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Let's get into it:
I'm all for defending freedom of speech, but I'm suddenly realizing that defending the free speech rights of those who believe in squashing the speech of those with whom they disagree is a self-defeating, self-hating, culture-destroying prospect. The people who fly the free speech flag only when it's for their own views are lying when they say they believe in free speech. I'm talking about Macklemore and Ed Sheeran.
Macklemore hates Israel and appears to also hate Jews. Okay. Not my jam. But lots of people are hateful. Ed Sheeran had Macklemore along for the ride on his tour. Again, okay, not my jam, I'm not buying tickets anyway. Lots of other people did, though, and a bunch of them didn't like being lectured about fake Israeli genocide.
After online protests and complaints about Macklemore's on-stage pro-Palestine/anti-Israel comments, Messina Touring Group, the company promoting Ed Sheeran's Loop Tour, determined that Macklemore would be removed as the opening act. Among his songs are "Free Palestine" and "Hind's Hall," celebrating the Columbia University students' takeover of an administration building during which they held janitorial staff hostage. Venues had told them that if the tour didn't cancel Macklemore, the venues would pull out entirely and not host Sheeran and the other acts.
Now a bunch of the other bands have quit, too. Aaron Rowe, Lukas Graham, Finneas, brother of Billie Eilish, and traditional Irish band Beoga said they were backing out of the tour in protest. On Instagram, Finneas said "artists must not be silenced when they speak up for the oppressed. I have decided to withdraw from my upcoming tour dates with Ed Sheeran. I stand with Palestine and its people." The people of Palestine attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, massacring 1,200, including a bunch of kids at a music festival. It was this attack that prompted the new conflict.
Sheeran had issued a comment on his Instagram blaming the promoters, but that wasn't enough to staunch the tide of cancelations from the other bands on the tour.
Sheeran said he was "appalled" by the Israel-Gaza conflict, that there is "suffering and pain caused on both sides," which he said is a "human tragedy." Macklemore, he said, asked to join the tour last year and Sheeran said he respects "him as an artist" and allows all support acts to choose their own setlist. After a New Jersey show, Sheeran said he was "informed" that other venues wanted to pull out. Sheeran tried for a week to "build a bridge" but it wasn't happening and Patriots owner Robert Kraft led the charge.
The refusal to platform Macklemore, Sheeran said, "was the promoter's decision," and not his own. "Macklemore's contract for the tour was with the promoter, not me," he said. Sheeran said he would never cancel an act. Sheeran went on to say "I have always used my platform and music to bring people from all backgrounds and cultures together and this won't ever change. Those who have been to one of my shows will know that they are about unity, joy, escapism, love, and a place for everyone to feel welcome.
"I am not complicit," he went on. "I have my personal views on this devastating conflict. Just because I choose not to speak publicly, it doesn't mean I don't have them, and it doesn't mean I don't care. Nor does it mean I don't support causes in my own, personal way." Sheeran prefers not to use his platform for political diatribes, he said, but he respects Macklemore's "strength of purpose to stand up and shout for what he believes."
I have no interest in shutting Macklemore up. He sounds quite stupid on his own and I would not wish to add any righteous fuel of censorship to his fire. But since Oct. 7, we've seen cancelation of Jewish performers, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, for example, for being Jewish. We've seen cancellations of Israeli performers because of their national origin. And at no point in that time have we seen Finneas, Aaron Rowe, Lukas Graham, Beoga, or even Macklemore himself speak out against it.
When the formerly free speech left began their cancel campaign of conservatives or gender critical feminists or weathermen who accidentally said "coon," there was no principled outpouring. These high-minded, upstanding, honorable people are all for free speech and standing on their high horses when the speech they want to defend aligns with their own views, but when it is divergent, they are the first to bring out the duct tape and the cancel wagons.
They are the "free speech for me but not for thee" crowd and while I won't silence them or call for their canceling, I am done defending them. They seek to undermine and destroy the culture that vouchsafes their natural rights and while I respect the rights, I don't respect those who wield them just for their own side.
Libby