Louis Farrakhan, Anti-Semitism and the Women’s March: The Questions No One is Asking and the Bait Everyone is Taking.
Here is my take on the accusations of anti-Semitism surrounding the Women’s March:
Tamika Mallory has every right to associate with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. We have freedom of association in this country, and we shouldn’t dismiss Mallory for attending a speech or even having a personal relationship with Farrakhan. I understand why Mallory is defensive about condemning Farrakhan in public and why outside pressure to disavow the man has had the opposite effect. For me, the issue isn’t Mallory’s defense of Farrakhan as a leader in the black community but rather the mainstreaming of the NOI leader’s racist sentiments. Here are three examples:
a) According to Tablet Magazine, Tamika Mallory and Carmen Perez regularly spewed anti-Semitic canards at Women’s March meetings. During a November 2016 meeting, Mallory and Perez accused the Jews of having a “special place as exploiters of brown and black people.” A few months later, Mallory and Perez allegedly lashed out at movement co-founder Vannessa Wruble, lecturing her on the privilege of her Jewish identity and questioning her ability to lead the movement because she is Jewish. Wrubble asserts that Mallory and Perez invoked the infamous Nation of Islam claim that Jews played a significant role in the African slave trade.
b) Tamika Mallory tweeted that the Anti-Defamation League (A liberal Jewish civil rights organization) is “CONSTANTLY attacking Brown and Black people,” and alleged that Starbucks inclusion of the ADL in its anti-bias training is a “sign” that Starbucks is “tone deaf and not committed to addressing the concerns of black folks.”
c) Mallory responded to accusations of anti-Semitism by telling the New York Times, “Since that conversation, we’ve all learned a lot about how while white Jews, as white people, uphold white supremacy, ALL Jews are targeted by it.”
Last week, Tamika Mallory and Women’s March leader Bob Bland answered questions about the Movement on the View. In a viral clip, View co-host Meghan Mccain confronted Mallory about her relationship with Farrakhan and asked her if she condemned the NOI leader’s statements about Jews. Mallory refused to condemn Farrakhan’s rhetoric but said that the anti-Semitic comments “were not her language.” In retrospect, Mccain asked the wrong question. A better inquiry would have been whether Mallory believed the SENTIMENTS about Jews espoused by Farrakhan.
Cleary, Mallory would not use the same inflammatory language as the Nation of Islam leader. However, she has yet to categorically reject racist falsehoods about Jews regularly propagated by the NOI. As evidenced by her tweets and interactions with Vannessa Wruble, it appears that Mallory holds many of the same anti-Semitic views as Farrakhan. While Louis Farrakhan unabashedly chastises Jews as a people, Mallory weaponizes the same trope (Jews as special exploiters of Black and Brown people) against individuals like Wruble and organizations like the ADL using progressive language.
As emotional beings, it is way too easy to focus on the offensive nature of a vile character like Farrakhan while ignoring the far more toxic downstream effects of his rhetoric appropriated by mainstream voices. We cannot smear Farrakhan, Mallory, the NOI, or the Women’s March for who they are. We must delegitimize the toxic ideas they believe.
