Two thoughts about this week:
1) Kindness is NOT the answer.
What happened in Charlottesville IS America. Maybe it’s not what you want this country to be or the impression you have of it. But the US was built on white supremacy. Racism was pretty much created to justify slavery, so that people could steal the lives and labor of others. Economists estimate the current value of US slave labor to be in the trillions.We have never paid for any of it. We live on land that was emptied of Native Americans, although we (our American ancestors?) did such a good job of destroying their populations and societies that they aren’t around in such a significant way as to make this a real problem for us. There are many other examples of this — white supremacy playing a (the?) key role in building modern America — and you can read more here. http://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/politics/a12014607/white-liberals-response-white-supremacy/
If you believe that the world would be the different if a group of people (slave owners) had had to pay for labor they got for free, or that it would be the different if another group (descendants of slaves) had $14 trillion more than they do, then you understand that this country was built on white supremacy. If you think the world would look no different, really? Are you sure? Do you want to rethink that? (And I’m not even really getting into modern structures of racism, just the fall-out of unaddressed racism generations ago.)
You can make someone’s day a bit better by smiling and being kind, and you can improve a shitty living situation by adding a bright light bulb to a room. But if a house is built on a defective foundation, changing a light bulb or doorknob isn’t going to fix it. The princess can still feel the pea, through layers and layers of mattresses, and white supremacy carries on from generation to generation. We never did anything to fix our foundation of racism. It’s still there. And just like the fucking doorknob isn’t going to really improve the house, you can’t random-acts-of-kindness your way out of a whole country built on white supremacy.
Kindness is not the answer. We have to address our faulty foundation and rebuild.
2) Funny how when actual Nazis are marching on American streets, it’s hip to to say black lives matter but everyone quietly shuffles away when you mention Jews.
Many of us are in positions of privilege today, but historically Jews have been persecuted (and by the way, there are also Jews of color). We know that things change on a dime. For example, the five times that France expelled or readmitted Jews, in only 88 years. I’m not saying anyone’s persecution is worse than anyone else’s, but don’t leave us out, especially when, as noted above, we’re talking about actual Nazis, chanting “Jews will not replace us,” (whatever that means).
When I was a kid and heard stories of the non-Jews who risked their lives by hiding Jews from the Nazis during the Holocaust, my fear was that I wouldn’t be brave enough to hide someone else at the risk of my own life. My mom, one generation removed from those times, always wondered if her neighbors would hide her. I understand that fear more today.
If you consider yourself woke but are uncomfortable mentioning Jews as a group that needs protection when there are “neo-Nazis with semiautomatic rifles [marching around a synagogue], chants of “sieg heil,” swastika flags, and threats to burn down the synagogue,” you need to really analyze your feelings about Jews. If you support Black Lives Matter (which you should) but disagree with acknowledging that Jews were the primary target of the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis, you need to analyze your feelings about Jews.
By the way, I am not arguing that Jews aren’t white. Most American Jews are, although up to 60 years ago, Jews were definitely treated by the mainstream as an inferior group (example: Jews weren’t able to buy homes in the neighborhood I grew up in). “But that’s neither here nor there, where anti-Semitism is concerned, because anti-Semitism concerns itself with Jewishness, not whiteness.”
So again, if you want to ignore the anti-Semitism of the Nazis in Charlottesville, you have work to do. Start here, PLEASE:
https://newrepublic.com/…/14…/lefts-blind-spot-anti-semitism