For the latest episode of Cannon's Class, host Nick Cannon—whose recent anti-Semitic comments cost him his ViacomCBS relationship—was joined by Rabbi Abraham Cooper.
The discussion, which spans across two separate YouTube uploads and runs more than 100 minutes in length, sees the two going deep on a number of topics directly connected with the continued prevalence of anti-Semitism, be it through the spreading of conspiracy theories built on hate, or through a general lack of education on the history of violence that's been carried out against the Jewish community.
Early on in the interview, Cannon revealed that he first learned of Rabbi Abraham Cooper—the associate dean and director of Global Social Action Agenda at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in New York—after his comments during a previous interview with Professor Griff started to be widely condemned.
"I feel there is such a connection and kindred spirit to the Jewish community … As someone who is studying theology and on a mission to receive a PhD in divinity, I connected with the Hebrew community," Cannon told Cooper in the new interview. "It's so deep."
From there, Cannon pointed to his lifelong efforts at challenging the "very conservative Christian beliefs" that were prevalent in his childhood and how he's tried to evolve in the years since.
"The thing that spoke to me initially on my journey was Hebrew," he explained.
As for the interview with Griff, which Cooper previously condemned by stating that "anyone seeking a PhD in Jew-hatred" should watch it, Cannon expressed his desire to go beyond merely giving the usual apologies a public figure is expected to give in these circumstances.
"I actually don't like apologies because I feel like apologies are empty because, in that sense, you can say sorry as many times [as you want]," he said. "But if you don't learn, if you're not corrected and then you move forward, there's no growth. There's no healing ... I'd rather sit down with someone of your stature to really correct me."
In the second part of the discussion, Cannon shares what he's learned with regards to how spreading conspiracy theories—like those involving the Rothschild family, for example—only perpetuates ideas of anti-Semitism as such theories often rely on blaming the Jewish community for the world's woes.
"When the Russian Revolution came in 1917, the white Russians fled, eventually, from the red Communist Russians," Cooper said of how such falsehood-based ideas have spread, historically. "They brought with them to places like Hong Kong, Tokyo, and other places around the world … They brought [debunked book of fabrications The Protocols of the Elders of Zion] with them."
Cooper, in great detail, then explained to Cannon several other ways in which his recent comments perpetuated harmful ideas of anti-Semitism. See both videos in full above.
And for additional information on the work of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, click here.
