“‘I don’t think anyone, famous or not, is obligated to broadcast their political views.’ 

Let me pause you here; the very concept of being able to ‘hide’ or conceal your political views, or to compartmentalize them from the rest of your life, is tremendously privileged. Many people’s lives are impacted in unavoidable ways due to events in the world beset by politics. For example, no one chose to be Palestinian or to be born specifically in Gaza, but that is who they are, and the luxury of choosing whether or not to be involved in that situation isn’t available to them.

Even setting aside this most relevant example, there are many, many vulnerable or outwardly identifiable groups whose very lives are made political every single day. None of these groups are white men with net worths in the eight or nine-digit range. So while Ed Sheeran is most certainly not obligated by his existence to be political, even having the choice to sit on the sidelines is something not everyone gets.

‘Expecting them to do so is indicative of something deeply wrong with society and a violation of free speech and privacy.’

It is not a violation of your free speech rights to be asked a question or held to task for your decisions. It is Ed Sheeran’s very free speech rights at work when he allows his tour manager to kick Macklemore off the opening set. He is allowed to do that by law. Being castigated for it socially is just reciprocal free speech. Second, Sheeran is a public figure who makes his livelihood by being public; he is not entitled to privacy of his secondary opinions, which he has, again, publicly expressed by way of complying with the request to change his show.

‘We all agree that censoring someone is wrong…… BUT freedom of speech has to include the right not to speak.’

Sheeran could have been silent on it, no one compelled him to continue making statements.

‘If you force an artist to put out a PR statement just to avoid getting canceled, that’s not real advocacy. It just turns politics into a mandatory checklist. You hurt the people you’re trying to help by turning their pain into a performance.’

The advocacy necessary for the issue presented is one of awareness for populations of ‘apolitical’ people. The awareness that even Sheeran’s bumbling of this issue has brought is invaluable to the cause at large and has absolutely helped bring attention to the monied interests behind this genocide. The lack of a performance was actually the issue here, as you’ll note.

‘Context also matters here. Ed Sheeran writes acoustic love songs and radio hits. When he has touched on issues, they’ve been small, safe, and uncontroversial, but even that doesn’t matter.’

You, Ed Sheeran, and his millions of listeners get to enjoy harmless acoustic pop songs and safe issues because you aren’t currently being subjected to a genocide being funded by US tax dollars. As addressed above, your position of relative privilege is not being addressed in your argument. You have a choice to be apolitical, and just like every choice in this world, it has outcomes. The outcome here is that some middle-aged white dude is singing about a girl’s curves after crying on stage because people think he’s weird for not condemning an obviously bad thing. It undercuts his entire brand as a safe, harmless guy. It makes him look like a snake. He is harming his own brand.

‘The opinion the majority holds is that what is going on in Palestine and the West Bank is a tragedy.’

If this were true, your tax dollars would not have been used for the last many decades to colonize the West Bank. Your money would not currently be going to a genocide. You would not be voting for or listening to genocide supporters.

If you thought it was a tragedy, this post wouldn’t exist.

‘I will concede one thing on the Sheeran situation: if someone is mad at him purely because he didn’t stand up for Macklemore’s artistic expression when the venue and promoters were censoring his opening act, I understand that. That’s a fair critique about platform management and supporting your fellow artists. But if you are angry at Sheeran or celebrities just because they prefer to stay neutral and keep their politics to themselves, that anger is misplaced. Kraft got away with it scot-free, along with all the other owners.’

The fact that we are busting out free speech arguments for this is dire. The controversy here is that nothing Macklemore said was at all controversial. He gave a very heartwarming speech about solidarity and standing against tragedy and then performed a song with some images from Gaza. How often do billionaires chime in on the contents of concerts in their stadiums like this? 

You seem to be resenting that Ed Sheeran was pressured by fans and Macklemore? When in reality the pressure came from a small handful of billionaire stadium operators. Ed Sheeran just handled it extraordinarily poorly.”

—u/trinitrotolerance