How have we gotten to the point in society where this is acceptable?
Obviously the war between Israel and Palestine is a hot-button issue that draws passionate arguments from both sides, and regardless of which side you’re on, neither side is 100% in the right. (That shouldn’t really be a hot take, but these days it is).
Unfortunately, one of the side effects we’ve seen from the inflamed tensions due to the war is a disturbing rise in antisemitism.
It seems that college campuses especially seem to be hotbeds of antisemitism these days, and unfortunately one student felt comfortable enough to express his disgusting views on camera to Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy earlier today.
The outspoken Portnoy is in Starkville, Mississippi this weekend for the Barstool College Football Show ahead of the battle of the Bulldogs, the matchup between Mississippi State and Georgia.
As he does everywhere he goes, Portnoy spent time in Starkville doing one of his signature pizza reviews. If you’re not familiar, Portnoy has built a massive following for his popular videos going around to various pizza joints and giving his unfiltered “one bite” reviews (which almost always consist of many more than one bite).
But in the middle of filming his review outside of the Starkville restaurant, one troll decided to hurl an antisemitic slur at the Jewish media personality:
“Hey, f–k the Jews. F–k you Dave Portnoy.”
Well Portnoy has never been one to back down from confrontation and immediately challenged the man to come on camera, following after the guy as what appears to be a Barstool security guard stepped in between the two.
To their credit, the crowd gathered around Portnoy seemed to be equally as disgusted by the guy and began yelling at him as he walked away. But as the video began to go viral, social media immediately began calling for the man to be identified and for the school to take action if it turns out he’s a student.
So far it doesn’t appear that the bigot has been identified, at least publicly, though there are reports that he’s a student and that he’s already been identified by the school. And the Mississippi State community has overwhelmingly condemned the disgusting hate speech in their community:
Portnoy has been outspoken about fighting antisemitism, even firing two employees at his Barstool Sports bar in Philadelphia after a customer displayed an antisemitic sign.
He’s even called out his own employee, Brianna Chickenfry, for her comments on the war between Israel and Palestine in which she claimed that Israel was committing “genocide” in Gaza.
“When you say it’s a genocide…and nobody wants little kids to die or anything. It’s a war. There is a war going on there. And even if you want to come to that point, which I totally disagree with, to say you didn’t really know it was going on for two years and you learned it from Theo Von and then you take to the internet and make that? Spectacularly dumb, stupid move.
But I didn’t take that as, ‘I hate Jews.’ I just took that as, ‘You’re an idiot for that rant.'”
We’ll have to wait and see if this guy in Starkville does end up being a Mississippi State student. And if he is, I have a feeling he won’t be for much longer.
