- Oct 26, 2006
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The Women's March Has a Farrakhan Problem
Mass movements are sewn together from a wide variety of sources, so they often sweep in unwanted companions as they move toward their goals. No one, however, expected to discover that three Women’s March co-chairs—Linda Sarsour, Carmen Perez, and Tamika Mallory—had ties to Farrakhan. More mysterious and disturbing was the extended reluctance of the Women’s March, nearly a year since it became public, to acknowledge Farrakhan’s extremist views and disassociate themselves from them.
It all came to a head last week, after Farrakhan delivered his address to the annual Nation of Islam gathering for Saviours’ Day, the sect’s three-day holiday honoring its founder, Wallace Fard Muhammad. Farrakhan denounced “Satanic Jews,” said that “when you want something in this world, the Jew holds the door,” and at the climax of his speech, proclaimed, “White folks are going down, and Satan is going down, and Farrakhan by God’s grace has pulled the cover off of that Satanic Jew—and I’m here to say, your time is up.”
...
The shameful reticence of Women’s March is easier to dispose. When it comes to racism, the modern left purports to be consequentialist. That is, they are less concerned with antiracist ideals, such as equality of opportunity and colorblindness, than with antiracist results. As the dogma goes, “racism equals prejudice plus power.” So the idea that black people, who are systemically oppressed, might be racist toward the whites who oppress them is derided as illogical and ridiculous. What matters are consequences, not feelings.
Anti-Semitism reveals the problem with this approach. Unlike anti-black racism, which punches down at a constructed underclass, anti-Semitism in the main is a racist conspiracy theory. That means it punches up at a perceived oppressor—the Jews, whom it casts as a diabolical elite that enslaves and exploits humankind. Punching up is naturally appealing to any group that is, or feels like it is, being ill-used by history. As often as not, anti-Semites are socially weaker than the Jews they target. And antiracist campaigners today have absorbed the specious racialization by 1960s radicals of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In their mental shorthand, Jews are white and privileged.
Mass movements are sewn together from a wide variety of sources, so they often sweep in unwanted companions as they move toward their goals. No one, however, expected to discover that three Women’s March co-chairs—Linda Sarsour, Carmen Perez, and Tamika Mallory—had ties to Farrakhan. More mysterious and disturbing was the extended reluctance of the Women’s March, nearly a year since it became public, to acknowledge Farrakhan’s extremist views and disassociate themselves from them.
It all came to a head last week, after Farrakhan delivered his address to the annual Nation of Islam gathering for Saviours’ Day, the sect’s three-day holiday honoring its founder, Wallace Fard Muhammad. Farrakhan denounced “Satanic Jews,” said that “when you want something in this world, the Jew holds the door,” and at the climax of his speech, proclaimed, “White folks are going down, and Satan is going down, and Farrakhan by God’s grace has pulled the cover off of that Satanic Jew—and I’m here to say, your time is up.”
...
The shameful reticence of Women’s March is easier to dispose. When it comes to racism, the modern left purports to be consequentialist. That is, they are less concerned with antiracist ideals, such as equality of opportunity and colorblindness, than with antiracist results. As the dogma goes, “racism equals prejudice plus power.” So the idea that black people, who are systemically oppressed, might be racist toward the whites who oppress them is derided as illogical and ridiculous. What matters are consequences, not feelings.
Anti-Semitism reveals the problem with this approach. Unlike anti-black racism, which punches down at a constructed underclass, anti-Semitism in the main is a racist conspiracy theory. That means it punches up at a perceived oppressor—the Jews, whom it casts as a diabolical elite that enslaves and exploits humankind. Punching up is naturally appealing to any group that is, or feels like it is, being ill-used by history. As often as not, anti-Semites are socially weaker than the Jews they target. And antiracist campaigners today have absorbed the specious racialization by 1960s radicals of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In their mental shorthand, Jews are white and privileged.
