Erykah Badu Responds To Comment She Sees Good in Hitler
Grammy winning singer-songwriter Erykah Badu has been known to speak without a filter. Girlfriend says whatever is on her mind, at all times! That's not news.
But folks are losing their minds over this: Badu said she “saw something good” in Adolf Hitler in a shocking new interview she did with pop culture site, Vulture.
“I'm a humanist. I see good in everybody. I saw something good in Hitler,” Badu said. Regardless of the fact the Nazi leader ordered the murder of six million Jews and additional killings of other minorities, she thinks “Hitler was a wonderful painter.” When the interviewer said, “No he wasn’t,” Badu said, “OK. He was a terrible painter!”
She also said she feels sorry for Hitler. “Poor thing. He had a terrible childhood. That means that when I'm looking at my daughter, Mars, 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.”
Here's an excerpt.
VULTURE: 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.
BADU: 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.
VULTURE: But don’t you think that someone as evil as Hitler, who did what he did, has forfeited the right to other people’s empathy?
BADU: Why can’t I say what I’m saying? Because he did such terrible things?
VULTURE: Well, yes. But it’s also disheartening to hear you say that at a time, like now, when racism and anti-Semitism are so much in the air. Why would you want to risk putting fuel on that fire?
BADU: You asked me a question. I could’ve chosen not to answer. I don’t walk around thinking about Hitler or Louis Farrakhan [Farrakhan came up earlier in the interview]. But 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. I would never do that. I would never even imagine doing that. I would never even want a group of white men who believe that the Confederate flag is worth saving to feel bad. That’s not how I operate.
The conversation went from Hitler to Cosby, whom Badu said she “loves” for “what he's done for the world.” Cosby has been accused of sexual assault by more than 50 women and now faces trial, but Badu sees it as an illness. “If he's sick, why would I be angry with him?” the singer asked. “The people who got hurt, I feel so bad for them. I want them to feel better, too. But sick people do evil things; hurt people hurt people. I know I could be crucified for saying that because I'm supposed to be on the purple team or the green team.”
The Cleva singer added, “People can be bad for certain things. They could be bad around children. They could be bad with power. Are those people all 'bad'? Could be. Maybe they need to get kicked off the planet. I don't know. Each thing is individual. There aren't rules for how we can or should think about something. We don't have to believe everything we're hearing. At least I don't think we do. I'm glad I don't watch this stuff...Everything. I read the description of an empath and I think I fit the description pretty well. It's about absorbing people's feelings.”
Some people seemed to understand Badu’s ability to look at the shades of gray in everyone and every situation, while others were furious that she was looking on the bright side of history’s most reviled villain.
Badu herself tweeted out a few words in her own defense after the sh*tstorm hit. No apologies, but she did want to clarify her statements.
Where do you stand, fam? Does Badu make sense with her points or not? Did she take things too far? Weigh in here!
