Until we see antisemitism as a toxic species of the white supremacy that threatens Black security and democracy’s future, none of us are truly safe.Martin Luther King in 1968 asked when will the Black community take against the vicious antisemitism.
Nearly 55 years later, the actions of two Black figures will ask us that question again. Ye, the hip-hop artist and fashion designer formerly known as Kanye West, has unleashed a rash of antisemitic tirades, while the Brooklyn Nets basketball superstar Kyrie Irving posted on social media a link to a documentary laden with antisemitic views.
Ye’s vitriol spilled onto social media when he posted a screenshot of texts exchanged with the rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, accusing Diddy of being controlled by Jews.
Ye threatened to use Combs “as an example to show the Jewish people that told you to call me that no one can threaten or influence me.”
Ye then also posted that when he awakened he was “going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.”
These provocations show conflicting Jewish and Black views of race and privilege and how the suffering of each community shapes their identities and fuels their fight against bigotry.
African Americans and Jews have, for one reason or another, competed, quarreled, and jostled with each other to gain attention and empathy for their struggles and the injustices we confront.
These communities are old friends and lovers, sometimes rivals, with all the affection and bitterness such a relationship evokes.
Black antisemitism and Jewish racism is real, from the bigotry of white Jews against Black Jews to the anti-Black statements of, for example, David Horowitz, who called Barack Obama “an evil man” and “an anti-American radical.”
Our communities have historically passed the baton to one another in the long relay for justice. Until we see antisemitism as a toxic species of the white supremacy that threatens Black security and democracy’s future, none of us are truly safe.
A few days after one of Ye’s outbursts, a hate group hung a banner over a Los Angeles overpass that said, “Kanye is right about the Jews.” These despicable comments offered well-established bigots fresh currency for racism.
Irving’s refused to apologize led to an indefinite suspension by the Brooklyn Nets, a belated apology and a meeting with Adam Silver, the commissioner of the N.B.A.
After their conversation, Silver said that in over a decade of association with Irving, “I’ve never heard an antisemitic word from him or, frankly, hate directed at any group.”
Whether or not he is antisemitic is not relevant to the damage caused by the posting of hateful content.” Part of the damage, which is not discussed enough, is that both men have encouraged those who harbor deep animosity to Jews.
Reverend King condemned Black antisemitism as about largely a Northern ghetto experience, driven by the contrast between Jews as the “most consistent and trusted ally in the struggle for justice” and Jews as “the owner of the store around the corner where he pays more for what he gets” and landlords who charge “a color tax.”
Black folk often praise Jews — for their unity and, above all, for their ability as a people who comprise less than 2.5 percent of the population to successfully make their way in the world with perceived entrepreneurial success and cerebral accomplishments that many Black folk admire and covet.
This is more myth than fact. Whatever wealth, privilege and influence Jews have built, there is also a history of persecution and the trauma carried by the families of Holocaust victims and survivors.
The relation of Blacks to Jews cannot be divorced from the privilege of whiteness. The fact that most Jews are white-eligible, and African Americans are white-excluded, creates tensions between African Americans and many Jews that have less to do with the cultural conflicts between the groups than with the meaning of Blackness and whiteness in America.
They is a rule of thumb that applies to Latinos, Asians, Indigenous people, Jews and most other groups: If you are inside the community, you can take far more liberties than outsiders can.
Black folk can say the N-word, folk who are not Black cannot. Black folk can say things about each other, our culture, our habits and dispositions, our values and visions, our virtues and vices — but those outside of our communities dare not say them.
So, I can talk bad about my mother or brother, but you had better not.
We would do well to remember that Blacks and Jews are passengers on the same ship facing the headwinds of bigotry and hatred. That is a lesson we should all learn.
Source: New York Times