January 25, 2018

Erykah Badu expresses empathy for Hitler, the human being, and creates a stir.

It's worse that that time Donald Trump said something that made it sound as though there could be a good person in there amongst the neo-Nazis.*

WaPo reports:
Badu hasn’t released a record since 2010, but she gave the interview in advance of the tentative reissue of “Baduizm” in February.
And maybe that says it all, but let's continue:
Badu said she’s hesitant to pass judgment on people such as Cosby, who was accused of rape, sexual assault or sexual harassment by at least 60 women.... Badu added, “if he’s sick, why would I be angry with him?” She admitted that her viewpoint might be poorly received, saying “I could be crucified for saying that,” but that “the rush to get mad doesn’t make sense to me.”
Then she added: "I see good in everybody... I saw something good in Hitler."

Questioned, she blurted out, “Hitler was a wonderful painter,” but of course he was a rotten painter. The interviewer informed her of the noncontroversial, no ambiguity possible, black-and-white fact that Hitler was a terrible painter, and she saw her opening to feel sorry for him for being a terrible painter — "Poor thing" — and took a stab at another basis for empathy, that he had a "terrible childhood" (though there's no reason to think she knew anything about Hitler's childhood).

One thing we know for sure: Erykah Badu exists.

____________________

* What did Trump actually say last August, after the Charlottesville protests? We all have our mental notes on the subject, but here's the transcript:

Q: Mr. President, are you putting what you are calling the alt-left and white supremacists on the same moral plane?

Trump: I am not putting anybody on a moral plane. You had a group on one side and the other and they came at each other with clubs and it was vicious and horrible. It was a horrible thing to watch. There is another side. There was a group on this side, you can call them the left. You have just called them the left, that came violently attacking the other group. You can say what you want. That's the way it is.

Q: You said there was hatred and violence on both sides?

Trump: I think there is blame on both sides. You look at both sides. I think there is blame object both on both sides. I have no doubt about it. You don't have doubt about it either. If you reported it accurately, you would say that the neo-Nazis started this thing. They showed up in Charlottesville. Excuse me. They didn't put themselves down as neo-Nazis. You had some very bad people in that group. You also had some very fine people on both sides. You had people in that group -- excuse me, excuse me. I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down, of to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.

George Washington was a slave owner. Was George Washington a slave owner? So will George Washington now lose his status? Are we going to take down -- excuse me. Are we going to take down statues to George Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson? What do you think of Thomas Jefferson? You like him. Good. Are we going to take down his statue. He was a major slave owner. Are we going to take down his statue? It is fine. You are changing history and culture.

You had people and I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists. They should be condemned totally. You had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists. The press has treated them absolutely unfairly. Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people but you also had troublemakers and you see them come with the black outfits and with the helmets and with the baseball bats. You had a lot of bad people in the other group too.

Q: You were saying the press has treated white nationalists unfairly?

Trump: No, no. There were people in that rally. I looked the night before. If you look, there were people protesting very quietly the taking down taking down the statue of Robert E. Lee. I am sure there were some bad ones.

The following day, it looked like they had some rough, bad people, neo-Nazis, white nationalists, whatever you want to call them. You had a lot of people in that group that were there to innocently protest and very legally protest. I don't know if you know, they had a permit. The other group didn't have a permit.

So I only tell you this. There are two sides to a story. I thought what took place was horrible moment for our country, a horrible moment. But there are two sides to the country.
IN THE COMMENTS: Kate said:
"Q: You were saying the press has treated white nationalists unfairly?"

Cathy Newman, is that you?

58 comments:

MadisonMan said...

“the rush to get mad doesn’t make sense to me.”

It makes sense to me. Getting people angry is a way to motivate them to do something, hopefully something that you yourself are vexed about.

That said -- it's an exhausting way to live, to be mad all the time. And just because it makes sense to me, that doesn't mean it's any way I would want to live.

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

I don't know this Badu person. But that was some gibberish. Drugs? Just stupid. I don't know. I was reminded of the old expression they are so open minded their brains fell out.

Trump was again committed the sin of speaking truth to power. Power hates that.

MayBee said...

Questioned, she blurted out, “Hitler was a wonderful painter,” but of course he was a rotten painter. The interviewer informed her of the noncontroversial, no ambiguity possible, black-and-white fact that Hitler was a terrible painter, and she saw her opening to feel sorry for him for being a terrible painter — "Poor thing" —

This is hilarious.

Sydney said...

It’s hard to be an empath in today’s world.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Racism is a disease?

That’s more generous than Oprah’s death wish.

Kate said...

"Q: You were saying the press has treated white nationalists unfairly?"

Cathy Newman, is that you?

Black Bellamy said...

Hitler loved his dog. So much so that he tested his cyanide capsule on him. See? There's IS a bit of good in everyone!

Ipso Fatso said...

Everything is beautiful in its own way.....

Ray Stevens

Marcus said...

Kate beat me to it. It was definitely a Cathy Newman moment.

Bay Area Guy said...

I don't know about Hitler's supposed good traits, but the Left speaks fondly of Josef Stalin (see Duranty, NYT articles) and wears Che Guevara t-shirts in college.

Henry said...

One thing we know for sure: Erykah Badu exists.

Not me.

Darkisland said...

In the 20s and 30s there were a lot of deep thinkers (as Sowell calls intellectuals) who believed that Hitler and Mussolini were the wave of the future.

LaFollette even founded a political party, the National Progressive Party, that tried to ape the National Socialist Party. Right down to having a swastika, albeit circumcised, as the party symbol. On, Wisconsin!

The antefa (NAT)movement seems to be mimicking the German National Socialist brownshirts and the Italian Fascist Blackshirts with their streetfighting as politics.

There is pretty much no difference between US progressive ideology and National Socialist/Fascist ideology. Even down to the willingness to kill people who do not agree with or fit into the ideology. Fortunately, US progressives are mostly just talk about it at the present.

I've noticed just in the past weeks that perhaps President Trump is no longer literally Hitler. Now he seems to be morphing into Stalin in the deep thinkers' minds.

Perhaps it is time to rehabilitate Hitler. NB: I AM NOT ONE OF THE ONES TRYING TO REHABILITATE HIM! So what if he murdered 12mm people in the camps. So what if he tried to wipe out 2 entire races. It was in a good cause, no?

John Henry

traditionalguy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
rhhardin said...

White nationalists and white supremacists are ill defined and include all sorts of people, most of them benevolent and wishing blacks well.

Here's the breakdown

http://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2016-12-02.html

Item 05, a response to John McWhorter's essay on the same topic.

Once the list is there, you might find that you're agreeing with a few of the positions. The bashing of the general terms is done to prevent you from discovering that.

traditionalguy said...

Europe seems ready to start up a serious Fourth Reich. Suddenly, there is an agreement that the Shikelgruber boy got a bad rap. So what that he diligently murdered every man, woman and child of an inferior race that did not worship his beloved Aryan Psychics from Tibet. And you have to admit he accomplished the Jesuit's job of looting and exterminating Europe's Jews for the Pope, for which deed the followers of Loyola helped him out when he needed them.

Dude1394 said...

Thank you for the transcript, I had not read it. I was sure that the democrat-media was lying about what trump said and this confirms it. No wonder the Cathy Newman video has been so popular, it illustrates the democrat-media in realtime.

Trumps statement was JUST LIKE A NORMAL SANE PERSON would speak about this. The only way that the media could get white supremacist support out of this is to engage in dishonesty. Which at this point is assumed until proven otherwise.

My favorite POTUS indeed.

rhhardin said...

Hitler would have been writing on comment threads today, had he survived.

One of his complaints about Jews, in Mein Kampf, is that they're shifty and dishonest. You argue with one one day and win decisively and the next day they're back arguing just as if you hadn't defeated them the previous day.

That's comment threads in a nutshell.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

care.exe not found. The file may be missing or corrupt.

rhhardin said...

Favorite file names

harmless.sh

oldtemp.sv

Darkisland said...

Well, mostly just talk. You've got the progressive that shot Scalise and tried to kill other congresscritters at a ball game and you have this precious UNC professor:

Dwayne Dixon, a University of North Carolina anthropology professor and leader of the armed Antifa group Redneck Revolt, has admitted to chasing James Alex Fields Jr. with a rifle just before he drove into a group of protesters — killing Heather Heyer.

This new revelation adds some insight into what was happening in the moments leading up to the fatal incident.

In a Facebook post by Dixon on January 7, obtained by the Gateway Pundit, he wrote:

“I take perverse pleasure in having carried this Spike’s lower in the defense of Justice Park on August 12th. I used this rifle to chase off James Fields from our block of 4th St before he attacked the marchers to the south. Spike’s needs a good lesson in ethics and antifascism.”


The quote is from his Facebook page and there is a screenshot at the link.

John Henry

Fernandinande said...

Hitler's paintings - which are definitely not terrible - are better than her attempted music unless you want to feel like you're trapped in an elevator.

holdfast said...

I’m sure if you drill down into Badu’s past mentors, influences and statements, it will come down to Jew hatred. It usually does.

Plus her “music” is shite. Sort of like Hitler’s painting.

rhhardin said...

Hitler is a much better painter than I am.

I probably beat him at computer graphics though. I used to be a wizard at it, until I got tired of all the successive software I'd been using going obsolete and non-functional.

Hagar said...

And I still think "Charlottesville" originated in a dirty ops caper that succeeded way beyond expectations.

Darkisland said...

RH Hardin,

Re Hitler surviving and commenting:How do you know that he didn't and isn't?

Perhaps Hitler is commenting here under fake IDs. We could play a game of "Who's Hitler" with at least 2 of our favorite commenters in their multitudinous personalities, known and unknown.

John Henry

madAsHell said...

uuummmm.....I like what you're done with your hair.....Buckwheat!!

Sebastian said...

Always useful to look at the actual Trump transcript, to remind us of the MSM bad-faith fake-news reporting.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

My understanding was that Hitler had good technique, but was rejected when he applied to art school because that was all he had, good technique. His deficiencies lay elsewhere. He just did not have what it took to be an artiste. So no, Hitler's paintings were not "terrible."

As for the comments about finding good in Hitler, the idea that there is good in everyone and you should not judge is taught literally everywhere. The songstress just hasn't internalized that there are certain, approved exceptions to that, primarily Hitler, Trump, and deplorables. Also feminists who refuse to accept that someone with a penis and a full beard who tells you he feels like a woman is just as much a woman as she is. That is double plus ungood crimethink.

Chuck said...

Trump transcripts are such fabulous things.

Althouse, were you actually trying to suggest that a complete and accurate transcription of Trump's remarks were exculpatory? The more that we transcribe Trump (and as I say we should be transcribing him all the time, with lots of follow up questions to force him to be clear and specific, and hopefully very soon under oath before a DoJ stenographer), the better it gets.

I had actually recalled Trump's remarks a bit more kindly before you favored us with a reprinting of the transcript. I thank you. I recalled Trump's one short declarative sentence as making a bit of sense; that "There is blame on both sides."

But beyond that was just Trump riffing in his usual unfiltered way, which always demonstrates what a shallow, deficient, disorganized thinker Trump really is.

Kevin said...

Chuck is still refusing to say one nice thing about Trump.

He never misses an opportunity to take a pot shot at him, however.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

I couldn't find images of Hitler's paintings using the link provided above, so if you are interested, here are the results of a search using bing.com.

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=hitler+paintings&FORM=HDRSC2

They're mostly landscapes and buildings. When people are pictured they are tiny compared to the buildings which dominate the painting. Its thought this foreshadows Hitler's interest in and use of architecture when he came to power. In fact, there are reams of writing attempting to analyze Hitler through his painting and the influences he encountered as a young, struggling artist in Vienna prior to WWI.

This article is a good intro to such work.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/08/19/hitler-as-artist

Larvell said...

Hitler was not a "rotten" painter, particularly if you judge him as an amateur. He was actually fairly talented, particularly with architectural paintings, just not extremely inspired. Take away his mass murder and everything and I don't think people would call his painting rotten.

https://www.quora.com/Was-Hitlers-art-work-good

Kevin said...

But beyond that was just Trump riffing in his usual unfiltered way, which always demonstrates what a shallow, deficient, disorganized thinker Trump really is.

Do you remember Obama when he wasn't reading off a teleprompter?

You might have forgotten. It was a rare occurrence after he embarrassed himself the first few times.

Out of all the debates you can only remember two things he said. One was Hillary was likable enough, and that seemed planted.

The second was him asking the moderator to bail him out of the Benghazi question.

Kevin said...

They're mostly landscapes and buildings. When people are pictured they are tiny compared to the buildings which dominate the painting.

Was there smoke coming out of the chimneys? Because that might have been revealing.

Ron Winkleheimer said...


Was there smoke coming out of the chimneys? Because that might have been revealing.

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=YlLbZZrg&id=C37787B6AB27306F08D032FD1E41C7AF26A3CECD&thid=OIP.YlLbZZrgtoY_ZZ1MszKVyAHaFX&mediaurl=http%3a%2f%2f15858-presscdn-0-65.pagely.netdna-cdn.com%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2fsites%2fdefault%2ffiles%2fimages%2fAHOrdensplatzCU1_0.jpg&exph=867&expw=1197&q=hitler+paintings&simid=607989331901090417&selectedIndex=4&ajaxhist=0

MD Greene said...

I'm guessing her career options didn't include getting a PhD in history or ethics.

Kevin said...

Thanks Ron. Mostly cityscapes but with a foreboding haze in the air.

rcocean said...

Somebody should respond to a media question "So, what you're saying is...."

With "So, your question is why am I completely right. Well, I'll tell you..."

Hitler was no worse than Mao Or Stalin. They all killed millions. In fact, as a *person* Hitler was a nicer guy then the other two. For example,he rarely killed his associates - Night of the Long Knives - was a picnic compared to Stalin's show trials. Plus, he loved animals, and as Mel Brooks said was a great dancer.

As for painting. I've seen George Bush's and Churchill's paintings - and Hitler is much better.

rcocean said...

Speer wrote that Hitler could have been a good architect if he'd trained for it.

Of course, Shirer says otherwise, because Shirer was a typical Leftist. He hated Hitler's politics, so EVERYTHING about him had to be bad.

mockturtle said...

Hitler wasn't really a terrible painter. He was a terrible person.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Speer wrote that Hitler could have been a good architect if he'd trained for it.

As I recall, Speer wrote that at least one of the Nazi upper echelons was jealous of the time Hitler spent with Speer supervising his work. He told Speer something to the effect that God or destiny had made Hitler the Fuehrer, not an architect. Its been a few decades since I read Speer's books.

Unknown said...

"Erykah" = Erica? In the post-colonial orthography?

Clearly a person of special talent and rare courage, to play the Hitler card (the anti-Hitler card?) with such finesse.

I seem to see her in the near future, commiserating with Colin Kaepernick over why the White Hegemony has screwed her career.

Quaestor said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Not Sure said...

Hitler... there was a painter! He could paint an entire apartment in ONE afternoon! TWO coats!

Mike Sylwester said...

Thanks for providing that transcript. Until now, I did not know what President Trump had said.

We all were supposed to be outraged about what he said there?

Mike Sylwester said...

I have read an excellent book about Hitler's painting years -- titled Hitler's Vienna: A Portrait of the Tyrant as a Young Man and written by Brigitte Hamann.

https://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Vienna-Portrait-Tyrant-Paperbacks/dp/1848852770

Hitler was a fairly good painter, and he earned money. His paintings were used mostly to sell picture frames. A store selling picture frames would display one his paintings, and customers would buy the frames -- usually not the paintings themselves.

Although Hitler earned some money, he had to do other odd jobs and he lived in poverty. That's why he became a socialist in those years.

If you ever run across that book, get it and read it. I remember that I was amazed by how much detailed information has been collected about those years of Hitler's life, when he was a nobody.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

No thread concerning Hitler is complete without this.

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=aH0iLfD6&id=636F0C451D5B3B62768029A3639B36CA1B64F687&thid=OIP.aH0iLfD6XzH1IxYL-7dleQHaFS&mediaurl=http%3a%2f%2fwww.viruscomix.com%2fobersalzberg.jpg&exph=875&expw=1227&q=hitler+time+travel+cartoon&simid=608051510125661426&selectedIndex=0&ajaxhist=0

Ron Winkleheimer said...

This one is good too.

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=7YjoLh4X&id=11ACBB329624B44B32F8FE0C553435C7D0699BE5&thid=OIP.7YjoLh4XxOpHpdyA_27PnwHaF0&mediaurl=http%3a%2f%2fanewdomain.net%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2015%2f04%2f4-8-15.jpg&exph=566&expw=720&q=hitler+time+travel+cartoon&simid=608044599508339526&selectedIndex=2&ajaxhist=0

n.n said...

Art is a subjective medium, qualified by its viewer. Liberalism is a divergent ideology. Progressivism is a monotonic function. Conservatism is a physical law. Principles matter.

n.n said...

re: liberalism, progressivism

Denial of individual dignity. Lives deemed unworthy. Twilight faith. Selective, opportunistic, congruent religion. Elective procedures. Yeah, you can find a few good eggs, here, there, somewhere.

n.n said...

With a one and half ton weapon of mass destruction, you would expect the field to be littered with victims, as it was in other situations of similar composition. The evidence supports that the "alt"-left opened an abortion field by setting up a kill-zone for its prey.

whitney said...

Fame whore. Mission accomplished

William said...

He never groped any of the women he met, and some of them were movie stars. His behavior in this regard was far superior to that of Al Franken and the elder Bush. In public anyway, he always treated Eva with dignity and respect. I'm surprised that the feminists haven't taken up the cause of Adolf Hitler. Non smoker, liked animals, treated women with respect. He was everything a feminist would want in a man.

James K said...

It's 100% obvious to anyone but the most blinded TDS sufferers that Trump was referring to those merely protesting the removal of the statues, and not to the KKK types, when he said "good people on both sides." This was the MSM's most successful smear, as even some non-TDS types were duped.

BJM said...

One thing we know for sure: Erykah Badu exists.

Had Germany won, she wouldn't.

Jim at said...

We all were supposed to be outraged about what he said there?

I'm outraged you're not outraged at my outrage.
It's outrageous.

mockturtle said...

Non smoker, liked animals, treated women with respect. He was everything a feminist would want in a man.

Don't forget he was also a vegetarian! Maybe even a vegan, I don't remember. Some of my family members would certainly appreciate that. Loved animals too much to eat them but killed millions of human beings without a qualm. A born Prog.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Kate beat me to it. It was definitely a Cathy Newman moment.

Sounds just like Chuck to me! How many times has he taken "good people on both sides" and flogged it here in the comments sections as if Trump was defending Nazis? I've never thought Trump meant that and now you have printed the whole transcript and proved that Trump explicitly differentiates among the local good people who want to protect statues that mean something to them and the neo-Nazis who came looking to fight antifa idiots.

Until Trump's opponents learn how to honestly appraise him he will keep beating them "unexpectedly" because they refuse to see the meaning in what he says, tripping themselves up by focusing on a word or two here that decontextualizes the whole statement.