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Perhaps this is a case of context mattering, a whole lot, and 5000+ miles away blurring some important things. But for Jews who are participating in the American conversation about race right now, some things that need to be said, a probably-way-too-long thread: (1/n) https://twitter.com/Adderabbi/status/1281371839210692609
This is not about Khazar origin theories. It is not about denying Jews' indigeneity in the Middle East ( @adderabbi, you know what I think about that.) (2/n)
It is not about denying the reality of antisemitism, both historic and contemporary. It is not about denying that the charge of "whiteness" can be hurled against us, along with "European colonial settler state," to delegitimate our national claims. (3/n)
It is not about denying that my whiteness is conditional, and revocable, and to the replacement-theory antisemites, I'm the worst kind of not-white, passing as white and smuggling other not-whites in. (4/n)
But but but but BUT:
In the context of the conversation we are having in the United States right now, primarily about policing but about systemic racism in other areas of life, too,
when I see the lights in my rearview mirror and hear the sirens, I am white enough. (5/n)
In the context of the conversation we are having in the United States right now, primarily about policing but about systemic racism in other areas of life, too,
when I see the lights in my rearview mirror and hear the sirens, I am white enough. (5/n)
When the police have to decide how they will interact with my children, they are white enough.
When realtors have to decide where they will show me homes, and banks have to decide whether they will lend me money to buy homes, I am generally (not always) white enough. (6/n)
When realtors have to decide where they will show me homes, and banks have to decide whether they will lend me money to buy homes, I am generally (not always) white enough. (6/n)
When I go into a hospital seeking medical care, I am white enough.
When I work through the Department of Education in New York City to get my child special services, I am white enough. (7/n)
When I work through the Department of Education in New York City to get my child special services, I am white enough. (7/n)
It's true: I'm less likely to talk about "white Jews" than about "white-passing Jews" or "visibly-white Jews." But in a country so many of whose structures and systems embed anti-black racism, that matters, a whole lot. (8/n)
After Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, the Department of Justice went in to examine what racial disparities in policing in Ferguson looked like (back when DoJ still cared about things like that.)
Really, spend some time looking at it.
https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/04/ferguson_police_department_report.pdf (9/n)
Really, spend some time looking at it.
https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/04/ferguson_police_department_report.pdf (9/n)
A largely-white police force as an arm of a white municipal government extracted revenue from the black residents of Ferguson by pulling them over and ticketing them and imposing high fines and generally immiserating them and putting them under the surveillance of the law. (10/n)
The DoJ report on policing in Baltimore after the murder of Freddie Gray is much worse.
Again, read it.
https://www.justice.gov/crt/file/883296/download (11/n)
Again, read it.
https://www.justice.gov/crt/file/883296/download (11/n)
I'm guessing the frum community in Baltimore has generally good relations with the police (even as I am sure they interact with power-abusing bad apples.)
Meanwhile, the Gun Trace Task Force was a police gang, operating with impunity in the black community. (12/n)
Meanwhile, the Gun Trace Task Force was a police gang, operating with impunity in the black community. (12/n)
They committed violent crimes against the black citizens of Baltimore, and they framed those citizens for crimes.
I'm really not making this stuff up.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/former-baltimore-city-police-gun-trace-task-force-detective-sentenced-12-years-federal (13/n)
I'm really not making this stuff up.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/former-baltimore-city-police-gun-trace-task-force-detective-sentenced-12-years-federal (13/n)
It actually gets vastly worse. In Chicago (deep breath), the police ran a black site torture operation for decades.
Exactly literally, arrestees would be taken to this site to be tortured until they confessed, without lawyers or anyone else knowing where they were. (14/n)
Exactly literally, arrestees would be taken to this site to be tortured until they confessed, without lawyers or anyone else knowing where they were. (14/n)
Reading about torture is always horrific. (I can't do it--I always skip the descriptions.) But you know what? We Jews who pass as white need to read this, so we know what the conversation is about:
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2018/10/30/payback (15/n)
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2018/10/30/payback (15/n)
This went on for 20 years. Jon Burge, who ran the torture site, was rewarded for clearing so many cases--*because he got confessions extracted through torture.* Black men were imprisoned for decades, sent to death row.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Burge (16/n)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Burge (16/n)
How about Daryl Gates, notoriously racist LAPD chief, explaining in the 1980s that disproportionate numbers of black men died in police chokeholds because they didn't recover from being carotid compression as fast as "normal people." (his word, obviously, not mine.) (17/n)
A case about LAPD chokeholds made it to the Supreme Court. The Court ruled that the plaintiff (who had been held in a chokehold) didn't have standing to bring this case, *because he couldn't prove that he would be held in one again in the future.*
https://www.vox.com/2020/5/30/21274697/supreme-court-police-chokehold-george-floyd-derek-chauvin-lyons-los-angeles (19/n)
https://www.vox.com/2020/5/30/21274697/supreme-court-police-chokehold-george-floyd-derek-chauvin-lyons-los-angeles (19/n)
I am assuming you don't need me to go on. But if you would like many, many, many more receipts, @radleybalko has collected them here: (20/n) https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/opinions/systemic-racism-police-evidence-criminal-justice-system/
To the extent that white people have not known this, that's white privilege. You didn't have to know about *20 years of a black site torture facility in Chicago*, because it was never going to be used against you, or yours. (21/n)
And in this context, because white-passing, white-appearing Jews are not-black when we are stopped by police, we don't know what black people know, and now would be a good time to listen. A really, really good time to listen. (22/n)
This is not about campus leftists, not about intersectionality, not about SJP, not about who's indigenous to Israel, not about whether antisemitism is real and rising, not about replacement theories that we're taking George Soros' money to undermine the US from the inside. (23/n)
It is, fundamentally, not about us (when "us" is Jews who look white enough to be white when the lights show up in the rearview mirror and the sirens sound.)
And when Jews (and non-Jews) who are black tell us what we haven't known, now would be a great time to listen. (24/n)
And when Jews (and non-Jews) who are black tell us what we haven't known, now would be a great time to listen. (24/n)
I'm not a big fan of the whole activism discourse around racism right now--I don't think we should study antiracism and white fragility, I think we should learn American history, because it will make our hair stand on end. (Can you read about Burge without being ill?)(25/n)
But there's one term from the activism discourse I find useful right now. In this moment, we white-passing Jews should stop centering ourselves. Right now, this is not about how we feel about Ma Nishtana or BLM or whatever. It's about what we don't know, and need to learn. (26/n)
Nothing in this thread is ancient history. It's all stuff that happened between the 1980s and right now. If we didn't know it, why not?
Because when the sirens sound and the lights flash, we white-passing Jews are white enough. So we didn't have to know. (27/n)
Because when the sirens sound and the lights flash, we white-passing Jews are white enough. So we didn't have to know. (27/n)
(If you'd like more reading suggestions, I'm happy to share them. Also a lot about housing and real estate, which isn't topic of this thread, but is really important, because it's about how our families created wealth, and black families were kept from doing so.) (28/28, fin.)
