CAA to complain to BBC over Amol Rajan’s apparent minimising of Kanye West antisemitism
On the Today programme, host Amol Rajan appeared to minimise Kanye West’s recent antisemitism scandal.
In an interview with Chuck D from Public Enemy on the BBC’s flagship radio programme on 19th January about hip hop music, which included considered reflections about anti-Black racism, Mr Rajan turned finally to Mr West. When discussing Kanye West, Mr Rajan described him as an “extraordinary musical power” but failed to fully address Mr West’s antisemitism, minimising Mr West’s comments to “promoting some conspiracy theories”, which Mr Rajan then appeared to caveat by pointing out that Mr West has “bi-polar disorder”.
Last year, Mr West denied the Holocaust, described Hitler as a “cool guy”, and said he would go “death con 3 on Jewish people”, among other inflammatory outbursts over an extended period on multiple platforms and channels. Mr West himself described his own comments as “antisemitic”, which Mr Rajan failed to do.
Chuck D then appeared to brush Mr West’s racism aside as mere “showbiz”.
Mr Rajan abjectly failed to address the severity of West’s antisemitic rhetoric, which caused the artist to be dropped by Adidas and other sponsors and partners. This omission was particularly objectionable given how much of the interview lamented other forms of racism.
Polling that we conducted in 2020 for our Antisemitism Barometer already revealed that two thirds of British Jews were deeply concerned by the BBC’s coverage of matters of Jewish concern, and 55% by its handling of antisemitism complaints. It is likely that these figures would be even higher if polled today.
Campaign Against Antisemitism monitors traditional media and regularly holds outlets to account. If members of the public are concerned about reportage in the media, they should contact us at [email protected].