Adidas, Macklemore, Sarandon: The Culture Industry's Selective Inclusion Problem

When Adidas apologized for featuring an Israeli amputee in a campaign promoting a single-shoe service, the message was clear: some identities are more worthy of inclusion than others. Shalev Biton, who lost his leg serving in the IDF's Nahal Brigade during Operation Guardian of the Walls in May 2021, became the latest casualty of a cultural double standard that claims to champion diversity while routinely excluding Jews and Israelis.

The pattern is now familiar. A global brand built its reputation on social justice messaging, resharing Nike's Black Lives Matter post with the declaration that 'Together is how we move forward.' Yet when Biton appeared in an accessibility campaign, actor Javier Bardem amplified language associating him with 'child killers,' and Adidas folded. The company did not apologize because its campaign failed at inclusion; it apologized because inclusion extended to the wrong person.

What does the Adidas apology reveal about corporate diversity policies?

Companies are not obliged to adopt DEI policies. But once Adidas made inclusion part of its public identity, it assumed an obligation to apply that principle consistently. When diversity, equity, and inclusion must first seek approval from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, the principle has surrendered to group pressure.

Adidas' founder, Adi Dassler, was a Nazi Party member. A company with that history should understand the consequences of deciding that some identities are less worthy of public representation. The failure to distinguish between a government, a war, and an injured individual is not naivety; it is cowardice.

Why was Macklemore dropped from Ed Sheeran's tour?

The same double standard resurfaced at New Jersey's MetLife Stadium. Macklemore, the American rapper best known for two hits a decade ago, used his opening sets for Ed Sheeran to call for a 'Free Palestine,' accuse Israel of genocide and apartheid, and project political imagery. On the second night, after objections to his first performance were already public, he doubled down.

Expressing sympathy for Palestinians is not inherently antisemitic. The problem was converting someone else's mainstream concert into a one-sided political rally with no comparable acknowledgment of October 7, when hundreds of music lovers were murdered while dancing at a festival.

On September 14, Messina Touring Group, promoter of Sheeran's US Loop Tour, confirmed that Macklemore would not appear on remaining dates. The promoter acted only after upcoming venues refused to host him over the risk of ticket cancellations. Macklemore then accused Robert Kraft, Jewish owner of Gillette Stadium, of having 'rallied other stadium owners into pressure of canceling the artist.'

Macklemore seems not to understand that one's actions may have consequences, and that a powerful Jewish individual is not the raison d'être of his own bad behavior. His political performance was intended to generate exactly the attention his recent music could not. That plot seems to have failed.

Is Susan Sarandon's 'blacklisting' claim credible?

Oscar-winning actress Susan Sarandon is lamenting her Hollywood 'blacklisting' from the Venice Film Festival, where she was promoting The Echo Chamber, a Golden Lion contender. Sarandon claimed agencies were still warning filmmakers not to hire her and said firm positions within her industry remained in the hands of 'Zionists.'

Sarandon is entitled to argue for Palestinian rights, criticize Israel, or demand a ceasefire. She is not entitled to rewrite why the backlash began. In November 2023, while American Jews were confronting a surge in antisemitism after the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, she announced that frightened Jews were getting 'a taste' of what Muslims experience in America. Her agency dropped her, and she later apologized for her 'terrible phrasing.'

Three years later, the apology has apparently matured into an accusation about 'Zionist' power. An agency's decision to stop representing an actor after inflammatory and antisemitic public remarks is not evidence that an ethnic group collectively controls Hollywood.

Sarandon is complaining about lost opportunities while starring in a major film, walking the Venice red carpet, and using the festival's microphones to tell the world she has no microphone. Being blacklisted once meant enforced disappearance; now it apparently includes starring in a Golden Lion contender while holding an internationally reported press conference about one's disappearance.

What is the recurring sleight of hand in culture's social justice?

Speech is treated as sacred when a celebrity attacks Jews and the Jewish State, but every consequence is recast as censorship, and conveniently blamed on Zionists. Sarandon has not been deprived of a voice; she has been given an international stage from which to complain that Jewish power deprived her of one.

History will show that the courage to include everyone begins precisely where the crowd demands an exception. A principle that protects only fashionable identities is not a principle. It is branding.

How can the entertainment industry fix its inclusion problem?

The answer is not censorship or ideological blacklists. It is consistency: defend Palestinian dignity without denying Israeli humanity; protect political speech without pretending it carries no responsibility; and apply inclusion without first asking whether BDS approves of the person being included.

When the entertainment industry makes Jews and Israelis the exception, the only diversity on display is the variety of excuses it invents for doing so.

The writer is a former Universal Music executive, author of Code of Conduct, researcher of DEI, and a corporate psychologist.