#oppression
It just means that they don’t want antisemitism to follow them every time someone hears their name. You can change your name from something obviously Jewish to something not and still identify as wholly Jewish.
And it’s certainly not the place of gentiles to criticize Jews for making the hard choices goyim don’t have to.
The solution to antisemitism is to stop blaming Jewish people for all the world’s problems and to stop attacking, killing, and oppressing Jews.
Antisemites are quick to spread the idea that Jews are incredibly wealthy people who have a great deal of social capital and wield a lot of control, and it’s darkly humorous to me at this point.
Being Jewish, for quite a lot of Jewish history, meant that you would live in poverty and oppression. You might get lucky and take a job that paid well but the gentiles wouldn’t take, circumstance might just be on your side, but for the most part, your opportunities would be severely limited.
Even today, Jewish poverty is a very real problem. In New York City alone, over 500,000 Jews live near or below the poverty line. Many of these Jews are Shoah/Holocaust survivors, and quite a few are fairly recent immigrants, frequently from Russia or the former Soviet Union. Poverty is also common within the Hasidic community. [x]
“Jewish” and “living in poverty” are not and have never been oxymorons. The truth is that Jews are not endowed with some sort of psychic force that draws material wealth to them, and in many cases, Jews are more likely to be poor than the general populace.
Why Are Health Studies So White?
“There’s some truth” to claims that people of color are suspicious of clinical studies, this epidemiologist, who is Latino, said, “because there’s discordance in who gets studied and who’s doing the studying.”
This has enormous implications for the applicability of health research.
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Becoming disabled demands learning how to live effectively as a person with disabilities, not just living as a disabled person trying to become nondisabled. It also demands the awareness and cooperation of others who don’t experience these challenges. Becoming disabled means moving from isolation to community, from ignorance to knowledge about who we are, from exclusion to access, and from shame to pride.
Disability studies should be required for the health professions.
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Dismantling antisemitism is necessary work for antioccupation movements. Zionist sentiment surges in the aftermath of violent antisemitism - genocide in Europe, expulsions in SWANA, et al. - and European support for the creation of Israel was rooted in their unwillingness to allow Jewish communities to exist within their borders without killing them. No, antisemitism does not provide a defense for the occupation nor does it recuse its supporters of accountability, but Israel did not happen in a vacuum; rather, it happened in the context of anti-Jewish hatred, a Jewish refugee crisis that Europe’s antisemitism was responsible for and ignored, and a white supremacist system that disregarded the lives of both Jews and Palestinians. Jewish and Palestinian liberation is inextricable.
According to many this week, it seems that I, as an American Jew, apparently have a personal role in controlling American, European, and Middle Eastern geopolitics. Yet, I still cannot convince cisgender-heterosexual men to use my pronouns (they/them) correctly. What gives?
From “the past didn’t go anywhere: making resistance to antisemitism part of all of our movements” (link: http://www.buildingequality.us/…/ant…/rosenblum/the-past.pdf)
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I recognize that this has been a painful week for the queer community as a whole, but the queer Jewish community is walking away from Sunday in pain, exhausted, and without a home. I have remained quiet about the antisemitism we have been experiencing on the left, if only because I didn’t want to - don’t want to - play into the hands of the Islamophobic right who would use it to malign communities and the important work that we do in social justice spaces*, but I cannot remain quiet after this. Comrades on the left, especially queer comrades, we need you to step up, to be visible in your allyship, and to be willing to do the hard accountability work of examining how antisemitism has manifested in our movements. Before you react and respond, please step back and listen. The next time someone tells you that they are Jewish and your first impulse is to ask them if they are a zionist, pause. And when you would seek to take the symbols of our faith away from us, drawing the lines of acceptable practice and the conditions of our dignity, please don’t and ask yourself if you would impose such demands on any other community.
I have been with you as you have done Palestinian liberation work and heard you say that you recognize that Judaism is not Zionism, as you have declared that it is possible to be antizionist without being antisemitic, and I believed you. I still do. Please show me that you meant it.
(If you need resources to begin to work through this, “the past didn’t go anywhere” is an excellent voice that recognizes the need for intersectional liberation: http://www.buildingequality.us/…/ant…/rosenblum/the-past.pdf)
*And if you are a part of that group and would exploit this moment to push your agenda, no, not here, not in my name as a queer Jew. You do not get to use me to malign, scapegoat, harass, or harm the Muslim community. If you do, you will hear from me. To my Muslim friends who have been targeted this week, know that I am sending my love and care. Please feel free to reach out if you need someone to hold them accountable.
White people dont get to have sexualities imo…like they invented homophobia in the first place so i dont feel bad for white people who have their fcking special snowflake labels. Only POC can be demipan.
what
Are you okay, kittensaysfuckyou?
I WILL NEVER BE OK. THAT IS WHAT OPPRESSION IS
I’m sick of people asking me how privileged they are and asking who is more oppressed, a black man or a white woman? A gay man or a trans man?
It’s not my job to tell you the answer to your oppression olympics other than the fact that I will win that game literally every time and that my oppression isn’t something for you to even try and match.
Without a shred of self-consciousness, top Harvard administrators (who regularly get anywhere from $1-10 million in compensation EVERY YEAR) send messages of congratulations to a long-term, under-paid dining service worker who just won $6 million in the lottery and can finally retire in comfort from this wretched corporation-masquerading-as-a-college.
Seattle, WA
I am not Trayvon Martin. I am a 56 year-old white woman whose life has been mostly defined by privilege. When I get stopped by police officers for speeding or a busted tail light, they usually end up apologizing. Just last month I was denied a Global Entry (think express line in Customs) because of a civil disobedience arrest and the officer apologized to me, saying he agreed with why I protested. My own awakening as “active-participant-in-a-racist-society-privileging-me” occurred at age 44. The setting was a class on social identity at Boston University. We were separated into racial identity groups and then asked to report back our findings. As a young woman of color spoke, it was as if a screen had been lifted revealing the existence of an entire reality unlike my own! I listened to her speak of their collective experiences of daily life in Boston and I was stunned. The contrast in our experiences of shopping in any retail store, interacting with police at a traffic stop, riding public transportation and simply walking down the street were startling to me. Equally startling was how the contrast was not at all surprising to her or other members of her identity group. Worse still was how rapidly several members of the white identity group sought to negate the experiences of the people of color or tell similar stories of a single instance in which they felt marginalized.
I would love to be able to write how rapidly I became informed, started to work on acknowledging my own white privilege, strived to be an accountable white ally and spent time each day working to dismantle our racist systems. I cannot. It was not until several years later I came to realize how close to home the racism was located and how my lack of active participation was the same as condoning the injustice. As a member of a progressive, liberal faith community, I believed we were collectively among those who understood white privilege and systemic racism and were activists in building multicultural community. Following a national gatherings in Texas I learned how wrong I was in that perception. Having heard white supremacists had come to protest our gathering, I was outraged. Next I heard local police had profiled our youth of color, while leaving white-appearing youth alone. I was appalled. Then I heard stories of white members of our own faith community making racist assumptions and behaving in racist manners. Car keys were tossed to one person of color, assumed to be a valet. Other people of color were assumed to be wait or housekeeping staff. Youth of color trying to enter an event were assumed to be ‘not ours.’ These were just some of the racist incidents caused by our own community. I had been looking too easily outside of my own community for the presence of racism and privilege. Part of my own privilege was in choosing the easy places to be outraged and seek change. Now that I knew it was our own family. Now I knew it was me. I am not Trayvon Martin but I am the racist system that leads to gated communities in which any person of color is seen as ‘outsider.’ I am the racist system that leads to law-enforcement practices and policies that devalue people who are black or brown. I am the racist system that breeds fear of young men of color in hoodies and protects young white men with varsity letters. I am the racist system that equates justice with a protection of the status quo in terms of racial power. I am the racist systems that requires nation-wide protest to even attempt to access justice. I am not Trayvon Martin but I am the racist system that caused him to lose his life. And it is this certain knowledge that calls me to the work of anti-racism, anti-oppression and multiculturalism each day.
Fuck I’m going to cry. This is how you ally. This is how you show us that you care. By actually doing something and being selfless, rather than assuming because you didn’t shoot one of us you’re not part of the problem and deserve a cookie. It still amazes me that there are people out there who actually do these kinds of things, because so many “allies” just “support” for the attention.
I wish more members of “progressive, liberal faith communities” could hear and absorb this message. Signal boost y'all.
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