A top official at the Berklee College of Music has a years-long history of posting anti-Semitic and historically inaccurate claims about Jew
by Jon Levine
"We are looking forward to Nicholas Payton's contribution to the Berklee community by engaging faculty, supporting students, and developing curriculum," Sean K. Skeete, dean of the Professional Performance Division at Berklee, said in the release. "I believe his experience as a world-class artist and educator will further advance Berklee's reputation as a leader in arts education."
Left unsaid were some of Payton's less glowing contributions to public discourse.
"All these so-called Jews mad, because how dare I make them face the facts of their sordid past and present," Payton said in a video posted to Instagram in July 2020. "So you want to help liberate black people you want to help free us, then free us from amongst yourselves ... expose how Jewish people have exploited us. Apologize for it and atone and do better."
Many of Payton's most incendiary comments came during the fervor of the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020.
"Amazing how Jews always have a 'negligible' role in every historic horror that they’ve been irrefutably associated with it. What an amazing coincidence! ALL the other races contain plenty of monstrous psychopaths, but Jews, magically, are clean as a whistle! INCREDIBLE!" read another post Payton shared to his Instagram that same month.
"They still control a large portion of the media and entertainment industry. And I maintain their history in the music business has often been oppressive," he warned in a comment on the post.
In a third video also from July, Payton shared a video claiming that "Jewish slave dealers operated in every place slavery existed" and featured a speaker condemning the "synagogue of Satan."
