Very recently, comedian and podcast host Joe Rogan has been under scrutiny because on some episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience, opinions (professional and otherwise) were expressed that others disagreed with. What a concept, right? How dare he have immunologists and virologists come on his show and share things that deviate from the main narrative? How dare he discuss race relations with a white man?
Some of you reading this may actually be agreeing with my sarcastic outrage, and that is part of the problem.
The comedian has since made a video addressing the intensity around his show, but this is not about Joe Rogan; this is about how much our society has descended into this all-consuming thought-police academy, where we can no longer simply disagree with someone, but they have to be silenced or ‘I’m not gonna play with you guys anymore!’
It started with Neil Young leaving Spotify, and now a few other artists are following suit. Young, by the way, who has financial ties to Blackstone, a ginormous real estate company that has just appointed Jeffrey B. Kindler, former Chairman and CEO of Pfizer and current CEO of Centrexion Therapeutics, as a Senior Advisor. Blackstone happens to own 50% of Neil Young’s music catalog, and it also happens to be one of the most aggressive companies when it comes to getting Americans vaccinated. One must consider context before looking at ones actions at face value.
One prominent artist that is also following Neil Young’s lead is unfortunately one of my favorite Soul artists of all time, India Arie. Yes, India Arie has announced on social media that she will be leaving Spotify as well. She says:
“I believe in freedom of speech. However, I find Joe Rogan problematic for reasons other than his Covid interviews. For me, it’s also his language around race.”
The four-time Grammy award winner continues:
“What I am talking about is respect — who gets it and who doesn’t. Paying musicians a fraction of a penny? And him $100 [million]? This shows the type of company they are and the company that they keep. I’m tired.”
So the reason is twofold: India Arie does not agree with Joe Rogan’s views on race, which is absolutely for her or anyone to do. Joe Rogan has people of wide ranging beliefs on his podcast. She could reach out to him and give him what-for on his show. He can take it. He has in the past. The other reason is that she does not like that Spotify gave Rogan a $100 million deal while still only giving artists (like myself) a fraction of a penny per stream. I understand that as well. I also understand that Joe Rogan has agreed for Spotify to have exclusive streaming rights to his shows, because he’s the #1 streaming podcast in America, and Spotify is a business that likes to make money. If big time artists are upset about that, more of them should have been doing something about it a long time ago as Spotify has been around for almost 16 years.
To these artists now who are making a fuss over Joe Rogan and his show, I lovingly challenge you with this question: where have you been?
Spotify hosts podcasts of some of the most vile, Jew-hating, Africaphobic, womanizing hosts of our time, and some of you are aware of them. Louis “I’m not antisemite, I’m anti-termite” Farrakhan and his Nation of Islam acolytes have enjoyed hundreds of thousands of followers on their podcasts for years. In July of 2020, Farrakhan, in an speech, said he asked God to infect Florida’s Jews with Covid-19. Here are just a few disparaging things this man has uttered:
“Satanic Jews have infected the whole world with poison and deceit.”
"German Jews financed Hitler right here in America...International bankers financed Hitler and poor Jews died while big Jews were at the root of what you call the Holocaust...Little Jews died while big Jews made money. Little Jews [were] being turned into soap while big Jews washed themselves with it. Jews [were] playing violin, Jews [were] playing music, while other Jews [were] marching into the gas chambers..."
“"[U]ntil Jews apologize for their hand in that ugly slave trade; and until the Jewish rabbis and the Talmudic scholars that made up the Hamitic myth -- that we were the children of Ham, doomed and cursed to be hewers of wood and drawers of water -- apologize, then I have nothing to apologize for."
Beside the fact that these quotes and demonstrably false, they are dangerous. Farrakhan highlights that “the Jews” financed and controlled the transatlantic slave-trade, completely ignoring two things:
Yes, a small minority of Jews had slaves, but many more Jews fought, died, and even killed their fellow Jew to end slavery.
Every other ethnic and religious group owned slaves, and Jews made up the smallest minority.
I write much more on that in this article so I don’t want to get distracted with dismantling each point, and in that article, I also highlight how Louis Farrakhan has enabled the modern day Arab slave-trade of Africans today. You can click and read if you’re interested.
Linda Sarsour is another person that enjoys a vast following on her Spotify podcast. Sarsour who once tweeted the following about a Somali survivor of Female Genital Mutilation, Ayaan Hirsi Ali:
“Brigitte Gabriel= Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She's asking 4 an a$$ whippin'. I wish I could take their vaginas away — they don't deserve to be women.”
Sarsour has been confronted about this many times and refuses to acknowledge or apologize about her words. She also is a staunch follower of Louis Farrakhan.
Those are just two of many examples of people with podcasts who have said and continue to say very problematic, dangerous, and downright gross things about others.
And yet, the point of this post is not to get them pulled from Spotify. I think they have a right to their demented, twisted, unfounded hatred of other people, and to express that hatred on whatever platforms will have them. It is both theirs and the platform’s prerogative. But again, my challenge to Neil Young, India Arie, and whoever else is threatening to leave Spotify is this: are you really making this decision because of your convictions, or are you hopping on a bandwagon? Because it sure does look like the latter.
The concept of free speech is not to protect speech we like. That’s easy. It is precisely the speech we do not like that needs to be protected. Like we’ve seen with Farrakhan or Sarsour, or KKK’s David Duke, or Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib’s complete mangling of history, it can be speech that I would hope everyone reading would agree is reprehensible, or it can be an opinion about COVID that may not line up with your current worldview. People are absolutely entitled to state their views. Whether the views are from someone we’d rather overlook, like Whoopi Goldberg’s revisionist history of the Holocaust, or from someone we already have ill feelings toward, like Joe Rogan’s Italian takes on Black Americans.
Or even you. Yes not all of your ideas are kosher either. Coming from someone who does human rights activism full time, rather than try and silence people, use your God-given free speech to combat theirs. That is the only viable way.
Totally agree!