Addressing Kanye: Xavier students educate community on antisemitism

March 13, 2023

By Ashton Broden, Staff Writer

Four Xavier students are on a mission this spring to preach a simple tune: “We love Kanye. But what he’s saying isn’t love.”

Kanye West sparked controversy with the Jewish community after making defamatory remarks about his experiences in the entertainment industry. Aarinii Parms-Green, Jamya Davis, Anthony Jeanmarie IV, and Nehemiah Strawberry are Exponential honors program students at Xavier who are leading a campaign to educate the Black community about antisemitism.

“Black students need to be aware of interracial solidarity, especially Jewish and Black solidarity to combat the hate that is within our community and learn to stand together with other communities to combat hate,” said Parms-Green, a freshman, political science major from Baton Rouge.

The project is part of a Department of Homeland Security initiative facilitated by Invent2Prevent to empower college and high school students to create ways to fight hate and misinformation.

Xavier’s team has been working with organizations like the Anti-Defamation League’s No Place to Hate campaign. They spoke at the ADL Southern Division’s “Unity Through Understanding Day” on Feb. 3, hosted by Loyola University’s Law School sharing lessons on the importance of learning each other’s history to K-12 educators. During Black History Month, the team kicked off an educational campaign “Did You Know?” educating young African Americans about the shared history of Black and Jewish communities.

Parms-Green shared that in the results of their trivia campaign, that about seven out of 10 students did not know African American historical facts, but also important moments of Jewish-Black solidarity as well.

“The campaign has been amazing and eye-opening,” she said.

The students invited Tulane University’s Hillel organization to an inter-racial dialogue and will be part of other Black and Jewish shared events throughout the semester. On Feb. 23, the team spoke on “The Good Morning Show” on WBOK radio with co-hosts New Orleans’ city councilmember Oliver Thomas and Dr. Torin Sanders to highlight the “Stronger Together” initiative of the Goldring Family FoundationCenterforJewish- Multicultural Affairs.

“We’ve seen that hate boil to the surface and explode. So now it’s important to be really active on this,” said Aaron Bloch, the executive director for the Goldring Center, and the director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New Orleans. “It’s intentional to not just confront antisemitism when it is directed against us, but to confront racism and xenophobia and homophobia and all forms of hatred,” said Bloch who is working to support the efforts of the Xavier student campaign.

Words are powerful, the students shared during the broadcast, and they hope to set a positive example for young people by correcting mistruths that are circulating on social media platforms.

“You have to be careful with great influencers, because they might not always influence you in the right direction,” said Jeanmarie, who is a Xavier sophomore sociology major from New Orleans. “We as people should use our platforms for positivity,” he added.

As they take their project into high schools and across the city, the team said they hope that information changes attitudes.

“Education is power. The more people we can educate, the more we can combat it,” Parms-Green said.