Erykah Badu Kind Of Defended Hitler In The Name Of Humanism…

In a recent interview, Erykah Badu proclaimed her humanism and then sort of defended Hitler. ‘I see good in everybody,’ she said.

By WKBW on January 24, 2018
erykah badu
(Photo by Rich Fury/Getty Images for FYF)

In a recent interview with Vulture, the conversation with Erykah Badu went off into a strange direction.

David Marchese, the interviewer, brought up some comments that Badu made previously regarding Nation of Islam leader, Louis Farrakhan. She took heat for her controversial statements at the time regarding Farrakhan, who has long held anti-Semitic views. Badu told Marchese, “If you say something good about someone, people think it means that you’ve chosen a side. But I don’t choose sides. I see all sides simultaneously.”

Then Hitler found his way into the conversation, and this is what happened:

That’s not something most of us are good at.
We’re not, and I’m okay with that. I’m also okay with anything I had to say about Louis Farrakhan. But I’m not an anti-Semitic person. I don’t even know what anti-Semitic was before I was called it. I’m a humanist. I see good in everybody. I saw something good in Hitler

Come again?
Yeah, I did. Hitler was a wonderful painter.

No, he wasn’t! And even if he was, what would his skill as a painter have to do with any “good” in him?
Okay, he was a terrible painter. Poor thing. He had a terrible childhood. That means that when I’m looking at my daughter, I could imagine her being in someone else’s home and being treated so poorly, and what that could spawn. I see things like that. I guess it’s just the Pisces in me.

I’m perfectly willing to accept that you might be operating on a higher moral plane than I am, but I think going down the route of “Hitler was a child once too” is maybe turning the idea of empathy into an empty abstraction. 
Maybe so. It doesn’t test my limits—I can see this clearly. I don’t care if the whole group says something, I’m going to be honest. I know I don’t have the most popular opinion sometimes.

While it’s sort of understandable where Badu is coming from, it is also important that Marchese played the Devil’s advocate in this instance so she could elaborate.

Badu continued:

“I understand what you’re saying: ‘Why would you want to risk fueling hateful thinking?’ I have a platform, and I would never want to hurt people.’

Click here to read the full interview. It’s certainly worth a read.

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