RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, The Chicago Metropolitan Area has one of the world's largest concentrations of Jewish households, with a population of more than 300,000 Jewish adults and children in 2020; and
WHEREAS, Nearly one in four Jewish residents of the Chicagoland area are descendants of a Holocaust survivor, victim, or refugee, with the local families and loved ones of those who perished to Nazi atrocities numbering in the thousands; and
WHEREAS, the Chicago-raised entertainer Kanye West has made multiple antisemitic statements over the last several months, denigrated the memory of Holocaust victims, and effectively incited violence; and
WHEREAS, Kanye West furthered his dangerous provocations by dining with white supremacist and Holocaust-denier Nick Fuentes at former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club, and then praised Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party on the InfoWars talk show, hosted by alt-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones; and
WHEREAS, bigots around the nation have begun to follow his example, including spray painting swastikas and the phrase "Kanye was right" on headstones in a Jewish cemetery in Waukegan, hanging the message on banners over a Los Angeles freeway, and expressing the sentiment during public comment at the Chicago City Council; and
WHEREAS, Antisemitic incidents have increased by 430 percent in Illinois between 2016 and 2021 according to the Anti-Defamation League, and hate crimes are up 71 percent in Chicago this year according to Chicago Commission on Human Relations Chair Nancy Andrade, with the most frequent targets being Jewish residents; and
WHEREAS, Kanye West has millions of followers around the world, making his inflammatory remarks especially dangerous and harmful; now, therefore,
DEBRA L. SILVERSTEIN ALDERMAN, 50th WARD
BE IT RESOLVED, that we, the Members ofthe City Council ofthe City of Chicago, do hereby condemn in the strongest possible terms the words and actions of Kanye West and call on social media providers and other media outlets to stop giving West and other antisemites a platform for spreading hate and lies.