Erykah Badu Faces Backlash for Hitler Comment

After a recent in Vulture for which she's facing major backlash, Erykah Badu took to Twitter to [...]

By Libby Birk

After a recent in Vulture for which she's facing major backlash, Erykah Badu took to Twitter to defend her statements about seeing "something good in Hitler."

In addition to her comments about Hitler, the 46-year-old singer-songwriter wondered why she should be angry with Bill Cosby, who has been accused by multiple women of drugging and sexually assaulting them.

When asked in her interview about separating art from the artist, Badu said, "I don't want to get scared into not thinking for myself. I weigh everything. Even what you just asked me, I would have to really think about it and know the facts in each of those situations before I made a judgment. Because I love Bill Cosby, and I love what he's done for the world. But if he's sick, why would I be angry with him? 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."

Calling herself an "empath" and "humanist," Badu went on to say, "I see good in everybody. I saw something good in Hitler." Upon being asked to elaborate, she responded, "I did. Hitler was a wonderful painter."

After Vulture writer David Marchese pushed Badu on the statement, she relented that "[Hitler] was a terrible painter."

"Poor thing," she continued. "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."

The singer clapped back against the backlash she's facing, writing, "People are in real pain. So I understand why my 'good' intent was misconstrued as 'bad'. In trying to express a point, I used 1 of the worst examples possible, Not to support the cruel actions of an unwell, psychopathic Adolf Hitler, but to only exaggerate a show of compassion."

She added that not reading the entire interview could skew one's understanding of her statements.

"Either U read the entire VULTURE interview & U understood the message of compassion CLEARLY. OR U only read the selective, out of context Headlines, & were drawn in2 the whirlpool of collective emotional grief. I don't want 2 force U 2understand the way I love. I'm hopeful [though]," she wrote.

She also encouraged people to read more than just headlines.

"The media is banking on our ignorance. Know we won't read the whole thing. They'll use controversial quotes w/trigger words as Click Bait. We [love] controversy. So Blogs choose easiest thing to 'spin'. Get you mad. Help you get a little rage out. They get more adds.The message lost," she wrote.

Some on Twitter agreed with Badu.

Others still don't understand her perspective.

0comments
Start the Conversation

of