Ice Cube blasts Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for criticizing him and Nick Cannon over ‘anti-Semitism’
ICE Cube has slammed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar after the basketball star wrote a column calling him and other Black celebrities out for alleged anti-Semitic remarks.
In the column for The Hollywood Reporter, Jabbar called out the rapper, as well as NFL star DeSean Jackson, NBA player Stephen Jackson, and others for sharing posts he considers a “troubling omen” for the Black Lives Matter movement.
Ice Cube shared the article on Twitter along with the caption, “Shame on the Hollywood Reporter who obviously gave my brother Kareem 30 pieces of silver to cut us down without even a phone call.”
The rapper was making a biblical reference to the story where Judas was given 30 pieces of silver to betray Jesus.
Jabbar emphasized that amid an ongoing call for racial equality in the US, it’s not fair to turn the table and perpetuate stereotypes of other people.
“Given the New Woke-fulness in Hollywood and the sports world, we expected more passionate public outrage. What we got was a shrug of meh-rage,” Jabbar said, referring to the response to several prominent figures sharing anti-Semitic posts.
He called out Ice Cube in particular for a series of tweets made last month
“Ice Cube’s June 10 daylong series of tweets, which involved some creepy symbols and images, in general implied that Jews were responsible for the oppression of blacks,” Jabbar wrote.
“NFL player DeSean Jackson tweeted out several anti-Semitic messages, including a quote he incorrectly thought was from Hitler (not your go-to guy for why-can’t-we’all-get-along quotes) saying that Jews had a plan to ‘extort America’ and achieve ‘world domination,'” he added.
Jabbar then called out Stephen Jackson for agreeing with those posts, and touting his support for Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
“It’s so disheartening to see people from groups that have been violently marginalized do the same thing to others without realizing that perpetuating this kind of bad logic is what perpetuates racism,” Jabbar wrote.
Jabbar’s column comes shortly after Nick Cannon was fired by ViacomCBS for making what many perceived as anti-Semitic remarks during his podcast Cannon’s Class.
During the podcast, Cannon said that Black people are the “true Hebrews” and discussed anti-semitic conspiracy theories that involve the Rothschild family.
“It’s never hate speech, you can’t be anti-Semitic when we are the Semitic people,” he said.
“When we are the same people who they want to be. That’s our birthright. We are the true Hebrews.”
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Jabbar’s column didn’t mention Cannon specifically, but he did slam Stephen Jackson for discussing the same Rothschild conspiracy theories.
The basketball legend ended his column with a call to action.
“If we’re going to be outraged by injustice, let’s be outraged by injustice against anyone,” Jabbar wrote.