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Nick Cannon has created a multimedia career that spans TV, podcasting, acting, and music by monetizing his personability, wit, and charm. But today, the multi-hyphenate was under attack for comments he made on his podcast Cannon’s Class, with former Public Enemy member Professor Griff.
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Griff, born Richard Griffin, was an original member of the seminal rap group. He was forced to leave it in 1989 when he said, “Jews are responsible for the majority of wickedness around the world.” The group quickly distanced themselves from him and moved on to further success without him.
Cannon, 39, was a trending topic on Twitter for comments that were viewed as anti-Semitic and, for a bunch of non-Black commentators on Twitter, racist. Here’s a portion of an hour and a half interview with the offending comments:
“When we talk about the power of melanated people, when we talk about who we are as Gods and understanding that, melanin is so powerful and it connects us in a way. The reason why they fear Black, the reason why they fear us, is the lack that they have of it,” he said.
“When you see what Dr. Frances C. Welsing (the late psychiatrist who wrote the book “The Isis Papers” about the origins of white supremacy) talked about, is that fear and that deficiency when you see a person that has the lack of pigment, the lack of melanin, that they know that they will be annihilated.”
Cannon continued to cast more aspersions on their character.
“So therefore, however they got the power, they have the lack of compassion. Melanin comes with compassion. Melanin comes with soul. We call it soul. We call ourselves soul brothers and sisters, so the people that don’t have it, are – and, I’m a say this carefully, are a little less,” Cannon said.
“And where the term actually comes from – and I’m bringing it all the way back around to Minister Farrakhan, to where they might not have the compassion. When they were sent to the mountains of Caucasus when they didn’t have the power of the sun, when the sun started to deteriorate them, then they’re acting out of fear, they’re acting out of low self-esteem, They’re acting out of a deficiency. So, therefore, the only way that they can act is evil.”
Cannon still wasn’t done with his comments.
“They have to rob, steal, rape in order to survive. So when we and when I say me, I mean the melanated people, they had to be savages, they. had to be barbaric, because they’re in these Nordic mountains, they’re in these rough torrential environments, they’re eating as animals so they’re the ones that are acting closer to animals,” he said.
“They’re the ones that are actually the true savages. They built up, I won’t say warrior, but they built up this conquering barbaric mentality.”
Cannon also praised Minister Louis Farrakhan who has support in the Black community as the leader of the Nation of Islam. However, he’s also been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as both homophobic and anti-Semitic.
After the comments went viral, Cannon responded via his Facebook page, saying that he had no hatred toward anyone.
Cannon told Fast Company that he’d heard from a few rabbis that he would welcome on to the podcast.
“My podcast is specifically an academic podcast to have tough and difficult conversations based off of text. And if we read something and something’s not accurate, let’s do away with it,” Cannon said.
“I can’t wait to sit down with some people that can help educate me and help further this conversation. I want to be corrected.”
And to his critics who say his apology was less than an apology, Cannon has this to say:
“You can say sorry in as many different languages as you want to, and it means nothing,” Cannon told Fast Company. “But until someone truly understands where they may have been wrong or where they may have offended someone, then that’s where growth occurs.”
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Cannon, who was once married to and has two kids with Mariah Carey, is the current host of The Masked Singer and the former host of America’s Got Talent. He’s also the creator and host of the popular MTV show Wild N Out. Neither one of those shows or networks have yet commented on the controversy.
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