LaKeith Stanfield has spoken about hosting a Clubhouse room where users told Jewish participants that 'Hitler was right'

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LaKeith Stanfield has spoken about hosting a Clubhouse room where users told Jewish participants that 'Hitler was right'
LaKeith Stanfield found himself in a controversial Clubhouse room.Jason Mendez / Getty Images
  • LaKeith Stanfield has spoken about the controversial Clubhouse room he attended.
  • Some users in the discussion made hateful antisemitic comments.
  • Stanfield told The Daily Beast he rejects hate speech and "hate is not up for debate."
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LaKeith Stanfield has spoken out about moderating a Clubhouse discussion earlier this month that ended with some users making antisemitic remarks.

Stanfield, an actor, best known for his roles in "Sorry to Bother You" and "Get Out," took part in a Clubhouse room for people to debate figures such as Louis Farrakhan - the Nation of Islam founder known for making antisemitic comments.

In an interview with The Daily Beast, posted on Saturday, Stanfield said he did not know much about Farrakhan beforehand but was "interested" in the topic and expected it to be "balanced."

"I definitely don't align myself with Louis Farrakhan. I don't stand by him," he told the Daily Beast. "Any kind of hate speech, I vehemently reject. That's not up for debate. Hate is not up for debate."

Clubhouse is an audio-only app where users can participate in panels or listen to conversations being had by others. Many famous names have jumped on the trend, including Elon Musk, Jared Leto, and Tiffany Haddish.

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Some participants in the discussion told The Daily Beast they had to explain why "vile antisemitism" was offensive, or debate hateful remarks such as "Hitler was right," or that Jewish heritage "is not real."

"It was so chaotic in the room, there were a couple of outbursts," Stanfield said, explaining that he had been made a moderator when he wanted to ask a question. "I think I remember someone saying something about 'all Jews run the world' or something kind of crazy, and that was one of the people I put down in the audience."

He added that he was "caught off guard" because he did not create the Clubhouse room, and walked away from his phone for a while. He did not believe the conversation to be going in a hateful direction, he said. But when he returned, it was "chaos," he said.

"The next couple days, there's conversations about what happened in that room," he said. "I was really surprised by a lot of the things that I was hearing that were happening in the room because a lot of those things I just simply wasn't present for. So, I was like, 'Wow, that's terrible.'"

Before the interview, Stanfield posted on social media that "thinking outside the box comes with a cost." He later deleted it and apologized. The apology post has also now been removed.

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Stanfield told The Daily Beast he now realizes Clubhouse was not the best place to educate himself on the issues, and that he will be spending some time off social media.

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