Open Thread: Shooting at the Holocaust Museum

I just spotted this over at Jezebel.

WASHINGTON – A man with a gun walked into the U.S. Holocaust Museum on Wednesday and opened fire on a security guard, D.C. police and U.S. Park Police said.

The targeted security guard and two others fired back, wounding the gunman. One security guard was also wounded. Sources say both the gunman and the security guard are in critical condition at George Washington University Hospital.

David Unruh, a tourist from Kansas, was in line with his family on the main floor of the museum when he heard what sounded like “five, or maybe six” gunshots.

This is horrendous. The only thought I can hold in my head right now is that the person who did this must have never taken a look at anything the museum offers, or understood anything it had to say.

Update

Megan at Jezebel makes it crystal clear:

His website, Holy Western Empire, crashed this afternoon, and with it the first 6 chapters of his book described by Mark Fisher of the Washington Post thusly:

Von Brunn’s online book, “Kill The Best Gentiles,” is hundreds of pages of conspiracy theories that include Holocaust denial, the ancient hoax of the “Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion,” and wild webs of fantasy seeking to link the Federal Reserve Bank, the Illuminati, Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx in a grand, centuries-long story of Jewish plotting against white people.

Share and Enjoy:

Trackbacks & Pings

Raven’s Eye on 12 Jul 2009 at 6:23 am

[...] one above quote W. is described as a lone wolf. In this Racialicious post regrading the shooting at the Holocaust museum, a discussion ensued in the comments section [...]

Comments

Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist! wrote:

I don’t get it, why the Holocaust Museum? I wondered if this was just a random shooting of an angry man who went crazy and decided to get revenge… or if it was anti-Semitic.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 3:06 pm ¶
Mary wrote:

Washington Post says the shooter as an 89-year-old white supremacist named James von Brunn. (Link.)

I just don’t have words.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 3:18 pm ¶
Zora wrote:

I saw this on the NPR website, and at least one person immediately jumped to the conclusion that the shooter was Muslim. The shooter is actually (well, it’s not 100% confirmed, but NPR and Washington Post report it) a white supremacist.

Given that the shooter is a white guy, I’m betting dollars to doughnuts that this will not be described as a domestic terrorist attack.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 3:20 pm ¶
N wrote:

I got a text about that, its horrible and scary how people can be so hateful. AND how people react when they feel their status and the status quo is being threatened.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 3:23 pm ¶
jen* wrote:

according to CNN, the suspect in custody is an 88yr old white supremacist from Maryland. as my co-worker said, stupidity kn0ws no age.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 3:23 pm ¶
Arturo wrote:

Think Progress has more on the alleged shooter.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 3:30 pm ¶
Minotaar wrote:

It is disturbing to think that the mainstream media only refers to incidents involving non-whites as “terrorism” while incidents involving whites get other labels.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 3:37 pm ¶
jen* wrote:

DIMA, I had the same thought – why a museum? But man, Arturo, the info over at ThinkProgress sounds like this is a very scary guy.

Homeland Security did release data earlier this year about the possibility of an increase hate crimes this year.

This should definitely be reported as domestic terrorism.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 3:43 pm ¶
jen* wrote:

SPLC also has more:
http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2009/06/10/holocaust-museum-shooter-had-close-ties-to-prominent-neo-nazis/

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 3:47 pm ¶
Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist! wrote:

I agreed with everyone here. This is clearly a domestic act of terrorism– too bad the media won’t think that.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 3:52 pm ¶
Mischa wrote:

@ Minotaar -

The NY Times, to its credit, did and did so promptly in its editorial:

“The murder of Dr. George Tiller, who was shot to death as he stood in the foyer of his church in Wichita, Kan., on Sunday morning, was a reprehensible act of domestic terrorism directed toward the dwindling cadre of physicians who risk their safety to perform legal medical procedures.”

The Washington Post, LA Times, USA Today did not use the term in their lefthand-side editorials. The Boston Globe titled theirs “terror at the clinic” but didn’t use the word in the actual article.

Some of the papers ran signed opinion pieces that did use the word, including this one:
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-na-abortion-violence1-2009jun01,0,1335069.story

While the Wall Street Journal published the execrable Jamie Kirchick going out of his way to dismiss any larger connections:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124398690567579389.html

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 4:01 pm ¶
Heather wrote:

Obviously this terrorist never visited the museum to learn the lessons it teaches. My visit there nearly 10 years ago left me in tears at humans’ capacity to be so cruel to one another.

What’s bringing all of the wingnuts out of the woodwork?!

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 4:02 pm ¶
Matt wrote:

It is horrendous.

But, frankly, I don’t find it that surprising. What I do find surprising is that anyone could wonder if it was antisemitic.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 4:07 pm ¶
Mischa wrote:

(It would also help tremendously if the President would use the term.)

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 4:11 pm ¶
DimMati wrote:

I think that the american media just can’t handle that whites are be terrorists. I think it goes against their commonly held belief that white americans are a content (i.e. complacent) punch of simple folks that are ok with the status quo in this country.

And in the recent years, non-white, oppressed, 2nd or 3rd world peoples being put up in the media as ‘real terrorists’, when a white one comes along, they (media) just doesn’t want to call the person a terrorist. Because like…it’s just not done. Whatever.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 4:33 pm ¶
FeministLookingGlass wrote:

Horrible. The latest confirms that the security guard has died.

Apparently the shooter was involved in anti-Obama rhetoric, about his citizenship. As well as writing articles about “A new, hard-hitting exposé of the Jew Conspiracy to destroy the White gene-pool”

Sick stuff.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 4:35 pm ¶
Matt wrote:

You know there’s a difficulty seeing whites as terrorists.

There’s also a problem seeing violence against Jews as anything but ‘crazy.’

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 4:52 pm ¶
April wrote:

Napolitano warned us about this and she was forced to give an apology. Too bad those who bashed her only have to eat crow while others are dying.

I don’t think anything more will be done in regards to domestic terrorists than what was done after Oklahoma City. As long as the assailant is not a POC, it will be view as a isolated incident. I hope I’m wrong, but I doubt it.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 5:01 pm ¶
Matt wrote:

It’s not whether the shooter is a POC, it’s whether the target is Jewish/the Jews. When there was a shooting at a Seattle JCC, the shooter was a POC, but it was seen as an isolated incident.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 5:17 pm ¶
Matt wrote:

Hmm.. droppped the link.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 5:18 pm ¶
Minotaar wrote:

April:

Is it possible that these white terrorists are frequently investigated only as lone gunman individuals, while the PoC are investigated as a creation of their cultures and neighborhoods? Why is it that when you hear about muslim extremists we always hear about their extremist mosques (queue the call to prayer and the orientalist mosque montage) and their radicalized subcultures? Why is it that there is no spotlight shown on the substantial and even vocal subcultures of extremist white terrorists – the people writing letters of support to the guy who killed Dr. Tiller, the news radio jocks who praise his death, the racist militias that encourage this sort of violence – why is it that those groups are not spotlighted more repeatedly in the media as part of the culture that incites and enables such monsters to violence?

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 5:18 pm ¶
Why a museum? wrote:

Because one of the major problems facing proponents of holocaust denialism is that most people learn about the holocaust. if people are scared to go the holocaust museum then they won’t learn about the holocaust. furthermore this guy and others clearly believed that “Teh Jooz” use the genocide as a weapon to obtain their power. it’s a fairly clear motive.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 5:38 pm ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:

Post updated.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 5:48 pm ¶
Lisa J wrote:

They just reported that guard he shot died. Bastard.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 6:01 pm ¶
FeministLookingGlass wrote:

@Matt. True, but I think that’s true for other groups; even for example, Dr. Tiller’s shooter was seen as a lone crazy person, regardless of the fact that countless people and organizations defended the act, and despite the fact that it was done to ‘terrorize’ pro-choice providers, etc. So I do think there is something to be said for whether the shooter is a POC or not.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 6:35 pm ¶
Fatemeh wrote:

This is horrible. May God give the guard peace.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 7:01 pm ¶
jen* wrote:

Minotaar – you put your finger on it. When white people commit these acts, it’s looked at as a “one time thing” – an anomaly. But with POCs it’s a “pattern”, a result of the “culture of violence” or some such.

Even when there are white groups involved in conspiracies or terrorist activities [a la McVeigh], white people as a group are not targeted/profiled/vilified in the media the way POC groups are.

My thoughts are with the family of the security guard.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 7:04 pm ¶
RCHOUDH wrote:

This is just terrible. I’ve always had a nagging feeling that as the economic recession continues to linger more violent incidents will start occurring unfortunately, including racist/anti Semitic/Islamophobic violent incidents. Unfortunately we have alot of individuals who won’t be able to handle the pressures of life, especially now through these tough economic times, and will violently and unthinkingly lash out at others, including innocent bystanders. This guy sounds really deranged but unfortunately there are others like him out there.
@ Minotaar
Cosign to what you said. If the authorities really want to prevent more of these incidents from occurring they should thoroughly investigate the various hate/religious extremist groups out there. What makes them any different from Al Quaeda? And maybe by focusing on them the act of treating white crimes as individual cases will end once and for all.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 7:21 pm ¶
madelinek wrote:

It’s also about who is targeted, I think. Look at the Seattle Jewish Federation shooting, look at what happened today, look at Tiller, look anti-LGBTQ hate crimes. When the person/community being attacked is marginalized in some way, or serves a marginalized community, it’s all about an isolated incident. It’s not part of any pattern of hate or violence or inequality.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 8:02 pm ¶
Aishtamid wrote:

@ Minotaar – “Is it possible that these white terrorists are frequently investigated only as lone gunman individuals, while the PoC are investigated as a creation of their cultures and neighborhoods?”

This is so very true! I do not believe this guy came out of the woodwork alone – he had been incubating this sort of hate for years and years. Where did it come from? Who inpired it? Why would he accept it? These are questions that need answering to prevent something like this happening again. It also goes without saying that should be applied to any hate crime. It is important to look at communal dysfunction in communities that breeds hate, and this is not often done among white communities.

Driving the point home, it is not at all a coincidence to me that I saw a survey in which 25% of the American public blamed “the Jews” on some level for “the economy.” Or that this happened only a week or two after that planned synagogue bombing in NYC.

My thoughts are with the family of the security guard.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 8:17 pm ¶
Aishtamid wrote:

I meant what *inspired* it of course.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 8:17 pm ¶
Matt wrote:

The NYTimes has a copy of the bio he wrote for his own wikipedia page. Do note, “International bankers” means Jews. The Times also links to a post at TPM describing his Ron Paul-style antisemitism.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 8:58 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:

This has been an awful fucking day.

A dear friend of mine works at the museum and I had CNN on in the background when the story broke. The news said two others were wounded in addition to the guard but the rest of the details were sketchy. I couldn’t reach my friend and so for a scarily long time this morning I could not be sure that she was still alive. Finally she emailed me on her blackberry saying that she’d been evacuated along with her coworkers to a nearby location and was safe.

We just had dinner a few nights ago for my birthday and she told me that the Fred Phelps cultists (I refuse to call them Christians) had been protesting in front of the museum all week. Why? Who knows. Hatemongers.

There is a lot to say about this but I am so relieved that my friend is alive that is all I can think about at the moment.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 9:18 pm ¶
foshothoyo wrote:

too bad nobody took the time to talk about the convergence of militant white supremacy, covert racism, and systemic racism here, since militant white supremacist organizations are responsible for the ideology behind the shooting, covert racism was behind the media’s refusal to call it a terrorist act, and that systemic racism led to the Department of Homeland Security to drop their report on far-right “white” terrorism at the behest of the less-right republican party.

Maybe after these recent escalations in domestic terror by whites, the DHS will take a hard look in the mirror and do a better job of preventing such terrible events in the future.

A terrible tragedy today.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 9:38 pm ¶
Yonah wrote:

Aaagh. I know people who work there, I was talking with them at a conference a week ago, agh.

Cosign the people who say white terrorists and commiters of hate crimes need to stop being seen as lone nuts. Matt – totally, I hear hate against Jews dismissed as merely “crazy” all the time, as if it comes from nowhere, as if it’s going nowhere.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 10:05 pm ¶
Titanis walleri wrote:

“His website, Holy Western Empire, crashed this afternoon”
Crashed, or was taken down?

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 10:37 pm ¶
chris chambers wrote:

he attacked b/c of the play opening gala that was supposed to be tonight:

http://natturnersrevenge.blogspot.com/2009/06/holocaust-museum-murder-janet-langhart.html

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 10:55 pm ¶
Legba wrote:

I think we need to not perpetuate the use of the word terrorism. Terrorism is a term that has been used to justify the murder of over a million people in Iraq, has been directly used to inflame racist attacks on Arabs in the United States, and is used to silence social justice activists in the United States on a constant basis (for example, people organizing against the Republican National Convention were initially charged with terrorism, but weren’t connected to anything other than non-violent political organizing).

We gain nothing by pushing to label this terrorism and stand to lose a lot more. It’s a word we need to work to get removed from our collective vocabulary and leave as a racist, reactionary relic of the Bush years.

If you need to label this, call it what it is: reactionary violence.

I am in no way trying to suggest that this event isn’t traumatic, horrible, or possibly indicative of a larger trend. In fact, the word terrorism PREVENTS us from talking about what lies behind acts of violence and further justifies and institutionalized the state’s monopoly on violence.

Posted 10 Jun 2009 at 11:38 pm ¶
Ron wrote:

The federal government’s concentration on muslims and arabs as terrorist opens the door white supremacists cells to do the type of damage they have been plannings to do.

Moreover, Obama as president does not bode well for POC and other ethnic minorities.

There is also dormant anti-semitism that needs to be addressed but I am at a loss as to how.

Posted 11 Jun 2009 at 12:17 am ¶
jvansteppes wrote:

Fred Phelps was at the Holocaust Museum? What, did the curators dare oppose the Nazi slaughter of out homosexuals?

Posted 11 Jun 2009 at 12:46 am ¶
Paz wrote:

Wolf Blitzer had an author of a book on white supremacy in the U.S. on his show and he brought up the Napolitano report, as well as the fact that things like this only get talked about when a tragedy happens. This, along with the death of Tiller, and te surge in gun sales after Obama’s victory seriously disturbs me…

Posted 11 Jun 2009 at 1:33 am ¶
Jess wrote:

Part of the problem is that white supremacists are a little smarter about what they do and how they phrase things. For instance, they always say “well, this guy was a lone wolf,” and it gets left at that. Of course, this is a very deliberate strategy.

Anti-American terrorist groups abroad, of course, aren’t using that strategy because it would make no sense. (They aren’t usually under the scrutiny of the FBI, for one, and the CIA isn’t composed of all-powerful superheroes like Nick Fury).

But since most people aren’t particularly familiar with the way real insurgencies work, you get the assumption that an Islamic terrorist would operate in the US the same way they would abroad. Um, no.

On top of that, most other Americans I know don’t realize that for an insurgency to work, you need the support of at least some portion of the population.

White supremacists have that. Islamic terrorists (in the US) do not. If a third of the population were Muslim, if there was a long history of separatism, or something like that, then you have a shot at it. But the US isn’t the Philippines or even Russia, both of which have dealt with Islamic-tinged insurgencies that had a real possibility of success. (The goal in both places was to set up a separate state).

White supremacists have a shot at it — there are enough that they could make life very difficult for all of us. And they can do exactly what terrorism is supposed to do. Scare people.

I’d suggest (shameless plug for a favorite site) everyone her visit http://www.dneiwert.blogspot.com.

Dave Neiwert has a top-notch treatment of eliminationist rhetoric and the effect it has.

Posted 11 Jun 2009 at 7:56 am ¶
The Cruel Secretary wrote:

@Jess–The link you have in your comment leads to a Blogger status report. Let’s try it again:

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/

Or, more specifically:

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2006/12/eliminationism-in-america-i.html

which is the beginning of his 10-part series on eliminationist speech.

Another person whose analysis I found helpful about the coalescing of white-supremacist groups is former Village Voice reporter James Ridgeway, who wrote the book Blood in the Face: The Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, Nazi Skinheads, and the Rise of a New White Culture back in the 1996, but the info is still relevant today. (There is also a doc which, if IIRC, is based on the book. If you still rock a VHS player, you can get it from Amazon.)

Ridgeway just wrote a piece on the coalitions between anti-abortion groups and racist hate groups:

http://www.alternet.org/story/140458/a_brief_history_of_the_radical%2C_violent_right%3A_how_racist_hate_groups_joined_up_with_abortion_terrorists/

Posted 11 Jun 2009 at 9:01 am ¶
Matt wrote:

dneiwert is worth reading. So is publiceye.org (unfortunately, PE isn’t very good with the RSS) which has this article up front. It’s the first that I’ve seen anyone properly put the shooting in the broad context of antisemitic conspiracist thinking and the constant “paranoid style” of American politics – in the context of the broader, widely-believed ideologies that justifies the violence.

In further new, the NYTimes has dropped the story already.

@FLG: yes and no. Violence against marginalized groups gets downplayed, but it’s not the same. With Tiller the Right tried to depict it as a lone crazy, but the Left tried to pin it on the Right’s anti-abortion rhetoric. There was some real discussion there.

With antisemitism, everyone tries to depict it as a lone crazy. (Even, often, Jews, who are afraid of living up to the stereotype of the neurotic Jew.) Or they emphasize other victims and bury antisemitism as a specific problem. This is even a problem with the Shoah, see the Weisenthal item here. “White supremacism” becomes “hates everyone” becomes, “is it even fair to call it antisemitic if he hates everyone?” Lots of the time, antisemitism is just completely ignored, even when it’s a major component of the story, so that there’s nothing there but a lone crazy who chose victims randomly. In this case, the major (partisan) theme developing is that it was an act of domestic terrorism by a white guy and not by a POC. Never mind that both whites and POC are capable of the same ideology of murderous antisemitism.

Have you seen anyone connect this with the Wesleyan killing, for instance? Two major, antisemitic hate crimes in just over a month. Or another incident of antisemitism in the news, Rev. Wright’s comments about how Jews won’t let him talk to Obama?

And let’s just note that the terrorist wing of the pro-life movement crosspollinates with the antisemitic far-right in order to justify violence.

Violence against Jews gets downplayed more thoroughly, characterized as anachronistic, not really a part of contemporary politics. I think it’s because Jewish oppression doesn’t look like what most people think of when they think of oppression. But they don’t understand that this is what antisemitic oppression has always looked like.

Posted 11 Jun 2009 at 9:30 am ¶
Matt wrote:

Another good article.

Posted 11 Jun 2009 at 9:59 am ¶
gatamala wrote:

Jess your point meshes with foshothoyo’s point about systemic racism considering the circumstances in which DHS was created.

Posted 11 Jun 2009 at 10:20 am ¶
Ron wrote:

@Matt

I have to disagree with you. I have heard more anti-black comments by jews than I have heard of anti-semitic comments by blacks.

No oppression politics and thread derailing but I could not let that fly.

There is a viral video on the web now showing Israelis and their anti-semitism that has black people arond the world taken aback.

The rhetoric coming out of Israel about Obama and black people in general is disturbing.

While, I will concede that there is anti-semitism among an older generation of BA, BA overall are not any more prone to anti-semitism than others. BA are not as adept at concealing it while other groups have more skill.

It is easy to on pick on the disenfranchised.

Posted 11 Jun 2009 at 11:10 am ¶
gatamala wrote:

I apologize for the double post but this (WaPo)

Von Brunn sometimes spoke of having fought for the wrong side in World War II, Blodgett said, and the two men sometimes attended meetings in Arlington County of the American Friends of the British National Party, which raised funds for the British white supremacist group.

I remember them raiding NoVa mosques and schools and seizing “foreign” material. Where’s DHS now?

It is a jess said, it’s a home grown movement that has substantial support (they called off the dogs).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/10/AR2009061003495_3.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2009061101157

Posted 11 Jun 2009 at 11:38 am ¶
9jah wrote:

@Zora/Minotaar/Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist:

to be fair, the media did not really push the “terrorism” angle when a couple of black guys tried to bomb a synagogue in NY (some publications did mention domestic terrorism). All the same I echo the poster who said the characterization of “terrorism” needs to go away. People need to start discussing issues and stop flinging around buzzwords.

@Minotaar – cosign that acts by an individual are often viewed by the mainstream as extending to the entire culture. This does not only happen with crime and is the reason we know that all white people are hardworking and smart, black folks are dumb but get by on brute strength, athleticsm…and AA, Asians are too smart and nerdy with no other dimensions, and latinos are just so fiery and hot (-tempered, -looking, whatever).

Posted 11 Jun 2009 at 12:05 pm ¶
9jah wrote:

Matt @44: co-sign. Very well put. I think even the most well intentioned get so frustrated and occupied with the oppression against them that they draw the discussion to their own pain(of course this applies to ALL, alike).

This incident to me is a sad case of antisemitism first and foremost and clear evidence that it remains very much a essential part of the discussino on racism in America.

Posted 11 Jun 2009 at 12:16 pm ¶
Manju wrote:

“It is disturbing to think that the mainstream media only refers to incidents involving non-whites as “terrorism” while incidents involving whites get other labels.”

Holocaust Museum Shooting, Other Recent Attacks Prove Domestic Extremism a Threat
–US News and World Report

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/national/2009/06/10/holocaust-museum-shooting-other-recent-attacks-prove-domestic-extremism-a-threat.html

Posted 11 Jun 2009 at 12:42 pm ¶
Yonah wrote:

A lot of important links coming out – thanks, everybody, for the good reads.

Posted 11 Jun 2009 at 12:56 pm ¶
Ruchama wrote:

Violence against Jews gets downplayed more thoroughly, characterized as anachronistic, not really a part of contemporary politics. I think it’s because Jewish oppression doesn’t look like what most people think of when they think of oppression. But they don’t understand that this is what antisemitic oppression has always looked like.

Yes, this. There have been tons of examples lately (another one that I haven’t seen mentioned yet in this thread is a politician from, I think, Kentucky, referring to Chuck Shumer as “that Jew” as a shorthand for “guy who isn’t like us,”) and it seems like every single one is looked at as a lone incident, rather than part of a pattern.

There is a viral video on the web now showing Israelis and their anti-semitism[racism?] that has black people arond the world taken aback.

The people in that video are not Israeli, they are Americans. Specifically, drunk American teenagers, most of them spending a year studying in Jerusalem between high school and college. Their clothes, their accents, and the street where they’re hanging out all say “American.” There are exactly two people in that video who are probably not American — a girl toward the middle with an accent that I can’t quite place (maybe South African?) and an Israeli guy who shows up after the credits. Racism in Israel is an issue that does need to be discussed, but that video is not discussing it.

Posted 11 Jun 2009 at 1:38 pm ¶
Matt wrote:

@Ron, 47: I didn’t bring up Wright because he’s black. (Black antisemitism is a complicated topic, maybe for some other day. Blacks do harbor antisemitic views at greater rates than others, but it’s nowhere near as simple as that.) The reason I mentioned him is because it was a recent case of antisemitism that didn’t wasn’t a white, right-winger. I could have mentioned James Petras’s wingnuttery or the recent invitation of Gilad Atzmon to a Unitarian Church in Berkeley, but probably no one would know what I was talking about. My point was that antisemitism as a whole, not any particular type of antisemitism that’s politically useful at the moment, is a problem. For some people this shooting is an important topic because they can score political points against some antisemites rather than to fight antisemitism. They make it purely a left-right thing when antisemitism has never fit that mold.

Posted 11 Jun 2009 at 2:17 pm ¶
Aishtamid wrote:

@Ron – I don’t see where Matt is singling out African Americans for criticism about anti-semitism. As for that video, it’s pretty awful. The idea of a Jew saying “white power” boggles my mind – “white power” was created to destroy Jews! I don’t think that Jews are somehow immune to racism; it happens when you live as white Americans, as these Jews have. Everyone in the video is American, most likely on a Birthright trip or a yearlong program. Racism is a big problem among Jews, mostly towards Arabs, and some Jews are working to combat it. We are not perfect, we should not be held to a higher moral standard than other people, but we must confront the racism in our community and this video shows that. I hope that the video will not lead to anti-Semitic attacks.

@Matt – The Rev. Wright thing is out of context. He was pretty clearly referring to “the Jews” of the Israel lobby. It’s a bit disturbing that he links the two, but I don’t think he meant Jews as a whole. If you must talk about black anti-semitism, what about the plotted synagogue bombing in NYC? That was a lot more serious. It could’ve been far worse than the museum shooting.

@Ruchama – It is true there really has been an upsurge in anti-semitism. I was driving home the other day and a caller on NPR (NPR!) went into an anti-semitic rant for several minutes before he was shut up. Scary stuff.

Posted 11 Jun 2009 at 3:01 pm ¶
Aishtamid wrote:

@9jah – I disagree with you. That synagogue bombing fits the textbook definition of terrorism. I agree that the word has been used superfluously and as a tool of prejudice against Arabs, but it is real and it should be recognized as real.

By the same token, we should not stop talking about anti-Semitism just because there are some who use the label as a silencing tactic. That does not mean it doesn’t actually exist.

Posted 11 Jun 2009 at 3:04 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:

A white supremacist walks into the US Holocaust Museum and opens fire, killing an African American guard and wounding two others and the best we can do–on Racialicious yet–is bullshit about (wait for it) “Black antisemitism”?

This is disgusting.

::Throws up hands. Walks away::

Posted 11 Jun 2009 at 3:27 pm ¶
Ruchama wrote:

I’m not quite sure how we got on the topic of “black antisemitism” in particular, but I think the point that many people are trying to make here is that it’s not a left/right thing, or a black/white thing, it’s pervasive antisemitism in just about all segment of our society, with the various forms feeding into each other. Like, O’Reilly’s “War on Christmas” nonsense says that Jews are not really Americans, which bolsters von Brunn’s ideas but does is pretty irrelevant to Wright’s. But the same “War on Christmas” also says that Jews are trying to illegitimately take power, which feeds into both of them. I seriously doubt that von Brunn and Wright have ever listened to each other, but they’re both listening to people talking about how Jews control the media/banks/government/etc. The same antisemitic ideas get to left and right, white and black, mainstream and way-out-there.

Posted 11 Jun 2009 at 3:51 pm ¶
Lisa J wrote:

@Matt, please cite some FACTUAL information to back up your claims that blacks harbor more anti-semitism than any other group. Please. Also, why is it if some black person, say a Farrakhan or a Jesse Jackson makes an anti-semitic remark they are branded for time immedmorial as the anti-semetic black man and it is mentioned almost every single time there names come up but someone like the late William F. Buckley, Rush Limbaugh, or Pat Buchanan say way more anti-semetic shit, more often and in more public venues and they are rarely refered to in those terms. Why? Racism. Every single time a black person or a select group of black people say or do something, black people are painted with a broadbrush as being homophobic, or anti-semetic or more so than anyone else? EVERY DANG time. EVERY thing that some blacks do, in no greater proportion than anyone else, gets pathologized and added to the list of shit that is wrong with black people and frankly, I am SICK of it. Even in the wake of a tragedy it still happens. And please explain to me how black people are more to blame for the oppresion of Jews than anyone else, cause we have so much power in America? Give me a break.

Posted 11 Jun 2009 at 3:51 pm ¶
FeministLookingGlass wrote:

Okay, back to Matt’s original point about the lone crazy. I’ve read a bunch of articles, JUST today where “lone gunman” is the main theme. Just google “von Bunn” and “lone” and there are hundreds of hits (with the exceptions of some good articles that actually deal with how ‘lone crazy’ is problematic). Its disturbing the amount of emphasis there is on this point. Like, whatever we do, we have to paint this as just a crazy old guy with no real connections to other people. And I think this is a really serious point, because it allows everyone else to sweep it under the rug and not think about everything in context with recent events, things ring-wing people in the media have said, or even their own prejudices, etc.

Posted 11 Jun 2009 at 4:11 pm ¶
Ruchama wrote:

@Lisa J – where has anyone in this thread said that black people are more to blame for the oppression of the Jews than anyone else?

The point of bringing up Reverend Wright wasn’t that he’s black, but that he’s not right-wing. All three people you mentioned are right-wing, the group that’s “expected” to be antisemitic. Mentioning them in this context wouldn’t say much that everyone doesn’t already know. I think that Reverend Wright is the reference on people’s minds right now because he was just in the newspapers with it yesterday.

Posted 11 Jun 2009 at 4:15 pm ¶
Matt wrote:

@Ruchama, 58: Thank you!! I almost feel like people are willfully misreading me here.

@Aishtamid, 55: I don’t care if he meant the Jews of the Israel Lobby or the the Jews of Teaneck, NJ. Either way, it’s antisemitic to attribute that kind of power to Jews.

@Everyone, As I’ve already said I am not trying to single out Blacks.

Lisa J, I didn’t and wouldn’t say Blacks are particularly to blame for the oppression of Jews. But your idea of Jewish perceptions is really odd. For example, I don’t know a Jew who doesn’t see Pat Buchanan as a white supremacist.

Ron pretty clearly misread what I’d written. Go back and read #44, and tell me if I’d singled out Blacks for anything. What I am trying to do here is to get past the standard pat responses to antisemitic hate crimes that say “what a tragedy, but good thing there’s nothing to think about here.”

Because antisemitism exists in many places in American society (and outside American society). It cannot be addressed by pretending that it’s only the far-right that has a problem with Jews. Though, yes, them, too.

Posted 11 Jun 2009 at 5:33 pm ¶
Lxy wrote:

So-called “fringe extremists” like James Von Brunn are ultimately a product of American society in general and reflect in more open and naked form the White supremacist values that are foundational to the USA as a nation.

It’s ironic that the Department of Homeland Security was issuing warnings about terrorism from Right Wing/White supremacist groups a couple of months ago.

In the bigger picture, it is the American state and political establishment that are the ultimate purveyors of terrorism and racism and thus help to create the broader climate in which people like Von Brunn emerge.

One only has to look at the US government’s assaults on Arab, Muslim, Latin, and Asian immigrants in the bogus War on Terror or recent anti-immigrant campaigns. Or check out the American War on Drugs and its massive imprisonment of racial minorities in the USA.

Posted 11 Jun 2009 at 7:16 pm ¶
Yonah wrote:

Ruchama – dang, why don’t you have a blog already? I see you on a bunch of different blogs and you always have good points.

Posted 11 Jun 2009 at 9:51 pm ¶
Ruchama wrote:

Thanks, Yonah. I don’t have a blog because I’m supposed to be writing my dissertation, and commenting on other people’s blogs is enough of a distraction — with my own blog, I don’t think I’d ever graduate.

Posted 11 Jun 2009 at 11:14 pm ¶
Lisa J wrote:

@Ruchama, maybe you missed what Matt said and I didn’t say anything about Wright so I’m not sure why you addressed that comment to me. @Matt you said in “…(Black antisemitism is a complicated topic, maybe for some other day. Blacks do harbor antisemitic views at greater rates than others, but it’s nowhere near as simple as that.)” So how is that not saying blacks are more anti-semitic than anyone else? Did you miss type that? If not, defend your statement that blacks harbor anti-semitic views more than others. Thank you.

And I am not talking about Jews attitudes with my examples, I’m talking about how the MAINSTREAM media always says this. It comes up again and again.

I’m not saying your point isn’t valid, but in light of what you said, unless you mistyped it, I take great issue with it.

Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 12:11 am ¶
Lisa J wrote:

Just to clarify, not an issue with your point, but with your statement about blacks harboring greater anti-semitism

Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 12:13 am ¶
Lisa J wrote:

And one more thing, the very last thing I said referenced oppresion of Jews b/c I think that with anti-semtisim, like racism, is most potent when it takes some form of oppresion. Why did you pick my last phrase as a way to dodge my actual question? Besides wouldn’t your statement that we are the biggest group of anti-semites make us the main points of oppresion? Not that we would have the power or the numbers to do that.
I’m upset about this tragedy and the hurt it must have caused many Jewish people, especially the survivors of the Holocaust and their descendents and the slap in the face of anyone who abhors what happened at that time, but I won’t let someone slide in a dig at blacks being more anti-semetic , a notion that is at best misguided and at worst just down right racist. I don’t know what your intent was in sayin that, or even your attempt to slide by it by saying it is complicated but this adds anger onto my sorrow and disbelief.

Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 12:26 am ¶
Aishtamid wrote:

It seems this discussion has degenerated somewhat.

@Matt – I don’t think that the statement that blacks have more anti-semitic views than whites was necessary. I didn’t see that when I posted my previous comment, so I’m partially editing myself. Yes, I’ve seen those same ADL surveys. Honestly, I’m not sure about them.

Let’s not forget that in the end what happened was a white supremacist murdering a black man who tried to stop him from murdering Jews.

@Lisa J – You are right that white anti-Semitism from people like Buchanan et. al is still given a mainstream platform. This is quite scary, but it also puts the anti-Semitism of whites and blacks into perspective. I actually saw Sean Hannity bashing a black man on his show over black anti-Semitism (no idea if this applied to the guy in question or not) and it seemed like he was using anti-Semitism as a political football to bash black people with.

Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 1:11 am ¶
Aishtamid wrote:

I’m also editing my thinking on Jeremiah Wright, after I listened to his “clarifications.” He says “I meant Zionists, not Jews.” This creates a good-Jew bad-Jew dichotomy – he meant the “bad Jews” that he disagrees with who run the world that I call “Zionists,” not the “good Jews.”

And honestly, Barack Obama is not a child who does not think for himself. If he’s not talking to Jeremiah Wright, than maybe something besides David Axelrod is causing it.

Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 1:32 am ¶
Evan Carden wrote:

@Lisa J,

Trying to answer your question, a brief search brings me this: “The number of African-Americans with strong anti-Semitic beliefs continued to remain high and stable since 1992. The 2005 survey found that 36% of African-Americans hold strong anti-Semitic beliefs, four times more than the 9% for whites. In 1992 it was 37%; 1998 – 34%; 2002- 35%.”
from the ADL (http://www.adl.org/PresRele/ASUS_12/4680_12.htm).

But, none of that is really relevant to the fact that this was an anti-semitic attack by an 89 year old white supremacist.

Sometimes I think the only way to move forward is to outlive some of these bastards.

Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 2:13 am ¶
BSK wrote:

Re: Anti-semitism among blacks

One thing I think we need to be careful of us avoiding conflating disputes between blacks and Jews and anti-semitism. In my community, there is a large population of blacks and a large population of Jews, who for a long time, have been at odds politically and socially. I would not characterize the dispute as one predicated upon anti-semitism OR racism (though obviously there are ways in which these are factors). Rather, the primary cause of the dispute is the different communities advocating on behalf of themselves, seeking different political or social goals, and, to some extent, being played against one another by the white, Christian population in the town. This dispute obviously lends itself to some blacks harboring what could be described as anti-semitic views (as well as Jews harboring racist views), but I don’t think the dispute and accompanying rhetoric necessarily classifies either group as being *more* racist/anti-semitic than other groups.

It is my understanding that this relationship between blacks/Jews is not unique to my neighborhood, and demonstrates yet another way oppressed groups are turned against one another. I am curious if it is this phenomenon that is leading some to draw the conclusion that blacks hold more anti-semitic views than other groups.

Also, as I believe someone attempted to point out, even if it was true that blacks did hold these views in larger numbers, that does not necessarily mean they are the largest source of Jewish oppression. It is possible that this would lead to more individual encounters of oppression, but given the political machines in place, it is less likely that blacks would be in the position to impose systemic and institutionalized oppression.

Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 2:42 am ¶
Matt wrote:

Lisa, Now you’re asking about me saying, “Blacks do harbor antisemitic views at greater rates than others.” But at one point you did write: “And please explain to me how black people are more to blame for the oppresion of Jews than anyone else, cause we have so much power in America? Give me a break.” Those are two very different things. As you say repeatedly, the numbers make those things different, but you don’t seem willing to give me credit for recognizing that. In fact, Blacks are more likely to have antisemitic attitudes. I have a lot of views about that, about why that is and about what to do about it, but I’m not singling out Blacks for criticism. I’m trying to talk about antisemitism as a broader phenomenon that goes beyond white supremacists. It also exists in the mainstream. It also exists on the Left. It also exists among various groups.

Like I said, I could have brought up James Petras, but he hasn’t been in the news lately, and few people would know who I was talking about. My larger point was that when we see antisemitism as something only on the far right, then we’re not seeing antisemitic oppression for what it is.

As for your point about mainstream media attitudes toward Blacks who voice antisemitism, you have a point. I disagree with some details (your choices of representatives are odd); I agree with the major point. But I’m not sure what the relevance is for you here. Remember, Obama got 80% of the Jewish vote. He got two votes, one in the primary, from me.

” the very last thing I said referenced oppresion of Jews b/c I think that with anti-semtisim, like racism, is most potent when it takes some form of oppresion. ”

That’s very interesting to me. Do you think of Jews as oppressed? I wrote above:

“I think it’s because Jewish oppression doesn’t look like what most people think of when they think of oppression. But they don’t understand that this is what antisemitic oppression has always looked like.”

Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 8:31 am ¶
Matt wrote:

Ron wrote: While, I will concede that there is anti-semitism among an older generation of BA, BA overall are not any more prone to anti-semitism than others. I responded to that in a parenthetical in comment 54 that it is true that Blacks are more likely to harbor antisemitic views than others. I brought up Rev. Wright as a specific case. Ron brought up Black antisemitism in general, with a factually incorrect statement that I addressed very briefly as an aside.

Let’s not forget that in the end what happened was a white supremacist murdering a black man who tried to stop him from murdering Jews.

I haven’t forgotten that. I got challenged on something I didn’t say, and half the conversation since has been about taking me out of context.

Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 9:39 am ¶
BSK wrote:

One issue with studies classifying who is anti-semitic and who is not is the way in which the pollster determines what qualifies as “anti-semitism”.

Suppose a question was, “Do you suppose Israel’s stance in Gaza?” You could make a compelling argument for either side of this issue without wading into anti-semitism. But if someone decides that not supporting Israel is anti-semitic inherently, than you are likely to label a whole group of people anti-semitic when you are not. I would want to see the specific questions and the responses available to people before I can conclude that blacks are decidedly more anti-semitic instead of being in more tense relations with Jews.

Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 9:52 am ¶
BSK wrote:

Looking at the ADL link someone posted above, there are only 3 specific questions listed, relating to the sense of power or control that Jews exhibit in the US, the business world, and on Wall Street. I struggle to see how answering “yes” to these questions makes someone “unquestionably anti-semitic”, especially if the person is African-American. If we were to ask if white people exhibit too much power in this country, would it be wrong or anti-white to say yes? If we were to ask if men exhibit too much power in this country, would it be sexist to say yes? Given the lack of power available to blacks in these three institutions, is it not understandable that they would be concerned about the level of power exhibited by any other group relative to their own? This is not to excuse this mindset, or say that there is no anti-semitism among blacks. But it is studies like this that muddy the waters by asking loaded questions, for which there is a wide range of possible answers with an even wider ranges of rationales, and then an interpretation is given to these responses that neglects the mindset of the individual.

Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 10:01 am ¶
BSK wrote:

Not to belabor the “blacks as anti-semitics” meme, but I looked over all the questions in the ADL survey and found them absurdly loaded and only answerable with ‘agree or disagree’. Yikes.

Back to an earlier point, there was an interesting discussion about the way in which von Brunn is likely to be viewed as an individual who does not represent his race, his religion, or any other large belief or group outside of himself, while people of color or people of marginalized groups are likely to be held up as representatives of these groups if engaging or similar or other “bad behavior”. I’m sort of surprised that people are surprised by this. This has been the norm in this country (and others) forever! It’s absolutely 100% wrong, but it’s been the unfortunate status quo for a while.

The primary reason for this is the ability for us to identify with those who are different. Most whites know a lot of whites, so when one white done goes crazy, it’s easy to say, “Well, that’s just one guy. I’m white and my friends are white and I *KNOW* we are not like that.” But when someone who is ‘not like them’ done goes crazy, it’s easy to say, “Is that what those people are like? Probably!” This is further exacerbated by the way in which the MSM presents people of color or other marginalized groups, in which incidents of crime or other negative behaviors are constantly highlighted, while other situations are largely ignored. We need to change our greater understanding of one another before we expect this unfortunate reality to change.

Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 10:15 am ¶
Lisa J wrote:

Wow. So because one organization took a poll or several similar polls over the years that is the end of story? ,I don’t see any of their info on the demographics of who they polled, the questions they asked, how big their sample was, etc They don’t even provide a margin of error percentage. I’ve been combing the web to see if other studies have been done on this or if these results have been replicated or for any more information on how ADL’s methodology for conducting this poll, but I don’t see it.

I’m just going to end on this, there is plenty of anti-semitism out there, I won’t deny that. There are black anti-semites out there and yes Farrakhan is one of them (which we are constantly reminded of whenever his name comes up, but not so much with equally anti-semitic prominent whites). But Matt’s comments and that ADL survey still don’t convince me that blacks are MORE anti-semitic than anyone else. No way, no how.

What happened yesterday was tragic, and I have seen so many discussions on the web that somehow track this back to blacks and their being anti-semitic (which is so irrelavant to what this white guy who hated blacks did) and I am deeply saddened to see that and I’m tired of commenting on that so I will just have to shut up about it and think about something else before I burst. I don’t know if this is divide and conquer or if this is something totally different I just don’t know. Sometimes I wish I didn’t even follow the news or go on the web or comment on websites.

Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 10:39 am ¶
Matt wrote:

Looking at the ADL link someone posted above, there are only 3 specific questions listed, relating to the sense of power or control that Jews exhibit in the US, the business world, and on Wall Street. I struggle to see how answering “yes” to these questions makes someone “unquestionably anti-semitic”, especially if the person is African-American.

BSK, because those are antisemitic attitudes. Those are the things antisemites think about Jews that make them antisemites.

Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 10:54 am ¶
BSK wrote:

Matt-

It is not that simple. Simply asking people to ‘agree’ or ‘disagree’ with certain statements does not get at the why behind the ideas. Did you even look at my argument against it? Knee-jerk responses that classify everything as an -ism, whether it is or not, does nothing to address the underlying issues.

Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 11:14 am ¶
BSK wrote:

http://www.adl.org/anti_semitism/anti_semitic_attitudes.pdf

Lisa, that has the actual survey.

I can’t agree with the way in which they went about this. Asking heavily nuanced questions in which people can only “agree” or “disagree”, and then saying X amount of agreements makes one anti-semitic is NOT sufficient to actually determine the views an individual has towards Jews. I would not accept this for the description of any person’s believes about another group. This is similar to how people wanted to describe all blacks as homophobic because of how they voted on the gay marriage referendum in California. It is NEVER that simple.

Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 11:17 am ¶
foshothoyo wrote:

just wanted to remind everyone that it was a white supremacist who did the shooting, and a black man that died protecting the people in the holocaust museum.

why are people obsessing about this “black anti-semitism” instead of the covert white supremacist attitudes of the mainstream right?

as far as i know, jeremiah wright didn’t shoot anybody.

Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 12:49 pm ¶
BSK wrote:

foshothoyo-

You are dead on, but as an open thread, the conversation is naturally going to bounce around. I recently made a post discussing the way in which people will not generalize von Brunn’s actions to whites/conservatives/Christians in the same way they do this for people of color or other marginalized groups. If you want to talk more about the specifics of this topic, and less about the tangent discussing black anti-semitism, keep that conversation moving by adding to it.

Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 1:33 pm ¶
Matt wrote:

BSK, saying Jews have too much power on Wall Street is just blatantly antisemitic. It really doesn’t need to be broken down. What is “too much power” anyway? How do you address “too much power” without discriminating? That’s how “too much power” has manifested as policy before – discrimination or murder.

The questions from the study are about the major tropes of antisemitism. They are not nuanced. Anyone who answers yes to several of them has serious problems.

I’m not going to get into an argument about different ways the question could have been asked — because it’s been asked different ways. It’s not a freak result particular to an individual survey; it’s a general feature of studies on antisemitism.

(Why? Here’s one among several plausible reasons: Antisemitism posits Jews as elites, so that people unhappy with the status quo are often most likely accept antisemitism. Blacks are likely to be unhappy with the racist status quo.)

Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 2:29 pm ¶
Matt wrote:

(Let me clarify something… the bigger point is to treat antisemitism as a whole phenomenon rather than focusing on parts of it. Again, I’m not trying to single out Black antisemitism. My parenthetical in the last comment isn’t about singling out Black antisemitism -nor has anything I’ve said- but about saying that antisemitism is more than just far right wing-nuts.)

Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 2:46 pm ¶
Ruchama wrote:

why are people obsessing about this “black anti-semitism” instead of the covert white supremacist attitudes of the mainstream right?

I’m not sure why we seem to be stuck on “black antisemitism,” but the point that several of us keep trying to make is that, in discussions of antisemitism, the left/right divide does not work in the same way that it does for other issues. Focusing only on the right ignores a huge piece of the issue and obscures the way that antisemitism actually functions. Most of the more well-known examples of antisemitic statements from people on the left are from black people, and the fact that these are reported all over the place while similarly antisemitic statements from left-wing white people are barely covered is definitely a sign of media bias, but it also makes it so that those are the easiest examples to use, because everybody knows them. Like, want an example of someone on the left saying something antisemitic? The news programs all showed Jesse Jackson’s “Hymietown” remark a zillion times, so it’s a reference that everyone knows which doesn’t need much explanation. As Matt said, referencing someone like James Petras would take a few paragraphs of explanation.

You have gotten me thinking, though, that always going for the references that everybody knows, who are mostly black, is a problem. I’m going to make an effort to try to use more examples of white left-wingers in these discussions, even if it does end up requiring more explanation.

Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 3:03 pm ¶
Ron wrote:

@Matt -

It easy to go after powerless blacks and make them the poster child for an agenda.

Invalid studies which seek to show black anti-semitism can be easily dismissed as political.

Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 5:44 pm ¶
Ruchama wrote:

Did my last comment get stuck in moderation?

Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 7:24 pm ¶
Megan wrote:

I work in D.C and the second I heard about it from the media I knew this man was white from the words they used. If this isn’t an act of “domestic terrorism” then what is?! I remember in my Politics of Human Rights class when I mentioned the fact that the KKK should be classified as terrorists. All the white people in class (including the professor) acted like I had blasphemed. Seriously my all white class was so angry with me It was really sad and also my first realization that it will never be just an isolated incident with POC. Ugh. If that man had been someone named Mohammed the District would have been on LOCK DOWN. And seriously? How safe do I feel when a 88 year old man can walk into a building with a rifle in plain sight by his side and start shooting? Maybe they should start looking for white males instead of brown people.

Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 7:41 pm ¶
BSK wrote:

Saying, “You think A, therefore you are B” is incredibly problematic. As stated previously, and as Ron pointed out, looking at one historically marginalized group’s view on another historically marginalized group’s view is incredibly problematic. I pointed out an example earlier, speaking specifically about my hometown and the way in which the groups were played off one another led to feelings of resentment on either side. I am not defending anyone holding anti-semitic views, but am saying that simply labeling someone something, without actually trying to understand the “why” is problematic. It leads to gross generalizations that “blacks harbor more anti-semitic views than others” which is easily conflated into “blacks are the primary source of Jewish oppression”, something we saw happen earlier on the boards. As we’ve seen before, this line of thinking has been used to blame blacks (or other marginalized groups) for problems that are far more widespread than these communities (ie gay marriage/homophobia in California). That does not mean that anti-semitism in the black community does not need to be addressed (as it should in ALL communities), but that it probably needs to be addressed differently than in other communities; and the only way to determine this is to understand what has led to these beliefs persisting, rather than simply labeling.

Anti-semitism, like all other ‘-isms’ knows no boundaries. A few people have pointed out that there is not a left-right divide, which is true. But it seems as if the focus has been on how that is SPECIFIC to anti-semitism. Unfortunately, racism, sexism, classism, etc. also do not fit in neatly to left/right delineations. There are certain ideologies that might lead an individual to be more or less likely to harbor certain viewpoints, but nothing is cut-and-dry, black-and-white simple.

Black anti-semitism is a problem that must be addressed. Over, explicit anti-semitism, like the type advocated by von Brunn, is a problem that must be addressed. Anti-semitism on the left and the right, in the middle, top, and bottom, must all be addressed. BUT, they must be addressed differently. I think the reason the conversation has splintered is because it is we *THINK* it is easier to identify and address the type of anti-semitism demonstrated by van Brunn (I would argue that, yes, it is easy to identify, and no, it is not easy to address, because we still have guys like von Brunn out there). Anti-semitism among blacks or in other “left” groups is probably trickier to identify and address, which has led to the focus on it here, I reason.

Posted 13 Jun 2009 at 7:08 am ¶
Matt wrote:

covert white supremacist attitudes of the mainstream right?

Because we’re talking about antisemitism. The mainstream right has a lot of problems with racism, but the antisemitism that motivates domestic terrorism like this is less common on the mainstream right than on the far left. The ways in which the mainstream right is complicit in the racist violence of the far right — well, they’re not complicit in the antisemitic violence of the far right in the same way.

There’s a tendency to talk about evangelical rapture beliefs. It’s true those bother me — but they’re absolutely different from the conspiracism that motivated this guy. They are categorically different from the belief in Jewish power that has always been a part of antisemitic violence. And, actually, mainstream evangelicals are acting much more on a belief that it’s moral to be kind toward Jews, not on rapture fantasies.

Ron, as I keep saying, I’m not trying to make Blacks the poster child for an agenda. What I keep trying to say is that all antisemitism needs to be addressed — not just far-right antisemitism. What Ruchama says about trying to pick white, Left examples is right. I think the President’s former Rev. would have gotten in the news with this statement regardless of race, but if it’s really a problem, you can take the effort to learn about Sean Wallis, and then we can talk about him (if we can keep Israel out of the debate).

Posted 13 Jun 2009 at 9:22 am ¶
Matt wrote:

BSK, I really think you should reread what I’ve written. Your last comment is very, very close to what I’ve been trying to say — except you don’t seem to be willing to read what I’ve said in a fair way. I don’t think Blacks, including Rev. Wright, should get a pass on antisemitism (any more than Jews should get a pass on racism), but I also don’t think that Blacks should be broken out as a separate category of problem as if Black antisemitism were worse than White antisemitism.

But as for your first sentence,

Saying, “You think A, therefore you are B” is incredibly problematic.

Well, I disagree. Saying, for instance, that any group of people is subhuman should be criticized on just those grounds. It doesn’t matter if the person who believes that is sympathetic or hateful or polite in how they say it. Those sorts of attitudes about Jews — that Jews are too powerful with too much influence on Wall Street, in the media, in government — are central to what antisemitism IS. Believing those things about Jews is in and of itself problematic, just like certain beliefs about various other groups are problematic without further comment. If you don’t understand that, Jeffrey Herf’s book, “The Jewish Enemy” would be a good place to start gaining some of that understanding. From the amazon page:

Arguing that racial antisemitism, however vicious, was an insufficient basis for genocide, Herf demonstrates that a major shift occurred in Nazi propaganda during the war: Jews were now presented as a political threat to the German nation, and as the instigators, through their puppets, America, England, and the Soviet Union, of a deadly world war against Germany.

It was those very sorts of beliefs — that Jews are too powerful and influential — that have always been the center of antisemitic violence. In the case of this shooting, too.

Posted 13 Jun 2009 at 12:15 pm ¶
RCHOUDH wrote:

So I just read an article recently that finally labelled Von Brunn and the Killer of Dr. Tiller as terrorists, but more like “lone gunman terrorists”. And in the end of the article it stated that far right extremist groups advocating the ideas that these murderers acted upon hardly ever call for violence. The same article also had a story about a man who was buying weapons to kill President Obama but the FBI ruled that he was again a lone gunman terrorist and that he was also mentally unstable on top of that. So from this I gather these groups will escape further investigation for now.

Posted 13 Jun 2009 at 2:10 pm ¶
Sobia wrote:

Echoing the sentiments of others, this is indeed sickening and terrifying. Just another example of increase in hate crimes. It seems violent hate crimes have been in the news quite a bit lately.

But I also want to agree with the sentiment already posted a few times that when a POC or other minority (ehem, Muslim) acts in this way it is assumed that whole damn community is somehow complicit or in on it. That we somehow condone these actions, or at the very least didn’t do anything to stop someone we don’t even know exists. “Where are the moderates?” they ask.

But when a White person does this it’s a lone, crazy person. All White people are not assumed to be complicit. Yet, I would argue, that with the power that White people have they actually are complicit in many ways.

Anyhow, once again very sad, and I too pray that the guard rest in peace.

Posted 13 Jun 2009 at 4:24 pm ¶
BSK wrote:

Matt-

I just don’t think we can conclude that a given group, or even a given individual, is anti-semitic using a survey like the one the ADL used. I am not saying those beliefs you indicated are not problematic (I apologize if it seemed as if I was excusing or justifying them); as you pointed out, and as that book I intend to look at does as well, those believes can easily be exploited to achieve horrible ends. I just think that more information is needed before anyone can be labeled anti-semitic (or anything else, for that matter). I don’t necessarily disagree or agree with the findings; rather, I just find flaws in the ADL’s methodology in that particular survey.

Posted 14 Jun 2009 at 5:30 pm ¶
WestEndGirl wrote:

As a mixed Jewish woman, I find it telling that there is so very much intense discussion over what is and what is not anti-Semitism on this thread. There are times on Racialicious when I read things where various US POC commenters say something, a turn of phrase, a media portrayal etc is racist. I might initially disagree, perhaps vehemently. But then I check myself, ask myself carefully whether or not I have the right to dismiss, to argue against something so vehemently when it’s not my lived experience or area of knowledge/study. So usually I keep my thoughts to myself and listen to other POC commenters play out the ideas themselves and learn that way.

But time and time again in this space, the same courtesy is not extended to Jews on these threads, even though we are a people and a quasi ‘race’. I think it’s because anti-Semitism is so very ironically an equal opportunity predjudice/hatred. You can be black/white/Christian/Muslim/socialist/libertarian/left/right and etc etc and hold quite terrible opinions of Jewish people and/or the community that fit into the various narratives. History quite clearly shows that it holds to no geographical/temporal/racial barriers.

And I think it’s this ideological, spiritual ubiqity that makes it so very hard for liberal anti-racists even in here to check themselves, to carefully ask themselves whether they should dismiss both evidence and/or claims of anti-Semitism. As an example, POC experience oppression, but does that mean that if they are Christians they can still totally avoid the impacts of 2000 years of theological anti-Semitism? I think not. Likewise Marxists of all ethnic/racial backgrounds or anyone just living in a country which uses anti-Semitism as part of the political discourse and etc…
Case in point, the most outright experience of anti-Semitism I have personally experience was at school when two classmates – one Black, Christian Nigeran background and the other Pakistani Muslim – threw a coin straight into my face (cutting underneath my eye) which then fell to the floor, with me straight after it as they shoved my head down saying: why don’t you pick up the money off the floor you effing Jew. I’ve also been told (approvingly weirdly enough) by an Iraqi Kurd that Rupert Murdoch is actually Jewish and controls all the world’s media for Jewish business benefit.

Somehow, somewhere these POC have picked up classic anti-Semitic tropes and by sure as h*ll were running with them. This is what Matt seems to be referring to with the ADL study, not to say Black people for example are worse anti-Semites than others, but to make the point that POC don’t get some sort of automatic immunity to it due to their own oppressions. Other factors such as religion, culture, tradition will still come into play.

I accept that fact with my own attitudes towards POC. I check myself for, and I understand that, as a product of my UK society, I might likely hold unwitting racist beliefs and need to fight against them. I just wish that the same thought and care would be extended in the other direction. Reverend Wright is an anti-Semite, it’s not a de-rail, please no more excuses. It doesn’t matter that he’s Black as well, he is also a classic anti-Semite.
And all this, just like racism deserves to be tackled, from whatever quarter it comes from. It might feel safe, warm and easy as anti-racists to assume that Jew-hatred only comes from White Supremacist Neo-Nazis, but alas it doesn’t. And surely no-one gets a pass…?

Posted 15 Jun 2009 at 10:57 am ¶
Ruchama wrote:

@WestEndGirl: Yes! The “Is that really antisemitism?” debate seems both pointless and problematic, and it seems to come up all the time.

Posted 15 Jun 2009 at 12:44 pm ¶
BSK wrote:

WestEndGirl-

I agree wholeheartedly with a lot of what you say here. I know that I took issue with some things Matt said and some of what came out of the ADL survey, but I hope that you didn’t interpret that as me excusing anti-semitism from POCs or denying it’s existence. If I did come across that way, my apologies.

To Ruchama, I don’t know that the “Is this really (fill-in-the-blank-ism)?” debate is pointless and problematic inherently. We must be thorough in determining what things are so that we can appropriately tackle them. This does not mean charges of -ism’s should be met with skepticism; but we must determine the ROOT cause of a problem, not just the existence of the problem, if we want to create real change. For instance, I would think that the approach to someone like Farrakhan and the approach to someone like von Brunn would be entirely different, because of the different causes of their anti-semitism; both are anti-semitic, neither is justified or excused for being so, but both have come to their beliefs from wildly different experiences and worldviews, and therefore a deeper understanding is necessary before action can be taken.

Fantastic discussion all around though; thanks to everyone who has/is participating.

Posted 15 Jun 2009 at 6:48 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:

You know what else comes up a lot on this thread?

My lunch.

WEG got a coin thrown at her. And Stephen T. Johns got KILLED. You would be heard pressed to find someone on this site who has not experienced racist violence to some degree, but using this thread as an occasion to trot out your boo-hoo-hoos is sickening under these circumstances.

Yes, antisemitism is everywhere–just like its close cousin Orientalism–no argument from me at all. Minus the racist argument, that is a important point. But why make it at the expense of black people, especially when a black man was just murdered protecting Jews from harm?

The fact is, this violence was perpetrated by a white supremacist whose ideology makes no distinction whatsoever between the black man he killed, the Jews he attempted to terrorize or the Arabs and Muslims who were initially blamed for the violence. Can it be that some of you are resisting considering the actual facts of this case because it gives you less of a free pass to go after black folks? Hmmmm…

Sure seems that way.

Mods? How does a statement like “Blacks do harbor antisemitic views at greater rates than others…” work with the comment policy?

Not attacking/criticizing, just asking. I am trying to understand the logic here.

Posted 15 Jun 2009 at 7:08 pm ¶
Ruchama wrote:

@BSK – I agree that looking at the root of the problem is necessary, but I don’t think that Farrakhan and von Brunn are as far apart in their antisemitic ideologies as you’re saying. They both use the “Jews have too much power” trope, which has been a central component of antisemitism for centuries, though they go in different directions with it.

And actually, I just googled for Farrakhan quotes, because I couldn’t remember exactly what he’d said, and found one (scroll down toward the bottom of the page) where he’s claiming that the Jews control the Federal Reserve, which is exactly what von Brunn claimed when he tried to kidnap those people in 1983. http://www.adl.org/special_reports/farrakhan_own_words2/on_jews.asp

Posted 15 Jun 2009 at 10:45 pm ¶
Ruchama wrote:

Sigh — my first post bringing up examples after I said that I’d bring up more white left-wing examples, and I didn’t. James Petras on the same theme: http://dissidentvoice.org/2008/12/bernard-madoff-wall-street-swindler-strikes-powerful-blows-for-social-justice/

Posted 15 Jun 2009 at 10:51 pm ¶
RCHOUDH wrote:

RE: White supremacism. Today I found this disturbing article from Salon.com about white supremacists joining the American military despite the fact that the army is supposed to not recruit members of racist organizations:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/06/15/neo_nazis_army/index.html?source=rss&aim=/news/feature

Posted 16 Jun 2009 at 1:19 am ¶
RCHOUDH wrote:

Ok after having finished reading that Salon article just now, I am seriously peeved off at the American military, law enforcement, media, and society in general. To all those in society who believe that these white supremacist groups are “harmless” because they don’t advocate violence are grossly ignorant about the reality of these groups. In the article it said that the favorite topic of discussion for these groups is fomenting a “race war” in America. And they’re not just talking about this either; they are actively encouraging their members to join the military so they can gain experience for fighting this future “race war”.
The military meanwhile is so hard up for soldiers to fight its illegal wars that it actually ignores the fact that more white supremacists are joining (despite strict rules banning the recruitment of these racists). It just boggles my mind that most Americans don’t consider these groups as being dangerous just because they haven’t called for violence (yet). If we continue to ignore the violent potential of these groups we are playing with fire because how much you want to make a bet that as the economy worsens and partisan politics continues to stifle government, that more violent racist incidents will become the norm here?

Posted 16 Jun 2009 at 2:00 am ¶

Open Thread: Shooting at the Holocaust Museum

Trackbacks & Pings

Comments

« Home

About This Post

Categories

Subscribe to This Blog

Search

About This Blog