This post has been making the rounds on jumblr and I've had a few different reactions so I just wanna weigh into some things here.
Jews I love you and I'm so glad that this little thoughtramble I wrote a month ago resonated with so many of you. I hope it helps with educating some people on just how widespread and insidious antisemitism is.
Secondly: I'm a gentile so I'm by no means an authority on these things. But a couple fellow gentiles in the notes are saying stuff along the lines of, "but can't we criticise billionnaires?"
To which I say, watch where you step, cus you're on thin ice. I've learned a litte the past few years and here's my conclusions:
- Of course a lot of stuff a lot of billionnaires do is reprehensible. On the left we should absolutely be criticising them! The best way to do this while avoiding antisemitism is to be specific about who you're criticising, and what for.
- E.g. "The people running Exxon, Shell and BP have been sweeping climate change under the rug for decades while actively contributing it, they think their profits are more important than sustaining life on earth and that's abhorrent. We need better laws and processes to stop them from poisoning the planet."
- E.g. "Elon Musk is a ridiculous manchild who's ruining Twitter and endangering people with his self driving cars and stupid ideas. He's an entitled dickhead and his wealth is mostly derived from colonial exploitation that his parents did. He does not pay enough taxes on what he earns. We need better inheritance laws and to close tax loopholes that allow him and people like him to hoard wealth."
- E.g. "Jeff Bezos exploits his workers and has an unfair monopoly over online shopping and other convenience services. He needs to pay his taxes and pay his workers more and we need better monopoly laws to stop businesses from being able to control the market like this."
Also, please consider your motives:
- Are you trying to make a positive difference for, e.g. Amazon workers? Go ahead, raise awareness of their plight and push for unionisation.
- Are you just trying to find a group that is acceptable to hate? Stop right there and reconsider. No matter how privileged or powerful that supposed group, you're wayyyyyy too close to bigoted talking points.
- Are you just making sweeping statements in order to rile up emotions and get people on your side? That's fascist tactics. Please don't.
- If you find yourself wanting to say, "I'm not antisemitic, but--" Please just don't say whatever you were going to say. If you have to make that qualification, there is an extremely high probability that what you're about to say is, in fact, very antisemitic. Compare to "I'm not racist but-" or "I'm not transphobic but-" followed by the most vile bigotry you've ever heard. Don't be that person.
Lastly I want to highlight these as well:
Absolutely correct. The amount of times I've come across online bigots who are like "George Soros is funding BLM!" or "LGBTs are elites trying to plunge this country into immorality!" This is all antisemitism. In general just be wary of anyone wanting to blame "elites" or "rich people" (yeah even that one cus historically Jews are stereotyped to have money!!! and also not all rich ppl are inherently evil!!!!) or "shadow government" or "globalists" or "lizard people" or really, literally anything that seems to imply that a small, select group of people is secretly running the world: That's antisemitism baby. It's all antisemitism. It's disgustingly common.
By all means, criticise billionnaires. But be specific. It's one of the best ways to make sure it's not veering into antisemitism. We know who these billionnaires are, for the most part; we know their names and we know their crimes. Talk about them specifically.
It doesn't help if you just swap out "elites" with "billionnaires" or "the 1%" if the rest of your rhetoric remains the same. It sounds exactly the same to antisemites, and they will feel empowered. In truth, it is much more complicated than "billionnaires are running the world and fucking us all over"; some billionnaires are using their fortune for good, and they don't directly cause our problems - they may exploit a system that was set up long before they were born, sure, but your problems are also caused by Sue from accounting and your neighbour ratting you out to the authorities and that kid across the road yelling slurs at you. Your problems exist because society lets them exist, and that includes everyone. The system makes it hard to fight this, and sure, most billionnaires don't help the issue. But again if you're just looking for someone to hate on, it's very likely you're actually reinforcing oppression rather than "punching up".
Sweeping statements are dangerous and a lot of your talking points have been used to justify genocide in the past. Just cus the world's been a lil less overt about its antisemitism post-Holocaust, does not mean antisemitism has disappeared, far from it. And it's being revived at an alarming rate just now so please, Gentiles, pay attention to what the dogwhistles look like and don't reinforce harmful stereotypes.
There's also lots of Jewish ppl in the notes of this post, I'm sure a lot of them have lovely blogs to follow.
There's some reading recs in the notes as well:
- Jews Don't Count by David Baddiel,
- People Love Dead Jews by Dara Horn,
- The Holocaust: A New History by Laurence Rees
I haven't read these books myself, I've read a preview of Jews Don't Count and it's on my list of books to order when I have more money, but basically, go look at what actual Jewish folks have written on the subject, I'm just a random Gentile who doesn't like bigotry so don't take it just from me.
