Former Ravens player apologizes after Kanye tweet receives pushback

BALTIMORE — With companies dropping Ye, the entertainer formerly known as Kanye West, following a series of antisemitic comments, many have taken to Twitter to express frustration that companies hadn't cut ties with him sooner.

Former Ravens player, Torrey Smith, tweeted this on Wednesday and received pushback for what many saw as an antisemitic trope.

The idea that 'Jews have too much power' is considered an anti semitic trope by the Anti-Defamation league and other organizations that work to fight antisemitism.

Smith, later tweeted that, he learned about this during the day and attempted to clarify the original intention of his tweet.

Smith also spoke with WMAR-2 News on the phone on Wednesday afternoon, to further clarify what he was trying to say.

"My intentions were to talk about how nothing happened to Kanye when he was saying anti-Black things or really about anyone," said Smith. "Because you have no one in that space... Balenciaga, Gap, adidas, none of those companies have - maybe one of them has - a single Black person on their boards."

"When it come to the attacks that were made from him, he said plenty of things that I felt warranted him to lose his position and partnerships with these companies when he was talking about Black people, but again, there was no representation on the board."

He went on to say that he was talking about the actual boards of those three specific companies and how they have Jewish people on those boards.

Gap, Inc. was co-founded by a Jewish couple Doris and Donald Fisher in the 1960's. Doris Fisher is an honorary lifetime board member and two of her sons are currently on the Board of Directors.

It was not immediately clear if any of the people on the 6-member adidas Executive Board or the 13-member Kering Board of Directors (the parent company of Balenciaga) were Jewish, though one of the independent directors at Kering does have a commonly Jewish last name.

We also spoke with Howard Libit, the Executive Director of the Baltimore Jewish Council, about the series of tweets.

Libit said the most important thing is to educate people about anti semitism.

"I'm reading through those tweets today. It looks like, you know, some people reached out they got to him," he said. "He's been educated, he's expressed contrition and expressed, 'I learned something today.' Well, that's really what we want."

While Smith agreed that he has learned something after talking and engaging with several people, he doesn't feel he needs to take any additional time to research this area.

"I stand firmly by what I meant by people in leadership positions are primarily Jewish and white, so therefore, their reaction to it is different than had it been— And that's not to say that these groups only move when something impacts them. That's not what I'm saying. But it moves a lot quicker," he said.

And on Thursday morning, Baltimore City Councilman Yitzy Schleifer, who is Jewish, posted on Twitter calling Smith's comments "offensive and dangerous."

On Thursday afternoon, Smith released an apology on Twitter.