Almost a year ago, the Franconian global sporting goods company Adidas ended its collaboration with US rapper Kanye West because of his anti-Semitic comments – now the company is being criticized again. Adidas CEO Bjørn Gulden recently said of West in an Internet video: “I don’t think he meant what he said and I don’t think he’s a bad person.” Criticism came from the International Auschwitz Committee on Thursday. Adidas announced on Thursday: “Ending the partnership was the right decision.”
The Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee, Christoph Heubner, sharply criticized Gulden. “The relativization of Kanye West’s anti-Semitic statements by the CEO of Adidas is unbearable” and appears cynical and hurtful not only towards victims of the Holocaust, said Heubner during a visit with German and Polish young people to the Auschwitz concentration camp memorial, according to a statement on Thursday .
“I don’t think he meant what he said”
The sporting goods manufacturer ended its cooperation with West in October last year because of repeated anti-Semitic and racist statements. In an English-language podcast interview published on Norges Bank Investment Management’s YouTube channel about a week ago, Gulden, when asked about the separation from Kanye West, initially said: “That was before my time.” He also recognized Kanye West, also known as Ye, as “one of the most creative people in the world” and an influential artist in the fields of street culture and music, emphasized Gulden. He regretted the end of the economically successful cooperation.
Heubner described the “understanding that the Adidas CEO expressed in his praise of Kanye West as one of the supposedly most creative people in the world, who ‘just came across wrong’ with his repeated anti-Semitic outbursts” as “more than embarrassing and disastrous” for Adidas . What was supposed to be “a steamy chat in a podcast to help de-escalate the situation” now only seems “as if the company had finally been abandoned by all good spirits.” This puts the company’s decision to separate from West and donate the proceeds from the sale of the product lines into perspective.
An Adidas spokesman said on Thursday that the company’s position from last October “has not changed.” At the time, Adidas said it would “not tolerate anti-Semitism or any other type of hate speech.” Kanye West’s statements and actions are “unacceptable, hateful and dangerous.” They violated Adidas’ values such as diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness.