LaKeith Stanfield is speaking out after a Clubhouse chat he was in on Wednesday turned anti-Semitic. The Oscar-nominated actor, who was not heard saying anything anti-Semitic on the audio platform, apologized for his role as moderator of the chat room.
“I condemn hate speech and discriminatory views of every kind. I unconditionally apologize for what went on in that chat room, and for allowing my presence there to give a platform to hate speech,” Stanfield wrote on his Instagram early Saturday morning. “I am not an anti-Semite nor do I condone any of the beliefs discussed in that chat room.”
The chat room focused on the teachings of controversial Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan before numerous participants made anti-Semitic comments, according to the Daily Beast. In his Instagram apology, Stanfield, 29, called the remarks “abhorrent” and claimed he was made a moderator of the chat after the hosts noticed he was in the room listening.
“At some point during the dialogue the discussion took a very negative turn when several users made abhorrent anti-Semitic statements and at that point, I should have either shut down the discussion or removed myself from it entirely,” he said.
According to the Daily Beast, Stanfield joined another chat the next day, which was moderated by a group of Jewish educators and addressed the previous chat.
“I’ve been in a couple rooms where a lot of sh*t has been discussed and talked about, very heightened emotional states,” Stanfield reportedly said. “It’s been very enlightening and interesting to me, I never really knew that this debate existed in this way about identity, the origins of Judaism in Jewishness, and how many different interpretations there are different things, whether or not it’s a religion and ethno-religion or what it is a faith race.”
“Someone would say something that was without a doubt anti-Semitic… and then instead of acknowledging why it was anti-Semitic, it would just go back to that original person, and then it would kind of repeat what they were saying, they clearly weren’t listening to us,” he reportedly added.
