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Oh yeah, I can see both sides of the arguments. I would never have pegged him as a white supremacist, we've got a lot of friends in common who are definitely not nazis. It may be a case of him going too far with the controversial imagery and not considering they aren't just historical, they have modern day meaning too. But then he could be hiding in plain sight.
I'm in to black metal which is similarly tricky; there are some definitely neo-nazi bands but there's also a lot that play with similary themes to different extents and deny any kind of nazi-relatedness. It's hard to tell who's being genuine and who's lying to try and avoid media controversy, and likewise some people are more happy than others to separate artist and art.
The treatment of the employee at Temple is just wrong, no excuses. I can't tell from the article if Simon was involved in the abuse but he should have stopped it and come out stronger about it never happening again.
There's been a bit of a reckoning recently, I'm not sure what caused it but there's been a push to remove artists that have assaulted, abused etc. people in the past. It sounds like Chris has got caught in this, Simon Erl has deleted his instagram.
It's may be related to this https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/news/leeds-news/leeds-cafe-vandalised-after-racist-18386394