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Kanye rethinks Jewish ‘compliment’

‘I don’t know how being told that you have money is, like, an insult,’ says famous rapper

By JTA 23 December 2013, 10:59 pm 8

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Kanye West attends a show for the Alexander Wang collection during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York in September. (photo credit: AP/Dario Cantatore/Invision)

Rapper Kanye West told a Chicago radio station last week that he wants to take back the “ignorant compliment” he made about Jews.

West made the comment last month during an interview on the New York City radio station WWPR-FM. In defending US President Barack Obama’s difficulty in passing his policies, West said, “Black people don’t have the same level of connections as Jewish people.”

In an interview last week with the Chicago radio station B96, West said, “I thought that I was giving a compliment, but it came off more ignorant. When I said this comment about Jews having money and blacks not having money, I think it was, like, a ‘ignorant compliment.’”

He added, “I don’t know how being told that you have money is, like, an insult.”

The original comments had raised the ire of the Anti-Defamation League, while Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan defended West and said he should not apologize.