When the Slope Day Programming Board announced Kehlani as this year’s headliner, the reaction on campus was swift: Nearly everyone I spoke to seemed to agree that Kehlani was a poor choice. Some students pointed out that she isn’t as high-profile as previous headliners, such as Kendrick Lamar and Drake. Others have felt that her music doesn’t fit the typical energy of Slope Day.
But beyond the debates over genre and star power lay a deeper, more disturbing issue — one that goes far beyond music and raises serious questions about how this decision was made in the first place.
Kehlani is an antisemite, plain and simple. That is not a claim I make lightly based on a careless repost or cherry-picked quotes. I’m pointing to her music video praising the intifadas, a series of terrorist attacks which took the lives of nearly 1,000 Israelis. I’m pointing to her Instagram story posts calling Zionists — who make up the vast majority of the world’s Jews — “scum of the earth” and declaring “long live the resistance in all of its forms,” justifying the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacres against Israeli civilians.
Thankfully, in response to outcry from students, alumni and many others, Kehlani’s performance has been canceled and will likely be replaced. But the deeper question remains: How did this happen in the first place? And when it was revealed, why did it take so much public outcry for action to be taken?
My question to the Slope Day Programming Board, the student body and the administration is simple: Did you know about Kehlani’s hate? I’m not asking if you oppose terrorism. I already assume that you do. You don’t have to tell me that you don’t think Zionists are the “scum of the earth.” I already assume you don’t. You don’t have to tell me that you think the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks were wrong. I already assume that you do. But why are you unaware that Kehlani, a person with 16 million Instagram followers, disagrees with your instinct to not glorify terrorism and demean most of the world’s Jewish population?
I’m not accusing the Programming Board or President Michael Kotlikoff of antisemitism. Once this controversy came to light, Kotlikoff announced steps to ensure that future Slope Day performers are more thoroughly vetted. I am sure those steps will be effective. But why are they only being taken now? A basic Google search, such as “Kehlani politics,” quickly reveals her problematic history, including materials published before the Cornell controversy. Why was this check neglected?
And perhaps even more concerning: Why does it take digging to find this information at all? As of this writing, Kehlani’s top search results lead to her Instagram, her music and her Wikipedia page. The only pages that have surfaced regarding her politics at the top of her results are those that emerged after Cornellians for Israel and others reacted to her selection as the Slope Day headliner, something that may not have been necessary had the Programming Board conducted a more comprehensive search. At the same time, a more comprehensive search should not have been required; however, uncovering Kehlani’s antisemitic comments seemed to require one. Nevertheless, this is not the case for every celebrity. A Google search for Kanye West (Ye), for example, will immediately bring up his Hitler-praising remarks. With Kehlani, it’s buried beneath playlists and PR. What does that say about how we treat antisemitism, depending on where it comes from?
There is no difference between Ye’s antisemitism and Kehlani’s. Praising those who massacre Jewish people is equally evil, regardless of who does it. Yet, the public response could not be more different. Ye lost deals with Adidas, Balenciaga and many others after his remarks. Kehlani, on the other hand, was nearly welcomed onto an Ivy League campus.
This reveals a troubling double standard: Antisemitism is (rightfully) treated as unacceptable coming from the far right, yet it does not seem to occur to some that it even exists on the far left. Hitler’s Nazism, whose supporters you probably don’t interact with regularly, is about as far right as right-wing can get, and you probably already knew that Ye praised it. However, as the Palestinian cause and its most violent factions have gained popularity on the Western left, they have become normalized. But bigotry is not limited to one side of the aisle. The right has earned a reputation for spreading blatant hate and frivolous conspiracy theories, such as those spewed by Ye. Yet the left hides its Jew-hatred in the language of social justice, liberation and decolonization, making it sound like a good cause. These causes, while good in principle, are distorted to present Jewish people and Israelis as colonizers when, in reality, Israel is arguably history’s most successful example of decolonization. But since it’s cloaked in social justice, all too many people don’t notice, or just look the other way, normalizing one side’s hatred. When that hatred nearly gets a stage at Cornell, we have to ask: What are we really endorsing?
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Ezra Galperin is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences. His fortnightly column, Ezra's Cornell, discusses campus politics and how they are affected by the wider political climate.
