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ABE WON'T BE SILENT - The First Amendment needs an amendment. I’ve been saying this for years. And yet again, I’m reminded why that must become a thing. Basket case in point: Kanye West. Or, as I call him: Ye Olde Psychotic Bipolar Lunatic Patron Saint of Attention-Seeking Bigot Misogynist Rampant Antisemite Serial Abuser Wannabe Shock Jock. He recently rented a building in the Koreatown neighborhood of Los Angeles and emblazoned it with a giant swastika. Guess he’s hell-bent on going to hell.
This is America — where free speech protects hate speech. Where the vilest among us get unfettered cover under the First Amendment while the rest of us are left to pick up the emotional pieces. In Germany, where they learned their lesson, this would be illegal. Here? It’s just another Monday in America — once beautiful. Is the bloom off the rose.
Who needs more proof that the First Amendment wasn’t built for the new New World? We’re living in a location-less, soulless age — where we’re digitally connected to a boatload of bullshit, ruled by invisible algorithms driven by rage for profit. We are all guilty of living in the bubble of the virtual universe. Some more than others. But if we don’t figure out how to tame this new shrew — to stop or at least minimize how much we protect deliberate, violent rhetoric masquerading as free speech — then it won’t just be your pooch that gets screwed.
Recently, I completed a research project on media bias and the First Amendment. Much of the article focused on anti-Israel bias, exposing an avalanche of unethical ethics within the new “journalism.” What I learned on this journey to uncover the truth is that sometimes — if not more often than not — the truth doesn’t matter. It’s about which stories the media wants to tell to ensure eyeballs and clickbait. Garden-variety TikTokers. Even the most storied, legacy outlets have become seductresses, enticing the elusive algorithm.
The title of the project was “Words Matter” and you know how much matteringmeans to me. The First Amendment protects vile narcissists and evildoers. So, as much as “the truth is out there,” it still hurts in here — my heart — because there isn’t much recourse for the unfortunate realities some of us are living with. Especially when that reality involves your kin folk being ridiculed and threatened for just wanting to be.
We are taught to believe the truth will set us free. But what happens when the truth gets drowned by AI-unknown algorithms, rebranded as “opinion,” and legally protected even when it incites harm? That’s the world we live in now. We’ve become desensitized to hate speech. Numb to the symbols that should jolt us out of our Aeron chairs and keyboard-warrior comfort zones.
Despite Ye’s vile display of the very symbol that explains why I never had grandparents, I did what anyone might do in the face of horror — I searched local media for coverage of the jerk’s plan to promote hate speech through song. There was nothing — nada — zilch. Was I to be the only backlash? I did what we all do when Google disappoints — I turned to Facebook. What I found there was even worse.
A casting call for Ye’s new album, looking for “the blackest black men” — specifically “darker than Diddy black” — who are willing to wear swastikas. All for the sake of performance art. Yeah, ART — with a capital F.
No one else seems to care. Yet, I do. Had my parents not survived the Holocaust, maybe I’d still be an assimilated Jew — comfortable in the delusion it’s not cool to be too outwardly Jewish. I’d experienced antisemitism since childhood and was happy to shed the coat of affliction. Assimilation — now there’s a debilitating illness for you. It’s a spiritual cancer, where some survive the crippling disease, others don’t. Thank God, I did.
The day after the Nazis marched in Charlottesville, my blood boiled to a point of no return. And just like that— it flipped a switch in my soul and so began the process of emotional healing from the terminal illness currently plaguing many self-hating, Bernie Sanders, Hannah Einbinder, and assorted uptight Hollywood Jews. I was finally free of the albatross of not being true to myself.
By reclaiming my connection to our heritage, I have been revisiting the beauty and purity of Zionism— birthed in our original homeland. I can now walk the path of those who survived far worse than manufactured, American bullshit.
It’s all about Won’t Be Silent. The mantra — mission — commitment to storytelling.
Silence is the potentially fatal symptom of our broken civic immune system. We’ve grown numb to the antisemitic psychosis spewed by Kanye, Candace Owens, and masked protesters burning American flags and chanting “from the river to the sea” — a dressed-up way of saying “kill the Jews”. Hate has been normalized and it must be curtailed. It’s what Ye is desperately trying to re-monetize.
Even the KKK has gotten better at branding. They've traded in their traditional drag — floor-length gowns accessorized with hoodies — kinda gay in hindsight — for khakis and polo shirts — kinda gay still — carrying the torch of intolerance in the name of “freedom”? Please. All these people need to get bent.
This is the upside-down world we’re living in. The #MeToo movement still has “no comment” regarding the brutal, gender-based violence that Jewish women endured on October 7. I’m looking at you Michelle Obama. They also haven’t said a word about the women currently being tortured in Afghanistan or Iran because the IRGC funds terrorist proxies like Hamas and ISIS. Heaven forbid anyone say ‘boo’ about the new superhero daddies of the progressive left. Yes, White Women for Violent Terrorists is apparently a thing now. Let’s not even mention the Gays for HOMOCIDE! crowd. Off the roof you go, girls!
And while we’re already mourning the loss of self-governance, rest in peace, Democratic Party. Until I see 19 million people apologize for being apathetic douchebags for not voting, I will happily stay in the non-affiliated column till a new hero — on the level of my dad — emerges on the scene. Till then, we’re living in Bizarro World where humanity has lost its way.
For the fun of it, I contacted Mayor Karen Bass’s office about the Kanye situation. Tried calling — no answer. Wasn’t going to leave a message since we’ve all stopped doing that — even with our families. One of her official contact links on Facebook didn’t work so I DM’d her via Instagram and shared the vile casting notice for Ye’s video shoot:
URGENT NEED — KANYE WEST SEEKS 100 AFRICAN AMERICAN MALES
· Men with “the skin tone of Sean Combs or darker”
· “No fat people”
· “Participants must be comfortable wearing swastikas”
You read that right. One thing is to be hateful, the other is how hate shouldn’t be protected speech. Bass’s record on leadership is already questionable. Look at how she handled the fires — delay, denial, and deflection. Now, with LA’s streets stinking of Ye and his weaponized symbolism, she’ll most likely stay silent. Fecklessness knows no bounds, nor does that shortcoming discriminate betwixt and between color, gender, or ideology.
My sister Vivian always says, “We are on our own.” If we want to save what’s left of this once glorious city of dreams — and our theoretically fabulous country — we have to do it ourselves. Loudly. Proudly. Relentlessly. Unapologetically.
That’s also why I’m running for the World Zionist Congress on the Jewish Future —Slate #20. When fascism gets dressed up as art and no one in power has the guts to say anything, I won’t be silent. And neither can you. It’s time to always vote and fight for an America worth believing in again.
(ABE GURKO is the executive producer of a documentary “LOUDER: The Soundtrack of Change,” about the extraordinary Women of Protest Music streaming on MAX. He's an Opinionator who hosts a podcast, "Won't Be Silent," engaging in conversations from the edge of democracy. Abe is a contributor to CityWatchLA.com. [email protected].)
