"I’m actually thinking the Klan is actually a little better here, because they can come right out and say, ‘We don’t like Blacks, we don’t like Jews,’" he told a crowd at Duke University.

Jerry Seinfeld likened the Free Palestine movement to the Ku Klux Klan — even saying those who use the phrase “Free Palestine” are worse than the white supremacist group — at a student event at Duke University meant to honor hostages who are being held in Gaza.

Seinfeld spoke at the school in Durham, North Carolina, to introduce a former Israeli hostage, Omer Shem Tov, when he made the remarks, according to the university’s student newspaper, The Duke Chronicle. He reportedly started by saying, in reference to the Free Palestine activist movement, “Just say you don’t like Jews.”

“By saying ‘Free Palestine,’ you’re not admitting what you really think. So it’s actually — compared to the Ku Klux Klan, I’m actually thinking the Klan is actually a little better here, because they can come right out and say, ‘We don’t like Blacks, we don’t like Jews.’ Okay, that’s honest,'" the Chronicle reported Seinfeld said.

  • Soup@lemmy.world
    2·
    1 day ago

    Oh god are you really bringing up a “women do it to” point completely unprompted?

    As for the other quote, yes I clearly missed that. Still, I’m not sure what it has to do with the Seinfeld thing even though it is tangentially related.

    As for “being attracted to fertility” and whatever…yea that’s not it, chief. Maybe I’m of the group that doesn’t see it that way but I’m 30 and I see someone ~25 and under and I see a child, not someone I should be sexually attracted to. Certainly not someone who I’d actually give that kind of attention to. I’m more than monkey brain, and maybe most people aren’t but we trust them to have jobs and shit so they should be able to handle this, too.

    • arsCynic@lemmy.mlEnglish
      1·
      1 day ago

      Oh god are you really bringing up a “women do it to” point completely unprompted?

      No. Merely stating that women aren’t as fragile with a need to be protected as discussion like these often make them seem, e.g., “advancing on her was grooming by default because all people of that age are vulnerable”. Seinfeld advanced, Shoshanna consented, and so did the parents. There was no vulnerability being exploited here. If it sounded like whataboutism then I should have phrased it better.

      As for “being attracted to fertility” and whatever…yea that’s not it, chief. Maybe I’m of the group that doesn’t see it that way but I’m 30 and I see someone ~25 and under and I see a child, not someone I should be sexually attracted to. Certainly not someone who I’d actually give that kind of attention to. I’m more than monkey brain, and maybe most people aren’t but we trust them to have jobs and shit so they should be able to handle this, too.

      Perhaps this is the crux of the matter, more people than you’d like have monkey brains. Have you looked at human behaviour in general? In comparison Jerry and Shoshanna having been a thing at their ages is a triviality compared to the actually unethical harmful things we do as a society. And just to be sure, this isn’t a whataboutism again, because considering the quote mentioning her parents, there was no harm done.

      Anyway, to bring it all back to my main point, it not being unethical doesn’t mean everyone should intentionally start dating younger people, but merely that calling Seinfeld a paedophile is an irresponsible and ironically childish unconstructive thing to do. Just like him saying “‘Free Palestine’ are worse than the Ku Klux Klan”.