A petition is calling on ESPN to cancel rapper Ice Cube’s “Straight Outta L.A.” 30-for-30 series documentary because of Ice Cube’s recent tweets that have been criticized as being anti-Semitic.
The petition states, “During June 2020, Ice Cube used his Twitter account to spread decade’s old conspiracy theories about how the Jewish people ‘run the world’ and how we’ve made our money on the backs of African-American slaves. He’s tweeted out his support for Louis Farrakhan, a man who has said that the ‘Satanic Jews that run everything and mostly everybody’ and ‘I’m not an anti-Semite, I’m anti-Termite.’ ”
The petition goes on to argue that the documentary should be canceled to send a message that anti-Semitism is unacceptable.
“If you choose to keep this on your network, you’re sending a clear message to the Jewish community of the United States of America that you and your company support anti-Semitism,” the petition concludes. “Cancel Ice Cube!”
Bryan Leib, former national director of the Americans Against Anti-Semitism watchdog, told the Journal in an email that he launched the petition and asked why “the cancel culture” movement has been silent on Ice Cube.
“Why is there a double standard?” Leib wrote. “Why does anti-Semitism go unchecked by the Hollywood elite and mainstream media?”
Ice Cube’s “Straight Outta L.A.” documentary focuses on how the Raiders football team, which played in Los Angeles from 1982-94, came to symbolize the rise in rap music that became prevalent in the city during that timeframe.
As of this writing, the petition has nearly 700 signatures. ESPN did not respond to the Journal’s request for comment.
Ice Cube, born O’Shea Jackson, has tweeted images of a Star of David with a Black Cube of Saturn — a reference to occult worship — and an image of a mural showing six old white men with hooked noses playing a board game laying on African American men. Ice Cube responded to criticism that he’s anti-Semitic in a tweet stating, “What if I was just pro-Black? This is the truth brother. I didn’t lie on anyone. I didn’t say I was anti anybody. DONT BELIEVE THE HYPE. I’ve been telling my truth.”
Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) columnist Jonathan Tobin argued in a June 16 op-ed that although there are plenty of examples of people being “canceled” over criticism of the Black Lives Matter movement, people who engage in anti-Semitism do not face the same type of scrutiny. He pointed to Chelsea Handler’s June 15 Instagram post calling a Louis Farrakhan video “powerful” as an example.
“In the current moral panic about racism, one might have expected a surge of anger directed towards Handler by her colleagues in the entertainment industry, in addition to announcements that indicated that both individuals and companies wouldn’t work with her in the future,” Tobin wrote. “That didn’t happen. Instead, several celebrities even more famous, such as Jennifer Anniston, Jennifer Garner and Michelle Pfeiffer, voiced support for Handler.”
He later added: “We already know that the consequences of giving anti-Semites a pass can lead to horror. Apparently, those who pose as the supposedly enlightened guardians of our culture have either forgotten that or no longer care about it.”
