A Hard Question After the New York Hanukkah Attacks

There are some questions that are so sensitive that the prudent rather not touch them with a ten-foot pole.  But sometimes those are the very questions that should be asked.  So with trepidation, I proceed.

Violent anti-semitism has been a problem in New York City for some time although it has not gotten much attention from the mainstream “news” media.  But the rash of attacks against Jews in New York during Hanukkah has been hard to ignore even for the Democrat “news” media.

Yet one inconvenient fact about these attacks is still being largely ignored.  These attacks, like many (if not most) of New York City anti-semitic attacks, have been committed by Blacks.  Pointing that out is politically incorrect, goes against “the narrative” and practically asks to be smeared as racist, so it doesn’t get pointed out much.   But as David Marcus notes, if the perps were White, reporting would be very different:

Make no mistake, if white supremacists in MAGA hats were shooting minorities or carving them up with machetes, it wouldn’t just be news, it would be the only news. So satisfying would that narrative be to our politicians and scribes that we would scarcely be able to turn away. But alas, it’s Jews being killed and maimed. And the criminals don’t fit the bill of right-wing, Trump-supporting Nazis, so, you know, it’s complicated.

That anti-semitism among Blacks is swept under the rug in spite of its virulence in New York City, that some of the perps have been released quickly on bail, and the silence from some on the Left and deflection from others are among the factors that compel me to ask a question that is very inconvenient, including for me:

Are identity politics, intersectionality and Critical Race Theory enabling Black anti-semitism and other forms of racism from people of color?

(And modern anti-semitism, being based mostly on ethnicity, is indeed an especially toxic species of racism.  I do not have the time to go into all the history of that here.)

What are the messages that CRT (I focus on Critical Race Theory as it is a chief source of identity politics and intersectionality.) and cultural elements influenced by CRT are sending to Blacks along with other people of color? You are oppressed. And the oppressors are Whites, including Jews.

Yes, adherents of CRT frequently lump Whites and Jews together when they are not singling out Jews as oppressors.  See the BDS efforts on campuses and elsewhere for some of their singling out. Further, identity politics activists have long stoked anti-semitism as William Jacobson and Samantha Mandeles documents.

Continuing, CRT further tells Blacks: Because Whites and Jews systematically oppress you and because racism is prejudice pluspower, it is virtually impossible for you to be racist against Whites and Jews.

Thereby racism and anti-semitism from people of color is neatly redefined not to be racism at all.

This message is far from merely theoretical or academic.  It is hard to miss that Western society and culture applies much more pressure against racism and anti-semitism from Whites than against racism and anti-semitism from people of color.  (Of course, one can argue that is justified given past history, but it that justified given society today?)

For those who think I am wrangling about words, definitions have power.  It’s not for nothing that most White racists are loath to admit they are racist.  Many instead say they are just realistic, and/or they use other words to define their prejudice.  The Monty Python troupe once noted the use of “racialist” by racists in its Hilter – National Bolcialist Party sketch (Those are not typos.  Watch it sometime.).  Society rightly rejects and ridicules such redefinition.

But Critical Race Theory conveniently performs the redefinition for Black racists and anti-semites and that with the approval of academia and even woke church people.

Now, of course, most Blacks completely reject violent racism and anti-semitism, just as most Whites do, even with the influence of CRT.  But toxic woke ideologies, such as CRT, and the accompanying coddling and even encouragement of racism against Whites and Jews do affect people at the margins, including those who may be prone to bigoted violence due to their own prejudice or mental illness.  Certainly, thanks largely to CRT, Western culture treats the explaining away or justification or redefinition of Black racism very differently than that of White racism.

Now, in this post, I am surely oversimplifying matters.  And perhaps my brief analysis is off in a significant way. I am certainly no sociologist. Further, anti-semitism from all ethnicities certainly pre-dates CRT.  We cannot blame all violent anti-semitism on CRT in any case.

But I would consider myself a coward if I were to remain silent after what I see. So, yes, I do ask: Are identity politics, intersectionality and Critical Race Theory enabling Black anti-semitism and other forms of racism from people of color?