful positions of control.
It's how many Fortune 500 companies are there?
Okay, there's 500.
You know, you're saying 95% of their CEOs are men.
Okay, how many is that?
450?
Or no, I'm sorry, that would be 90%.
Whatever.
You get the point.
So you're talking about a few hundred men.
But in the United States of America, there's, you know, 150 million men or something like that.
So you're defining the entire group by this tiny little percentage of them, and then almost like applying that to men, quote, men, as if like the fact that the CEO of a Fortune 500 company is a man has anything to do with like the plumber down the road, like as if he's in any way connected to this group of people.
And so there's just this, like when you start going into this, like, it's the Jews area, you really miss the plot.
It's just like a, it's just a sloppy way of thinking where you don't like, you know what I mean?
Like you don't actually understand reality.
Now, is it true that there's, it's disproportionately Jewish people are, you know, way disproportionately represented in terms of, you know, high up positions in the media and in the music business and in several other, you know, banking and things like that.
Like, yeah, of course.
I don't think anyone's really denying that.
It's just like, what does attaching this like kind of collectivist label to it do?
But again, the answer to that, that dumb feminist who's saying, oh, it's all men.
Men have all the power.
And then Jordan Peterson would just like, or whoever it is, would just school them.
They'd be like, men have all the power.
Like most prisoners are men.
You know what I mean?
Like, oh, 95% of CEOs are men.
Okay, well, 95% of inmates are men too.
So how about that?
So, you know, 95%, and then just like go through all of these things.
But the answer was always to have someone just destroy their argument.
That should be the response to Kanye West.
Have someone destroy his argument.
You don't just, what you don't just do is what I would not think would be a good idea is if Jordan Peterson just shrieked, you're a man hater.
You hate men and I'm offended.
And then we made sure that every major corporation wouldn't let her, you know, like that feminist couldn't open a bank account again.
Exploitation in Media Spaces00:08:27
Would you think that was the right way to take on this stuff?
It's like, I don't know.
It doesn't seem that way to me.
And I don't know.
I mean, I know we, me and you have talked about this stuff before, but a lot of the stuff with like, you know, the Jews are disproportionately like running this or running that.
If you just kind of like peel it back little by little, you realize that it's like, I don't know.
Yeah, there might be disproportionate amount of Jews in this one field.
There's probably also a disproportionate amount of Jews in some other field that's really benefiting society that you have no problem with at all.
I don't see a lot of people complaining about modern dentistry or physics, you know, areas where Jews are very disproportionately overrepresented.
It's like, okay, so Jews have like, probably for reasons of intelligence, for reasons of culture, for lots of other reasons, have risen up in a lot of these fields.
Most, it's certainly not exclusively Jews who are doing it.
There's lots of different groups of people who are also involved in these fields that are very destructive for society.
And as a point I think you've made before, you know, a lot of this comes down to the systems.
And if you have these systems where people can be exploited, even if the Jews stopped competing in it at all, someone else is going to rise up and fill that void.
That's just the reality.
I think the best example on that one is porn because people like to say that like Jews are the pornographers.
Like there's a market for porn.
If Jews didn't exist, would there be as much porn?
Maybe not.
I don't know, but probably.
You really think we took Jews out of the world all of a sudden some Christian landscape that has zero porn?
We didn't create the demand for it.
Sam Tripley's got a good line about Jews that we're good, we're good middle management.
So it's like, you look at all these sectors where people complain about Jews.
We usually didn't, we usually didn't start it.
And we're actually usually not at the top.
Like even at the Fed.
Yeah.
I mean, if you think about it, whoever's in charge of the Fed is actual middle management.
There's someone who orchestrated that the Fed exists and is behind the scenes, but we're basically, we're good middle managers.
Yeah, that is a good way.
That is a good way to put it.
And it's, yeah, I mean, like, so with the porn thing, they'll point out that Jews were like, I don't know, like of the producers of porn studios.
It was like very disproportionately Jewish, which is true.
And, but then, right, like to your point, you're kind of like, okay, well, the internet exists now, right?
Smartphones exist now.
Are you telling me that if all of the Jews weren't involved in this, that there's no one else out there who would just stumble into this multi-billion dollar demand?
You know what I mean, that exists there.
Like, really?
I mean, I mean, I suppose we'd have to run the experiment to conclusively prove it, but odds are probably someone else would too.
And again, to your point, once the Federal Reserve was created and you had this whole system, which was done largely not by Jews, although there were some involved.
But once you have this whole system, somebody is going to rush in and exploit it.
And so anyway, I just think that it's like, look, I think Kanye was wrong in some degree of what he was saying.
He's not wrong to say that like there's a whole bunch of Jewish people in the music business and he doesn't like the way they treat people.
I mean, the music business is like notoriously pretty shitty to their artists.
But go ahead.
Even that, to an extent, I think sometimes those things can be overstated.
And I'm going to take Dave Chappelle as an example.
Dave Chappelle had the Chappelle show removed from Netflix because he didn't have any points on it.
Now, to me, that's a little bit crazy because he made a ton of money off of his specials with Netflix.
And it seems like good business.
Hey, you can go to Netflix and you can watch all of Chappelle's stuff.
So it feeds into the stuff that's making him money.
Also, at the time that the Chappelle show was made, Comedy Central had some serious leverage that there weren't too many other places to get on TV.
That's kind of in part what made his career as big as it was was at one point.
And guess what?
If he did later seasons, I bet he would have gotten points on it.
Sometimes that's the way it works.
Like, especially back in the day with music companies, they had good producers.
They had access, like they can get you on all the radio stations.
They know, hey, we're going to make you a star.
But once you're a star, we know that we lose our leverage.
So we want points on your first five, six albums.
And then these people, they become stars.
Like, why the fuck am I paying out these percentages?
Well, because they made you.
Like, so I'm not saying that there's never been like an exploitive deal.
There certainly has been.
I've personally seen contracts where you're like, take that out.
That's crazy.
So like, I know like the tricks that people will pull and they're not always good, but you definitely do have people that get to that level where they no longer need the gatekeepers that put them on.
And the gatekeepers know that.
And that's why before they put you on, right, they kind of make sure that they're making their cut.
So it's not, I'm just saying it's not all exploitive and bad.
There definitely are people that have been exploited.
There have been people that have been bad at business and totally taken advantage of.
But then Kanye's had a pretty great musical career.
I'm sure if his first album, he got screwed by some Jewish producer and he's looking back, it was probably worthwhile.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I think, I think that's a, I think that's a fair point.
It's a very important point that like gets lost out a lot.
And it's like, you know, the truth is that most of the times, and this, again, isn't defending that there are like deals that are fucked up deals and people get taken advantage of and stuff.
And a lot of times, just like with other things, like a lot of times, if you don't have other options, people take advantage of the fact that you don't have other options, you know?
But like with a lot of this stuff, you see that it's not, it's very easy to feel this way.
And I know this is from being a, you know, a performer.
It's very easy to feel that like you're the whole thing.
Like if I do stand-up comedy, that's, there's a really good example of that where you're like, look, I do stand-up comedy.
I am the entire show.
Like, what?
Okay, there's a microphone and a sound system, but like, I am the entire show.
I created this whole thing.
I'm the reason why everybody's laughing in this club.
I'm who they came to see in this club.
But then actually, if you, if you think about it, you're like, well, no, there are more people who are involved in this than just the comic.
Like someone had to like, okay, someone had to buy this space.
Someone had to like build this stage.
Somebody had to, you know, like whatever.
Someone had to promote this.
They have to have a business model that brings in enough money that keeps this club open full time because I'm only coming here twice a year.
You know what I mean?
Like there's like all these other things involved.
There's promotion.
There's all of the and like all of that stuff, you know, like when you're running that entire system, it's not so clear what exactly you're, you are owed and what exactly they are owed.
And then, yeah, you do get to a point where it's like, I kind of felt the same way with Dave Chappelle.
It's like, okay, well, did you get like quote unquote screwed on this deal?
Kind of, maybe a little bit.
I don't really know the exact details, but you're also like, yes, this launched you to be in a spot where you're making 20 million a special now.
So like, I don't know.
You got yours.
I did comedy for five years at a loss because of travel in Times Square for a guy who was not nice to me.
And when I say not, like the guy just wasn't nice.
And I did, I don't know, hundreds of free shows to a guy who was probably making $50,000 a night, gay black man who is exploitive of my labor, free for five years.
I'm not walking around going, hey, gay black men are exploitive and I wasn't paid as an artist.
That's what I did at that time so that I could work on my jokes, whatever.
Like that's just.
Well, and it is known, you realize that.
I mean, I've thought about this.
The guy exactly who you're talking about, and he was really a dick.
But still, I've looked, I knew lots of people like that, and who you know, I would do free shows for when I first started.
And yeah, you did kind of feel like a bit at the time, you're like, man, fucking, this guy really could throw me like a few fucking bucks more.
Like, that really wouldn't, you know, like he'd still be raking in money.
But I also know now when I go around the country and make really good money, and I'm fucking like, I'm, I'm a really like seasoned stand-up comedian.
I go, a lot of that's because of that time.
You know what I mean?
Like, a lot of what I've developed that I have this like trade for lack of better word now is because I had this opportunity back then.
So, no, I don't begrudge any of those, those people.
I certainly don't feel like they owed me anything.
Power Imbalances and Bigotry00:11:57
And then, more importantly, I guess, right?
I certainly wouldn't blame the entire culture.
But more importantly, you're like, no, this is kind of the libertarian insight where it's like, well, look, it was a voluntary deal.
I didn't have to do it.
You didn't have to come into LOL and fucking do those spots.
And I didn't have to do those either, you know, and like we didn't.
And that's just the reason why we both voluntarily did it is because we both, you know, deduced that this would be better for us than not doing it.
At all, with what my other options are and measured against everything else and what I want to do and what I can get out of this, I think it's better to do this than to not do it.
And so we did.
And so that's like, you know, anyway, I just think there should be like, I think this is the correct answer ultimately.
And that again, I'm not saying there's no danger.
And like, I don't like the truth is, I don't really like groups in general being like demonized or otherized.
I don't, I think there is risk associated with that.
It's not good.
But this response is just the worst possible response.
It just does nothing.
It does nothing to actually like facilitate this conversation.
And if anything, I think it creates a much bigger danger, which is the kind of sense censorship normalization.
And then it, it, if anything, just exacerbates people who have these feelings, you know?
All right, guys, let's take a quick second and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is yokratom.com, home of the $60 kilo.
If you are over 21 and you are a fan of Kratom, please go get your Kratom at yokratom.com.
It's the best deal, the only place where you can get a full kilo for $60.
It's high quality lab-tested stuff, and they are the best sponsor of this entire network and basically everything I do.
Part of the problem, Legion of Skanks, YoMMA Rap, Skank Fest, these guys really help us out a lot.
So if you use Kratom, please go get it from yokratom.com, home of the $60 kilo.
All right, let's get back into the show.
What's the deal with the Black Israelites, though?
That shit's fucking weird.
Well, I think my guess is, I think Kanye, I might be wrong about this, but I think Kanye has a relationship with Farrakhan.
So I think this is more from the Black Muslims than it is from the Black Israelites.
I don't exactly know.
I'm entertained.
Every time I see one of them on a speaker, I always hang out on the other corner.
Oh, yeah, it's great.
Yeah.
When I was in Seattle over the speaker, like they were just lecturing some lady about being more of a lady.
And I just, I'm just standing on the other side going, this is so hilarious.
It feels like performance art.
Yes.
It feels like these people take off these costumes and then just go like, God, dude, I don't fucking mind.
You know what I mean?
But I guess they really believe it.
But it's also just incredible that like they all will stand around and do it feels like, yeah, me in high school doing a prank.
That's what it feels like.
It's the most, yeah, the most insane thing is when people get really furious with them.
I'm always like, I've never seeing the black Israelites, I used to see them all the time, like when I was a kid, like in a, like in the Penn Station Times Square area, and you like walk by them.
And I, uh, I always, it always like put a smile on my face.
Right.
Like, it was always like, oh, yeah, these guys, they're doing their thing.
Like, it really does just feel like a performance.
Like, oh, they're doing it.
They're doing their stuff.
And then when someone like would start screaming with them, I would always just be so judgmental of that person.
Like, what are you doing?
Do you not know what this is for?
You have no need to be screaming.
You know, I don't know.
Their claim is that blacks are the real Jews and that Jews are imposters and blah, blah, blah, blah.
White people are evil.
Something.
I just, I mean, in high school, I used to worry Yamaka.
I remember once, like, they're yelling at me from across the street.
And like, so I ended up engaging with them.
And I just remember it being so funny because they're like yelling at me.
We're the real Jews.
I was like, all right, cool, man, be Jewish.
Like, they just weren't getting the rise out of me.
And it was so funny.
They're like, but why?
I was like, I don't know.
They told me I'm Jewish.
I'm doing the Jew thing.
You guys can do it too.
I'm like, why are you yelling at me?
Yeah, it does.
It all, I always had, I always had that attitude about it too.
I mean, maybe that's why just like our personality types and why we became comics and shit like that.
But it's just like, I, yeah, I don't.
I also just don't think that there's, I've always felt this way.
And it's part of the reason I think why I do not, I don't have this kind of like knee-jerk outrage about when black people are like, uh, have whatever views about Jews.
Um, and part of it is like, number one, I think part of it is that I've always, I, I don't look, I don't like racism and prejudice.
I don't think it's a good thing.
I've seen very ugly examples of it in my life, and it's really bad.
Um, and I mean, example, little examples, because I grew up in Brooklyn, just grown up around in a very multicultural environment is not like in one direction to the other only.
I've seen it in all directions.
Like I've seen white people who are like kind of racist to black people, black people are kind of racist to white people, Jews, racist to black people, black people, racist to Jews, you know, Puerto Ricans to blacks, Asians to blacks, blacks to Asians, like all just, and it's a weird, as I've said this many times before, like the term racism is a very weird umbrella term.
And it is so broad that it almost loses meaning.
You know what I mean?
And it's, it's become this thing that is the great evil in our society.
But the problem with the term racism is that it covers, like if you had one term that covers saying the blacks instead of saying African Americans, and it also covers lynchings.
You know what I'm saying?
Like one word covers all of this ground.
Karen was like, wait a minute, hold on, hold on.
So when you use that term, what are we talking about?
Is it more over here, close to the lynching side, or is it more over here, close to the kind of like, all right, whatever, a little bit of a faux pas, perhaps, if even that.
And then you have crazy left progressives who are claiming things that aren't even a faux pas are racist.
You know what I mean?
They're claiming things like whatever, basically anything you do can be deemed as racist.
So the word almost like loses meaning.
But when I say I've seen racism, what I just mean is people being really shitty to someone of a different group based on the fact that they're in that group and based on nothing else.
And I've seen examples of this and I think it's bad.
I don't have the allergy to it that I think some people have.
I think it is, it is often held up in modern progressive America as like the absolute worst thing that you can be is a racist.
And the way I have always viewed it is that it's like, it's a bad thing.
You should try not to be it.
There are far worse things that you could be.
And if we're really being honest, everyone has their own prejudices.
Like there's everyone has their own kind of inner bigotries in different ways.
I've just seen it from so many different people and who are like overall pretty good people, but you know, are a little bit like, yeah, I have some bigoted views here and there.
And this is again, speaking of people from all different racial groups.
So that is, I have that feeling.
I think it's also what's one of the reasons why some of the kind of woke libertarian types and progressives and types like that really dislike me is because I just don't share their kind of like allergy or their like hysteria about the topic.
Like if someone is a little bit bigoted, I'm my response isn't like to shriek at them.
It'd be like, oh my God, you're such a bigot.
And let me let you know that I'm not a bigot like that.
It's just kind of like, oh, yeah, they're a little bigoted against this group.
That's not good.
It'd be better if they weren't.
You know, now that, of course, because I said it's this big umbrella term that can range.
Like if somebody was like, oh, I'm like spitting on black people and calling them the N-word when they walk down the street, I'd be like, okay, yeah, no, that is an outrage.
Like, yes, we should all be appalled by that person.
That's a little bit different than if someone, you know, is just like, I don't know, in a more passive way, just not a fan of a particular group, which I still think is wrong.
Just, it's part of life.
What are you going to do?
I do think, in addition to that, that like, I just think that it also kind of matters like who's in the position of power.
And part of the reason why I've never really like, you know, like, look, in the example with the Black Israelites, right?
Why is it that we just laugh at them and just take this as like a funny sideshow?
Well, it's really because they have no power over any of us.
So who cares?
And that's why we look at that lady who's arguing with the Black Israelites, like, what the lady, what the fuck are you doing?
Go on with your date.
These are people dressed up in goofy outfits on the street, yelling into a crowd of people, none of whom agree with them.
Now, if it was a group of senators up there saying the same thing that the Black Israelites are saying, me and you might be like, this isn't so funny anymore.
Now, this is actually a little bit of a concern because you have serious power over other human beings' lives, right?
So if you were to hear, like, if you heard, you know, some, I don't know, some caricature of like a backwood hillbilly racist, you know, like living in a trailer park somewhere, and he's like, I don't like the Jews and I don't like the blacks and blah, blah, blah.
I don't think me and your reaction to that would be like, this is outrageous.
But if you heard like a closed door meeting where Joe Biden was saying that, like leaked audio, and he was like, I don't like the Jews and I don't like the blacks, you might be like, whoa, holy shit.
Like this guy who's in a very powerful position actually is harboring these like explicit prejudicial views.
So I kind of feel that way.
And the truth is that with the relationship between Blacks and Jews, generally, there's a real power imbalance.
And it's, it's usually the relationship would be, at least like where I grew up in Brooklyn, it would be like landlord, tenant, you know, boss, worker, business owner, customer.
Like that, that would always kind of be the power imbalance.
And so it's just a little bit weird to me when people get like when they get appalled over the person on the shorter end of the power imbalance saying offensive things.
Does that make sense?
Like that's, I don't think that's really what the whole spirit of being against prejudice was ever supposed to be.
It's like, again, it's like, if you, if you talk to like a black person during slavery, like if you went back in time and talked to a black person in 1820 or something like that, and they were like, I hate white people, I hate them all.
They're evil, I don't think you'd be like sir, that is racist.
That's really wrong and racist.
And how can you generalize all white people when so many white people don't own slaves?
You know what I mean.
Like I think you just kind of be like, all right, I get it, I'm not like as offended by that.
But if you heard some white slave owner being like, I fucking hate black people, you'd be like, man, that's a fucked up guy doing a really fucked up thing.
It just like the power imbalance has something to do with all of this.
Either way, in today's society, where nobody's actually owning slaves, these aren't actually being backed up by policies and stuff like that.
Let people speak their minds.
If they have stupid ideas, then laugh at them or debate them and win the argument.
And this stuff here, I think does nothing to help anybody.
So that's, I didn't plan on spending the whole episode on this, but you know what?
Finding Sanity Through Comedy00:01:08
We did.
So there you are.
Any final thoughts, Rob?
Yeah, everyone's just got to chill a little bit.
Like, this is fucking nonsense talk.
I don't care about Kanye.
Not a fan of his music.
He said some stupid shit.
And then everyone gets obsessed.
Oh my God, he's saying stupid.
Shit.
I got to get him on my show so he can say more stupid shit.
Oh my God, he's saying more stupid shit.
It's like, everyone, just relax.
Like, give it a week.
We'll move on.
There's more important things.
There's a war in Russia.
They're trying to convert us all to green energy and put us on currency.
They're trying to convert us all to being women, evidently.
Yeah, they're working on that too.
But if you want some sanity, buy tickets to my comedy shows.
Got a bunch coming up.
And what's the website again?
ThefireTicks TIX.com, or you can go to the episode description.
They're all there this weekend with Justin Silver in upstate New York.
November 4th, Dallas.
November 5th with Scott Hordon.
November 6th, I'm at Texas AM.
And then I've got Kansas City, Nebraska, and Arizona.
Dates coming up soon.
All right.
Sounds good.
And of course, my site is comicdavesmith.com.
Ticket links for all the upcoming shows that I got with Rob, with Louis J. Gomez, all that good stuff.