Messages in support of Kanye West’s anti-Semitic outbursts have been projected onto buildings in Florida.
Days after two banners reading “End Jewish Supremacy in America” and “Honk if you know it’s the Jews” were displayed on an overpass in Jacksonville, similarly anti-Semitic messages stating “Kanye was right about the Jews” were projected onto buildings in the city.
One of them appeared on videoboards at the TIAA Bank Field after a football game between Florida and Georgia. The University of Florida and the University of Georgia condemned the message on Sunday, ESPN reported.
“The University of Florida and the University of Georgia together denounce these and all acts of antisemitism and other forms of hatred and intolerance. We are proud to be home to strong and thriving Jewish communities at UGA and UF, and we stand together against hate,” the statement read.
It comes after Mr West was locked from using his Twitter account for violating the platform’s community rules with an anti-Semitic tweet stating that he was going to go “death con 3” on Jewish people and claiming that he wasn’t “Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew.”
The remarks have sparked outrage and calls for the rapper to be permanently banned from the platform. It has also cost Mr West several business deals with Adidas, Balenciaga, Gap, Foot Locker and Def Jam, which have publicly broken partnerships following the controversy.
Mariam Feist, the CEO of the Jewish Federation and Foundation of Northeast Florida, told local news station News4JAX that the anti-Semitic messages recently displayed across Jacksonville made the Jewish community feel unsafe and targeted.
“I am a proud Jew, and I am a proud American. I want to live, and I want our community. I want my family, my neighbours to live somewhere and feel safe and secure,” Mr Feist told the outlet. “I wish there was an answer for how you could stop all this but this has been going on for centuries.”
Mr West has been locked out of his Twitter account after his anti-Semitic messages earlier this month. Twitter has not commented on the status of his account.
After his $44bn acquisition of Twitter, Elon Musk said that a new “content moderation council” will decide on the reinstatement of banned accounts, suggesting there will be no immediate return for Mr West.
The 45-year-old rapper was also briefly banned from Instagram after he shared a post that suggested that Sean “Diddy” Combs was being controlled by Jewish people. Instagram said in a statement that the post “violat[ed] our policies and placed a restriction on the account,” before the ban was reversed last week.
After gaining access back to his account, the rapper addressed the recent fallout with Adidas and Gap, two of the larger commercial partners who have terminated their business relationship with him in recent weeks.
