24/ ...Now continuing my previous 23 point post on Louis Farrakhan and calls for the left to condemn him as roundly as we condemn right wing anti-Semites and neo-Nazis (or those like Trump who we feel embolden them)...
25/ I left off as I was about to note the 3rd level of false equivalence in this argument: namely, historical context. For Nazis, Jews are a special & evil race driven either genetically or culturally 2 destroy whites....
26/ For Farrakhan, the NOI & black folk who sometimes say foul shit about Jews, the context is different. Indeed it seems akin 2 what James Baldwin (who was, in some ways, quite the Judeophile ) wrote in his famous essay "Negroes are Anti-Semitic Because They're Anti-White...
27/ which one can and should read, here: movies2.nytimes.com/books/98/03/29… so as to better understand the issues at play...
28/ As Baldwin explained therein, black antipathy towards Jews, when it manifests, is rooted in a few very specific things. First, the fact that too often the "white people" black folks have had to deal with (and especially in Northern urban areas)...have been/are Jewish...
29/ Not because Jews really held the power, but because as has long been true, Jews are often the middlemen between real power and the most powerless (blacks and other POC in the U.S.)…
30/ So, as he noted, Jews were often the landlords or property management folks (though not building owners), who shake down tenants 4 excessive rent on dilapidated apartments. Or the pawn shop owners 2 whom blacks turned 4 loans when banks shut them out of credit/financing…
31/ And additionally, he explains, black folks understandbly resent the way that Jewish suffering is recognized "as part of the moral history of the world and the Jew is recognized as a contributor to the world's history: this is not true for the blacks..."
32/ He continues by noting that functionally, the Jew in America is white, "and when white men rise up against oppression, they are heroes: when black men rise, they have reverted to their native savagery..." And so, for instance...
33/ "...The uprising in the Warsaw ghetto was not described as a riot, nor were the participants maligned as hoodlums: the boys and girls in Watts and Harlem are thoroughly aware of this, and it certainly contributes to their attitude toward the Jews..."
34/ In short, Baldwin was noting it's never been Jewish folks' JEWISHNESS that was the problem for black people, but rather, our adopted WHITENESS. By matriculating in2 that club (& often coveting membership truth be told) we call in2 question our commitment 2 the marginalized..
35/ So too, it seems to me that what Farrakhan is criticizing is less "Jewishness," than Jewish whiteness and whitening and the extent 2 which he feels (rightly or wrongly) that Jews have assimilated so much to it that we've lost our connection to the marginalized & oppressed…
36/ Plus, I'm sure our community's unwillingness in so many cases 2 speak forcefully against even the most callous treatment of Palestinians, or virtually anything Israel does, can produce real anger in someone who is Muslim (hell it produces anger in some of us who are Jews!)…
37/ In any event, to the extent American Jews are perceived by some black folks & perhaps in the NOI and Farrakhan specifically, as almost "uber-whites" (whites above whites) in the modern power structure, it is that whitening of Jews they are blasting, not Jewishness per se…
38/ Literally, if the white folks whom black folks had regularly bumped up against in places like NY and Chicago had been Episcopalian, Farrakhan might well be calling out the Archbishop of Canterbury…
39/ In addition to the false equivalence problem, the 'what about Farrakhan' question is typically dripping w/bad faith. It's something right wingers ask whenever someone points out white racism, as a way to deflect attention from it...
40/ It's what Obama was asked to do in 08, just bc of his connection to Jeremiah Wright who has collaborated with Farrakhan on some things in Chicago…
41/ And its made by people who tolerate folks on their side saying awful things about Jews all the time. Trump fan, Pastor Robert Jeffress says Jews are going 2 hell, right wing minister John Hagee suggested Hitler was sent by God 2 get Jews 2 return to the land of Israel...
42/ ...& Pat Buchanan whom conservatives tolerated for years, questioned the Holocaust & called Hitler a man of extraordinary gifts…but i've heard no 1 demand of the GOP that they renounce these people, or everyday evangelicals most ALL of whom think Jews are going to hell...
43/ The latter of which belief about Jews is absolutely ubiquitous in the GOP base (evangelical white Christians) and which I had said to me by evangelicals regularly growing up (but never by NOI members or any Muslims) It's spiritual terrorism but no one condemns it...
44/ And the "what about Farrakhan" question is also in bad faith because of the illegitimate contrast it seeks to draw. For instance, conservatives (and whites broadly) who want us to condemn the minister say, "well, WE condemn David Duke," as if that were the proper contrast….
45/ But Duke got over 600,000 votes from white people in Louisiana TWICE & had it been up to whites alone, Duke would have been a U.S. Senator or Governor of LA. So white folk haven't exactly had a history of rejecting him…(& Farrakhan could never come that close to power)...
46/ And importantly, whites don't get 2 decide who on "our side" is the equal of Farrakhan. If we reserve the right 2 call HIM the one we find objectionable on the "black side" of the aisle, then we have 2 let BLACK FOLKS pick the demon on our side…ah, y'ont like that do ya?...
47/ Cuz see, they might ask, when are y'all gonna condemn Trump? Since most whites voted for him (and likely will again). Or when are y'all gonna denounce Thomas Jefferson for owning black folks, Andrew Jackson for advocating/perpetrating Indian genocide, etc?
48/ (Damn, ran out of space again...sorry! Not sure why Twitter is limiting the thread, but anyway, I'm getting close to the end...please follow me over to one more set of posts please...)
