Ice Cube is Being Called Anti-Semitic Because of His Tweets
The memes in question stem from an erroneous Facebook account.
Ever since details around the death of George Floyd began circulating on social media, Ice Cube has been increasingly vocal online. On Wednesday, the former N.W.A. frontman sparked backlash with his latest posts.
After a string of memes exalting the Black Hebrew Israelites, Cube took aim at Jewish people. One meme he tweeted was a six-pointed Star of David, which has an outlined black cube. An additional image shows several black cubes, symbolic of the Black Cube of Saturn, which is an occult symbolism that is said to represent evil, darkness, war and conflict.
Cube has also sent out memes targeting the Warner Brothers, who Ice Cube accuses of being "racism pimps." Subsequent memes echo anti-Semitic theories about Jewish influence on pop culture.
One meme from a couple of days ago depicts a mural that surfaced in London back in 2012. The meme shows a group of men — caricatures of Jewish businessmen — sitting at a Monopoly board. The board rests on the backs of naked Black workers. "All we have to do is stand up," the meme is captioned, "and their little game is over."
Ice Cube's name was trending on Twitter. He continued to send out controversial tweets and memes. At one point, he tweeted out a veiled response to what people were saying.
According to The Daily Beast, other memes Cube posted originated on a Facebook account called Black Matter US. In 2018, The WashingtonPost's James Hohmann exposed the account as a front for a Russian manipulation campaign. According to Hohmann, the account maintained pages on multiple social media platforms. After attaining over 222,000 followers, Facebook shut the page down. However, duplicate accounts quickly surfaced in subsequent months.
Cube has — as do many other rappers — a long history of antipathy towards record label executives, many of whom happen to be of Jewish origin. Most notably, Cube holds a lifelong grudge against N.W.A's former manager Jerry Heller. Disputes with Heller and MC Ren led to the group breaking up, as well as Cube's beef with former bandmate Eazy E. On "No Vaseline," he infamously accuses Ren of "letting a Jew break up my crew."
Or, as Chuck Inglish put it.
On Tuesday, Cube addressed the backlash over his tweets. At first, he clarified that his account wasn't hacked.
"I speak for no organization," he tweeted. "I only speak for the meek people of thee earth. We will not expect crumbles from your table."
After Marc Lamont Hill called him out for spreading the theories, Cube argued that the memes were pro-Black, not anti-Semitic. "This is the truth brother," he tweeted. "I didn't lie on anyone. I didn't say I was anti anybody...I've been telling my truth."
Michael Rapaport attempted to come to Cube's defense. "Cube ain't Anti-Semetic," he tweeted. "He's anti-asshole. Let the OG Disruptor disrupt."
"Someone who actually knows me," Cube replied.