Justice Antonin Scalia Dies at 79

Justice Antonin Scalia, the senior-most Associate Justice on the Supreme Court, has died. He was 79. Scalia served on the Court for 30 years, following stints on the D.C. Circuit and time as a professor at the University of Chicago Law School.

Obviously, this comes with significant political and legal ramifications. Not only was Justice Scalia considered the intellectual powerhouse of the Court's right wing, his departure converts a 5-4 conservative majority into an equally divided Court. Even if the Senate refuses to confirm any Obama nominee, this matters -- in the event of an evenly divided vote, lower-court decisions stand 

Still, there will be time enough to delve into the gritty, necessary task of judicial politics later. For now, it's worth reflecting on the mark Justice Scalia has left on the legal landscape. It is considerable. I think there are very few law students who, exhausted from slogging through some of the more stultifying prose that often graces the United States Reports, did not find Justice Scalia's writing to be a breath of fresh air. He was witty, often cuttingly so, and his dissent in PGA Tour v. Martin may be the funniest Supreme Court opinion ever written. Writing aside, Scalia had a flair for taking bold stands that demanded a response if not agreement, and which often set the tone for what would become the consensus conservative position in the years to come.

My friend Kim Smith put it best: "Antonin Scalia was often brilliant and occasionally right." There are worse epitaphs for a Supreme Court justice to have. Rest in peace, and condolences to his friends and family.

The First Post of the Rest of My Life

I just turned 30 (on Thursday). Happy birthday to me!

Arguably, that's part of why the blog has been quiet these past couple days -- a mix of celebration and mourning. But in reality, I just haven't really found anything that grabs my eye. In any event, I didn't want folks to get the wrong impression -- that now that I've officially entered my old age this blog would be shutting down. I have no plans of that. Just a normal lull, as is prone to happen. I'm not as quick as I used to be, after all.

Why I'm (Lean) Clinton

I have stressed before, and I will again, that Democrats are extraordinarily fortunate to have two excellent candidates competing for our nomination. I will happily vote for either, not just because "God help us if a Republican wins", but because I think both are decent, smart, progressive individuals who will make fine Presidents. There are good reasons to vote for either Clinton or Sanders in the primary; I begrudge nobody of their choice (so long as it isn't followed up with the incredibly stupid choice of refusing to vote for the Democratic nominee if the other one wins).

All that said, I have considered myself "lean Clinton" for the duration of this race, and perhaps it's time to explain why. I do think my reasoning is a bit idiosyncratic.

Let's start with what I like about Sanders. First, he's an unabashed progressive, and I am too. So right off the top, that's nice. Likewise, I will happily admit that it is meaningful to me to have a high-profile Jewish candidate in the race (and one with a classic Brooklyn Jewish accent, no less). And I actually think there is a solid case to be made that he's the more electable candidate vis-a-vis Clinton: He's the only candidate -- Republican or Democrat -- with positive favorables (48/37; Clinton is 42/53; Marco Rubio has the best spread among Republicans at 37/41).

Moreover, whether or not Sanders ends up winning the nomination, I definitely think it's an unadulterated good that he's in the race. Senator Sanders has been a godsend in giving voice to perspectives that have for too long been marginalized in American politics. Much of political discourse is afflicted by what Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann called "spirals of silence": given perspectives are not aired, and because they're not aired people assume they're marginal, and because they're viewed as marginal even people who might privately be amenable to the perspective still do not air it. When a high profile member of society does give voice to this outlook, suddenly it sends a signal that actually it is "in bounds" and can cause other people to poke their heads out as well. In this respect, Senator Sanders is sort of the light-side version of Donald Trump. Just as Trump has made clear that there is a non-negligible portion of the American electorate that is openly attracted to racist appeals, Sanders has shown there is a real constituency for genuine economic liberalism in America that has punch to it.

What about Clinton? Well, It is true that she has far more executive and foreign policy experience than does Sanders, and that matters. But what matters more to me is that I respect the hell out of her. I think Hillary Clinton is smart as a whip and a tireless worker. I also trust her ability to win a knife fight with Republicans -- important given that the GOP shows no signs of shrugging off its apocalyptic streak in the near future. Her performance during the Benghazi hearing was a thing of beauty and showed the difference between a genuine political professional and a clown-car of amateurs racing to see who can be the biggest embarrassment.

I never liked Hillary Clinton more than in that moment.

But by far the biggest thing about Clinton is that I believe in her ability to get shit done. Perhaps this is the D.C. native talking, but the most important thing about controlling the executive branch is not the soaring speech or the sweeping policy initiative. It's deep in the trenches of the federal bureaucracy: the obscure EPA rule being actually implemented, the right people running the NLRB, the OSHA rules being vigorously enforced for once, the District Court vacancies being filled with solid judges who respect the American constitutional tradition. I think Hillary Clinton gets that. Her pragmatism appeals not because I like compromise for compromise's sake, but because I think she understands all the little ways to move the ball forward, and I think she'll be excellent at doing that. I was never disappointed that Barack Obama didn't transform American politics or end money in elections or obliterate public racism -- I never expected him to do any of those things. But I was disappointed that he seemed slow to grasp the importance of nominations and appointments (in the executive branch and the judiciary). I can't imagine Clinton making that mistake.

So how do these factors shake out? Many of the things I like about Sanders manifest whether he gets elected or not. He's already put pressure on Clinton to move to the left, and he's already demonstrated that progressives are a political constituency that any Democratic presidency must be attentive to (just as Republican elected officials have learned to court to the Tea Party). On electability, I'm not sure if Sanders' current advantages will hold through the general election once a billion dollars of "He's a Socialist!" ads come pouring in. This is particularly worrisome to me because I think the media -- always looking to balance the Scales of Broder -- will jump all over the narrative of "both Democrats and Republicans have nominated extremists!"

On policy, I really don't expect a ton of difference in the broad proposals that a President Clinton and a President Sanders would offer. Maybe I'll like the exact words Sanders puts in his speech a little more. But I do think there will be a big difference between their ability to actualize them into concrete outcomes. I think Clinton knows how to play and win the Washington game, and that on that metric Sanders is at best unproven.

And that's what holding office is about. I don't vote for the President as an expression of "solidarity" or feeling good about myself or "being part of something bigger." I want a President who makes things better. It doesn't matter if it's low profile or obscure or is a victory of a hundred thousand inches instead of a mile long leap. You vote for a President who will get shit done. And that's the arena where I believe, in my bones, that Clinton is the better choice.

Interviewing My Friends: Sunny Yang

While I have known her since high school (we went to an enrichment camp together), today Sunny Yang is an Assistant Professor of English at Louisiana State University. She received her B.A. from Swarthmore College and her Ph.D from the University of Pennsylvania. Sunny’s research and teaching interests include ethnic and African American literatures, critical race theory, law and literature, and U.S. empire. Her current book project, “Fictions of Territoriality,” examines the competing narratives of race, rights, and governance that arose from U.S. imperial and territorial expansion in the long nineteenth century.

Sunny Yang: What happens if I'm incredibly boring and there is nothing to post? Then we'll just have a nice catchup?

David Schraub: Well I'll throw in a few swear words and see if I can get you fired. I hear that's a thing now at LSU.

Sunny Yang: I had two people send me that article! Right before I went to LSU, I mean. I'm pretty sure I'm allowed to swear outside of the classroom. Malign Mike the Tiger or the football team though and then I could have some problems…

David Schraub: Okay, first thing's first -- let's get the quick biographical sketch. Where were you born and raised?

Sunny Yang: I was born in Guangzhou, China, moved to the U.S. (specifically Memphis, TN) when I was two years old, then moved to Carmel, Indiana in sixth grade. So I don't know which counts as the place I was "raised": the South or the Midwest. Both gave me politeness and passive/aggressiveness though.

David Schraub: I considered myself pretty nice for the DC area, but once I moved to the Midwest I realized people were playing on a whole different level.

Sunny Yang: Like the way of saying "I'll let you go now" when I'm on the phone. When really I mean: PLEASE STOP TALKING NOW. The Midwest and South are definitely next level -- and next level for throwing shade

David Schraub: Well, you think that, but you have to realize nobody on the outside is picking it up. It was several years into my relationship before I could reliably tell when Jill was angry or annoyed with me.

Sunny Yang: My partner is British so I'm running into the same issues; only it's also trying to convince him that every time I slightly raise my voice, I am not in fact having a rage meltdown.

David Schraub: One thing I've discovered about having a partner with a cute accent is that, unfortunately they often sound more adorable when they're upset.

Sunny Yang: You strike me as someone who would try to exploit that.

David Schraub: "Exploit" is such a harsh word. I just take joy where I find it.

Sunny Yang: Does she have the stereotypical Minnesota accent?

David Schraub: Not usually. It comes out more if she's talking to her family; especially her grandmother.

Periodically those "o" sounds do stretch a bit.

Sunny Yang: I love that too! Malleable accents (I mean, less lovable obviously when it's a class thing and a shaming code-switch-y thing).

David Schraub: For sure. Though I do not apologize for teaching her the proper way to pronounce "bagel" (first syllable is like "bay", not like the sound a sheep makes).

Sunny Yang: BAH-GUHL? But think about how much joy you would have had every time you rolled up to a coffeeshop. The funny thing I've discovered with an English accent: urinal is pronounced yur-eye-nuhl

David Schraub: I hadn't heard that one I knew about "al-loo-MINium" of course.

Sunny Yang: It's totally unacceptable and hilarious. Speaking of weird accent quirks

During my faculty orientation day they had a powerpoint slide of "common Louisiana names and how to pronounce them." They had your typical french last names, things with "eaux" at the end (as everything here does), and then, in the middle, "Martinez." Which is pronounced "martin-ez" here. I was so horrified

David Schraub: Is that because there is a clan of "Martin-ez"s who have lived in Louisiana for a long time and the pronunciation has just changed? Or is it simply that people here really don't know how to pronounce "Martinez"?

Sunny Yang: My guess is it's a local deviation (though I still assume that choosing not to pronounce it a particular way is at the root of that shift). I'm still learning about the different ethnic groups of Louisiana. It's a super rich history

David Schraub: It seems like it. It has a really unique history both with regard to America generally and the American South specifically. I do want to get the chance to turn to some of your work though before we pivot back to the bayou.

Sunny Yang: Ok, sure.

David Schraub: You went to Swarthmore for undergrad, which is a decent enough liberal arts college for folks who don't attend Carleton (Sunny: HAH!), and then UPenn for graduate school in English. Why English? What grabbed you?

Sunny Yang: So my undergrad degree was actually in sociology/anthropology; and really, more focused on anthropology. After I decided I wasn't going to law school (in fact, I got tattoos to shame myself if I ever sold out), I realized I wasn't comfortable with navigating the power dynamics involved with field work. I realized that the kinds of issues of race and equality that I wanted to do with anthropology, I could do with English. Only these people had already written their narratives and shaped them how they wanted them

David Schraub: That makes a lot of sense. It's interesting you mention law school, though, since a lot of your research interests (Law & Literature, Critical Race Theory) are legal or come out of legal academia. Do you ever feel like formal legal training could be of use in those areas? I'll admit, as a lawyer, I get very nervous when I see non-lawyers do law-related work.

Sunny Yang: Oh absolutely! And I still wonder if that's something I ought to do I think part of the problem si that I did attempt to take a law class in grad school. It was an upper level seminar on property theory

And i absolutely hated it. I think it's in part because Penn's law school is...lets just say more practice-based? But I remember an entire semester of talking about property and even reading Locke

And no one wanted to talk about race besides me!

David Schraub: Well, also Property Law is horrifically boring.

Sunny Yang: To be fair to law schools, I do think that part of the disconnect is the kind of training Penn specifically aims to provide. I mean, I look at that UCLA Critical Race Theory program and drool. I think the problem is that Cheryl Harris' “Whiteness as Property” is one of those foundational texts for me, and for some reason I didn't realize that a property law course would not be discussing issues like that. But again, we were assigned Locke! And still no one wanted to talk about the fact that his whole model for property was the "New World". I mean, I get that the dispossession of Native Americans is kind of a downer, but come on!

David Schraub: You should have enrolled in my anti-discrimination seminar. "Whiteness as Property" was absolutely on my syllabus.Though I have to say, for whatever reason it did not resonate with my students at all. I was really surprised.

Sunny Yang: Why do you think your students didn't enjoy it? Did they think it was "old hat" or...?

David Schraub: I don't know. They were very interested in other CRT texts I assigned. That class just seemed to be a whiff. Have you read Patricia Williams' story on renting apartments and the importance of formal contracts?

Sunny Yang: No I haven't! Only The Alchemy of Race & Rights.

David Schraub: It's in her "Alchemical Notes" article (pp. 406-408) upon which that book was based,

but that passage was actually assigned in my first-year Contracts Class. (I very quickly discovered that nothing makes U.Chicago Law Professors happier than arguing that strict adherence to hard formal rules operates to the advantage of the marginalized).

In many ways, I still consider myself more of a "Chicago" guy than a "Berkeley" guy, even now; not because I necessarily adopt the a Chicago approach to solving problems, but because I deeply value the different vantage points Chicago gave me for considering them.

Sunny Yang: I totally respect that. I think going to Swarthmore (famously dubbed "Kremlin on the Crum"; a place that didn't have a young republicans club until my senior year--and it was run by libertarians) insulated me in a way that I think has still made it difficult for me to debate certain topics/ideas

David Schraub: Yeah. I worry about that tendency in academia generally, and I particularly worry about it in the humanities.

Sunny Yang: I think it's a valid concern because we should be prepared to have those conversations with our students

David Schraub: So you get your Ph.D. in English and then a tenure-track position at LSU--which, congratulations, since I kind of thought tenure-track English jobs didn't exist anymore.

Sunny Yang: They barely do, it's totally depressing. My first year on the market I was the only person in my cohort who got a tenure-track job. The model seems now to go through one or two postdocs, or adjunct for x number of years.

David Schraub: It's awful throughout academia, but English is sort of the poster child for where it has gotten really dire.

Sunny Yang: Yeah, I mean out of the eleven women who initially entered with my cohort, two of us have tenure-track jobs. The rest have either left academia, are adjuncting, or are on fellowships. And Penn has one of the best placement records in English.

David Schraub: Obviously you're incredibly smart and talented, but did you feel like there were any specific elements of the academic package you presented that helped you along?

Sunny Yang: Oh absolutely. First of all, I'm a 19th century Americanist, but I do "long 19th century" which meant that I could apply for both 19th and 20th century jobs. I also do multi-ethnic literature. I've taught Asian American literature and I could do a general ethnic American literature course. I have a certificate in Africana studies as well and can teach African American literature. So I think part of my ability to get a job definitely had to do with the fact that I can cover a huge range of courses.

David Schraub: That certainly is a perk! And what, in turn, attracted you to LSU? Other than the football, of course.

Sunny Yang: I think there are a couple of things. I mean, first I like the fact that it's a big flagship state university. I only have had experiences with small liberal arts colleges and Ivies, so it's nice to have a big and super diverse student body to engage with. This is going to sound ridiculously cheesy, but I also like the vibe of the department. There are some amazing scholars there, but it's a more relaxed place. It's not super cutthroat, there seems to be a genuine community.

David Schraub: I don't think that's cheesy at all. I think finding a good academic home is incredibly important

Sunny Yang: Plus, I mean let's be real: New Orleans being an hour and 20 mins away did not hurt. Mardi Gras season is actualy going down right now.

David Schraub: I'm sure Baton Rouge natives love hearing that refrain.

Sunny Yang: HAH! I mean Baton Rouge is a pretty nice place to end up. The weather is insane, I mean it's 70 degrees right now. And I was on fellowship in Boston last year [with the American Academy of Arts & Sciences] and it just wouldn't stop snowing (which is also the other thing I like about LSU. Since it's an R1 they are super supportive on the research front. I got the fellowship and the job at the same time and they let me go that first year before coming back to LSU to teach).

David Schraub: I noticed that -- that was really cool. So I have to ask this -- it's something I've been wondering for years and I finally have a live English prof in front of me to do it…

Sunny Yang: Uh oh...sinister drum roll.

David Schraub: The scholarship that comes out of English departments has a bit of reputation in terms of how it is written: really dense, obscure, jargon-laden -- what I would simply call terrible writing (irrespective of the merit of the underlying ideas). Why is that? And why in English departments, of all places, does awful writing seem to find a redoubt? (Or is this an unfair stereotype?)

Sunny Yang: I think this is a bit of an unfair stereotype now; I think there was definitely a moment when critical theory was all the rage and you had all this awful, dense writing. Obviously, this is program-specific; Penn tends to be very historicist and Marxist, so you have--I think!--way clearer writers. And in more recent years (perhaps with the tanking of the market?), you have more and more English PhDs trying to write for popular forums—Los Angeles Review of Books or Public Books.

David Schraub: I think that's a heartening development, and it's possible this stereotype is out of date.

Sunny Yang: Yeah, I think the newer generation is way more conscious about needing to write more clearly, especially since many of them end up writing for public venues.

David Schraub: I've dipped a toe into the freelancing life recently -- it's not bad. Definitely recommend.

Sunny Yang: How did you get started? I always wonder about this. Did you have connections?

David Schraub: Well, I've had the blog for over a decade now, so I've had a web presence that at least a few people knew about. One of the editors of Tablet Magazine (a Jewish periodical) took a shining to my work and has tossed me some gigs. Most of my popular writing is trying to situate anti-Semitism inside progressive understandings of oppression analysis. Which -- and given your research interests I'm very interested to hear your thoughts on this -- is I think a massively important and underserved area of discussion. There is, right now, an extraordinarily deep sense of alienation felt by large swaths of the Jewish community vis-a-vis this branch of academia, and it is just devastating.

Sunny Yang: I think that's definitely an interesting issue and I wonder how that alienation can be reconciled. Unfortunately this issue is just way out of my area of expertise, but obviously these issues won't be going away soon and there needs to be more conversation about it.

David Schraub: I think that's a fair response. But it isn't it in some ways reflective that one of your areas of expertise includes "ethnic literature" generally, and yet the way academic lines are drawn "Jewish" issues are seen as external rather than internal?

Sunny Yang: So this is actually a generational thing; and broadly speaking "Jewish literature" (along with early Irish and Italian American literature) is considered ethnic literature. But my intuition is also that funding structures shape how departments/programs are set up. So for example, Penn doesn't have an ethnic studies program or department (in fact you mostly only see those on the West Coast), but there is the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at Penn. In other words, I take your point about the general separation of Jewish literature and ethnic literature as it's commonly understood today. But I wonder if part of that comes from how universities and hiring lines have been set up.

David Schraub: It's possible, although I do have some familiarity with the genealogy of these departments emerging and I know that Judaic Studies has never really been viewed as part of the "ethnic studies" pantheon. Now, there is a more prosaic point to be said here, which is that people are allowed to be interested in what they're interested in, and I don't think that everyone (or everyone doing "ethnic studies" or "ethnic literature") has to be thinking about Jews all the itme or even a significant part of the time.

Sunny Yang: No; but I think you're right in pointing out the lack of theorization going on between these experiences.

David Schraub: I think the alienation is less from the absence and more the sense that it isn't even viewed as a regrettable absence; and sometimes is even viewed as a feature. We are better off if Jews aren't heard from. I read an account the other day about someone at an MLA session who tried to raise the issue of anti-Semitism on campuses and the audience broke out laughing at him. I mean, that's truly chilling.

Sunny Yang: I haven't heard about that instance so I don't know about the specific context, but obviously that is terrible. That said, it's also interesting that this supposedly happened given that so much of the MLA this year (or at least the organizing committee, which I'm not part of) was devoted to discussing the potential of supporting BDS.

But going back to your earlier point, I don't think it's true that there's the thought “we are better off if Jews aren't heard from.” But what it is, and what i think is also a problem, is that "oh, Jewish issues are separate" and there are specifically Jewish studies courses that explore those issues. But I think you're absolutely right that that's a problematic way of thinking about it (This is also the issue of not thinking about inter-ethnic or comparative ethnic studies).

On the east coast at least, the tendency tends to be oh, you do "ethnic studies" by having a class that does one month of Asian American issues and then one month of Chicano, then Native, etc., without theorizing them together or thinking about how these histories are interrelated (and it's not like African American literature ever gets brought up in all of that either).

David Schraub: Interesting! That's really surprising to me actually.

Sunny Yang: Yeah. It's why I actually organized an Afro-Asian American studies conference when I was at Penn. I mean, one of the academics I met through ACLS [American Council of Learned Societies]/Mellon is a woman working on Black and Jewish studies. And I remember her talking about how she got strange looks when she described her project. I think part of that is this rigid way of thinking about disciplines and specializations that you have.

David Schraub: That kills me because I hear that and I'm like "that's such an interesting project!"

Sunny Yang: RIGHT? And this work is slowly coming out. You have more and more Afro-Asian books

and Afro-Native books. I do think that in certain ways, the way the job market is structured makes it more difficult to pursue these kinds of comparative projects. You can see how ads are framed -- they are horrifically specific. (And, for example, oftentimes the "Ethnic American" jobs will ask specifically for specializations in Chicano/Native but not really Asian American. So if you're an Asian Americanist you generally can't apply for many of the "Ethnic" positions).

Once you’re hired I think you can publish whatever but you have to be legible enough to be hired in the first place. Like if I suddenly decided to publish on American modernism or whatever, I don't think LSU would care as long as I still taught ethnic American literature courses occasionally. But the initial job ad was specifically for that.

I think it does lead to the problems we were discussing of not branching much beyond your field. Though I think there are attempts in the last couple of years to change this like the category of "global anglophone" or hirings that don't specify a period (like Penn this year is doing an open-field and time period "literature and science" hire).

David Schraub: Hyper-specialization is definitely a problem and I'm not really sure how to resolve it other than to be clearer that wide research interests are okay. Incidentally, I also thinks this relates to the "bad writing" problem -- if one is only writing for the 12 or so people who do exactly what you do, it is perfectly okay to write in a manner only intelligible to that dozen.

Sunny Yang: Oh absolutely! I think in certain ways that's also why I identify myself as someone who does American Studies Which is an interdisciplinary field. And, you know, the articles in American Quarterly (the main journal) are usually very legibly written.

David Schraub: Before we conclude -- we still haven't talked at all about your projects! Give us the rundown of what you're working on nowadays

Sunny Yang: So right now I'm in the midst of revising an article on the unexpected system of racial labor management in the Panama Canal Zone during canal construction; I've got another article I'm working on (out of my time period!) on the cross-racial solidarities imagined in Yusef Komunyakaa's collection of poems, Dien Cai Dau. And, as always, still working on revising my book manuscript.

The book project is currently titled "Fictions of Territoriality," and I'm looking at the legal and popular debates that emerged over race and citizenship as a result of U.S. expansion in the long 19th century. I examine four locations: extraterritorial zones in China, the Mexican Cession, Indian Territory, and the Panama Canal Zone. In each space, I analyze how legal and literary texts deployed certain narratives to rationalize the refusal to extend rights to non-white subjects. At the same time, I'm interested in seeing how these marginalized people drew on alternate legal, cultural, and sometimes imperial systems in order to propose alternate ways of thinking about race, rights, and governance.

David Schraub: That sounds like a really interesting project.

Sunny Yang: Each chapter is interested in pursuing a slightly different issue (though the California and Indian Territory chapters are about different ways of thinking about sovereignty/governance)

David Schraub: That's really cool. I've all of the sudden found myself thinking a ton about "sovereignty" as a political idea. So as far as I'm concerned, you're on-trend.

Sunny Yang: I love it! Only at MLA I found myself going to all these early modern panels, because apparently sovereignty & empire are just too passe now for later periods!

David Schraub: I know you have to run, but look -- three hours of interesting material!

Sunny Yang: Are you sure? Who's going to want to read this? Literature professor swears: we're not all bad writers! The end.

This interview was conducted on gChat, and has been edited for length and clarity.

It's Terrible How Fugitives Have To Hide From the Law

CNN gives us another entry in my "the UN is worthless" file.

A UN rights working group has found that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been arbitrarily detained by being forced to hole up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid arrest. Assange, who is wanted in Sweden for alleged sex offenses, has been in the embassy for three and a half years.

Forgive me if I don't see either the "arbitrary" or the "detention." It's not arbitrary since the principle that the UK will respect extradition requests from Sweden is hardly some weird legal anomaly. And it's not detention since Assange can leave whenever he feels like being accountable to normal judicial processes just like everyone else. Admittedly, this does not account for the age old legal norm that accused rapists should be able to walk the earth freely while completely ignoring judicial summons. So it's fortunate we have a UN group to remind us that process is for peasants.

UPDATE: Good analysis from Carl Gardner. This is just a joke.

I Suggest a New Strategy: Let the Goyim Win

One of the most troublesome anti-Semitic stereotypes extant in the world today is what I have referred to as the myth of Jewish hyperpower -- that Jews are all controlling, world-dominating figures capable of bending even the most powerful state, civic, or global institutions to their will. Anti-Semitic hatred, as Phoebe Maltz Bovy so aptly pointed out, is not just about people who hate Jews, it also frequently is about people who consider themselves to be oppressed by Jews.

The reason it's troublesome isn't because of its direct effects -- though they are indeed significant -- but because it is so difficult to counteract. Successfully fighting the charge is to confirm it; the only way to disprove Jewish hyperpower is for Jews to lose. Which we often do. Nonetheless, the perception of overbearing Jews dominating conversations with their constant cries of anti-Semitism creates and maintains a reality of silenced Jews with genuine issues of anti-Semitism perpetuallly suppressed.

In Ha'aretz, Mordechai Levovitz has a truly abysmal column on the "Creating Change" fallout. The column's failures are all the more striking because it is exceptionally evident he's earnestly trying to write a good column that is attentive to the issues in play. I provide that caveat because bad arguments can be made without bad motives, and this is I think a shining example. So let me make myself clear from the get-go: this post is not being written because Levovitz elected "to publicly critique a united Jewish response defending Israel." It's being written because the substance of his critique is nothing short of a disaster.

Levovitz's thesis is straightforward: The Jewish community's response to the Creating Change fiasco -- first in protesting the cancellation of the A Wider Bridge/Jerusalem Open House event, then in objecting to the event speakers being driven off the conference stage -- "unintentionally promoted the much more nefarious anti-Semitic trope that Jews wield disproportionate power to get what we want."

Surely, this has to be the moment where that argument breaks past parody. Jews: So powerful, people have to physically drive them off rather than just having demands that they be forbidden from speaking in the first place accepted on face! So powerful that sometimes prominent LGBT voices will even condemn such heckler's vetoes after the fact!

It's not, to be clear, that Levovitz approves of the efforts to silence queer Jewish groups or chants of "From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free." He just offers no other responsive option to the Jewish community other than to capitulate to them. If the problem is that Jews are perceived as wielding "disproportionate power to get what we want", the solution is simply to never get what we want if non-Jews object. On the initial cancellation of the event, Levovitz writes:

While I disagreed with this decision, I came to terms with it by thinking about how hard it would be to throw an LGBTQ Jewish party in an Orthodox Jewish Conference. Maybe there was still work to be done before throwing a party. 

Pat Buchanan couldn't have written that better. Perhaps, instead, one can reasonably expect that a queer conference would not conflate simply being present and speaking one's voice with rubbing everyone's face in it.

It gets worse when he talks about objections to the "From the River to the Sea" chant:

Why complain about a chant unless you are realistically asking that it be banned?

Why indeed! What choices are there between approving of a chant and censoring it? Put aside Levovitz's basic misunderstanding of free speech jurisprudence ("Censoring this chant would likely result in a first amendment suit that is an assured loss" -- well, no, because Creating Change is not a public actor and thus is perfectly entitled to regulate speech in its private proceedings), have we really reached the point where it does not occur to anyone that one can object to speech content without trying to ban it? I have to think the answer is no; and that what's really going on here is that Jewish objections are inherently framed in the most coercive, authoritarian way possible. Levovitz is not alone here, and he's not alone among Jews either. Far from being feckless provocateurs slinging anti-Semitism charges left and right, the image of the hyperpowerful yet oversensitive Jew is a stereotype we've deeply internalized as a community, to our own peril.

It just goes on and on like this. On the immediate aftermath of the reinvitation of A Wider Bridge/Jerusalem Open House:

The abrupt policy reversal was cynically viewed by people at the conference as powerful Jews wielding their influence to get what they want. When I arrived at the Conference, this was the assumption of almost everyone I spoke with. It’s not surprising. For thousands of years, the trope that has been used to justify the murder of millions of Jews was not Israel, but the idea that we control the media, the banks, the government and the major institutions. So, yes, there was an ugly anti-Semitic feeling in the air, but no, it had less to do with Israel, the occupation, or “intersectionality”, and more to do with the feeling that external Jewish power was dictating conference policies. Ironically, if we were to be honest about collective responsibility, we should look inward and ask ourselves if our communal knee jerk alarmist reaction to a situation that most Jews did not fully understand, actually made the situation worse and put Jewish lives in danger.

Note how the initial decision to cancel -- at the behest of a variety of anti-Israel activists -- isn't mentioned, much less problematized at all. That flexing of "political musculature" is taken by both Levovitz and the conference attendees as natural and unremarkable. It's only when Jews start fighting back and -- worse yet -- dare to win the political game that people start snarling about outsiders and their pernicious influence. But it's the former that's emblematic of true power, because true power doesn't need to publicly whip entire communities into line to secure basic representation:

If one only has protections because one devotes every spare vote, dollar, resource and minute to secure them, one can hardly be said to be an equal. Equality comes when equality is normal — so normal, that you don’ t have to be perpetually on your guard to defend it. So normal that it wouldn’t occur to anyone to try and take it away.

What Levovitz is witnessing is not power. It is a response to weakness, albeit sometimes an effective response. The powerful do not need to constantly leverage their entire rolodex of political influence just to have their voices represented on stage. They get that as an entitlement. We don't. "Far from signaling our full inclusion in American society, the political power Jews have amassed is currently serving as brute hedge against the default norm of Jewish exclusion which continues to be expressed."

What's most disheartening about this column is that perhaps the only redeeming factor of the Creating Change fallout was watching other groups, Jewish and non-Jewish, publicly declaring their solidarity and standing with the Jewish organizations whose vulnerability had been acutely demonstrated (as I wrote in the above post, while this is not the same thing as being equal, having access to it is certainly far better than the alternative). Yet Levovitz constructs even these basic solidaristic impulses as Jewish power rearing its overbearing head:

We need to look into how we wield power inside our own community. Let’s be brutally honest. It’s hard for a queer Jewish professional to refuse an LGBTQ national hero and the rabbi of the largest LGBTQ synagogue when they ask you to sign on to a letter. We should only be put in that position in rare emergencies." The demands of solidarity are terrible indeed.  

It's bad enough to feel like nobody has our backs, now we're told that it's affirmatively bad if they do -- that it's a way of "wielding power" that itself victimizes those who so wrongfully feel compelled to stand with Jews who feel hurt, or scared, or marginal or vulnerable.

And so we get back to where we started, with the problem of perceived Jewish hyperpower and what can be done about it. And the answer, it seems, is nothing. Hold a Israeli-Jewish event? Who wouldn't see that as a flamboyant Zionist pool party?  Urge that a cancelled speech be reinstated? What outrageous Jewish interference with internal conference self-governance! Object to a slogan? Who would do such a thing but for censorious motives? Ask others to sign a letter on your behalf? We need to be careful about "how we wield power", for who can resist the unbridled political capital of LGBTQ Rabbis?

This is the way Jewish political, social, and civic participation ends: With the Jews themselves  recognizing the rightness of the rule non-Jews have long sought to impose. "Jews Lose."

Requiem for O'Malley

Former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley has dropped his campaign to become the Democratic presidential nominee.

I am the living embodiment of O'Malley's problem: I am a native Marylander, who thought he was a good Governor and before that a good mayor of Baltimore, and never once seriously considered voting for him. Nothing about my opinion has changed; his presidential campaign never grabbed me is all.

That being said, I don't think anybody in the Democratic electorate has come to harbor any bad feelings towards O'Malley. A lot might have thought "what's the point of O'Malley?", but no ill will. And so if he uses this campaign to become a higher-profile figure in Democratic politics -- maybe a cabinet position (he says he's not interested, but, well, they always say that) -- good for him. He's young. He's got time.

And We're Off!

Iowans are now caucusing! Just a friendly reminder to my fellow Democrats that are lucky to have two front-runners who would each make a excellent nominee and, I think, a strong President. There are perfectly good reasons to support one over the other. But there is no reason to threaten the apocalypse if your preferred candidate ends up losing.

As for the Republicans, well, your options range from "fine" to "catastrophic", and so far the latter seems to be running away with it. So, um, best of luck with that.

Special Favorite

In 1883, the United States Supreme Court held (in a cluster of cases known collectively as The Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883)) that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional. In doing so, Justice Bradley, writing for the majority, made the following observation regarding the current status of Blacks in America and the legal rights they could justly claim:

When a man has emerged from slavery, and by the aid of beneficent legislation has shaken off the inseparable concomitants of that state, there must be some stage in the progress of his elevation when he takes the rank of a mere citizen, and ceases to be the special favorite of the laws, and when his rights as a citizen, or a man, are to be protected in the ordinary modes by which other men's rights are protected. 

I love this passage, because it so neatly illustrates just how detached the "special rights" complaint is from actual extant conditions faced by minority groups. "Come on -- slavery was abolished, like twenty years ago already! It's time to stop being the law's special favorite and just be equal."

I thought of this upon stumbling across an old Garry Wills review of a book titled "The Popes Against the Jews," which (as the name suggests) documents a variety of Vatican pronouncements targeting the Jewish people.  It leads with the following quote, from a prominent Catholic journal known as an informal organ of the Vatican itself.

The Jews — eternal insolent children, obstinate, dirty, thieves, liars, ignoramuses, pests and the scourge of those near and far . . . managed to lay their hands on . . . all public wealth . . . and virtually alone they took control not only of all the money . . . but of the law itself in those countries where they have been allowed to hold public offices . . . [yet they complain] at the first shout by anyone who dares raise his voice against this barbarian invasion by an enemy race, hostile to Christianity and to society in general.

That quote came in 1880. Italy had only emancipated its Jews in 1861, and in Rome it was not fully actualized until 1870. Yet here we are, complaining about the powerful Jews, controlling all the laws and all the money, yet nonetheless having the temerity to complain "at the first shout by anyone who dares raise his voice" against their "barbarian invasion by an enemy race." Aren't Jews so ridiculously oversensitive?

One hears similar refrains about both Blacks and Jews today -- that they are the law's "special favorite", that the time has long since past where racism or anti-Semitism was a real thing worth complaining about, and indeed the real victims are those chafing under accusations of either prejudice. In doing so, they insist that they do take these forms of oppression seriously, they are just engaged in a sober analysis of the contemporary moment. And yet, isn't it funny how the same argument in the same language appears no matter the historical moment is?

Fancy that.

I Would Have Liked To Tell Her....

Scout Bratt, who was apparently among the protesters who shut down the "Creating Change" conference event hosted by A Wider Bridge and featuring Jerusalem Open House, defends the "disruption" in the Forward. As an argument, it isn't worth much. It does provide a good example of what I termed the "conspiratorial edge" in rhetoric about Pinkwashing. Bratt asserts that Israel has a "branding" campaign seeking to designate itself as LGBT friendly, which may well be true. But she does not provide any evidence that A Wider Bridge (much less Jerusalem Open House, which is not mentioned in her article at all) has any connection to that effort. Here's the extent of Bratt's case for linking the two up:

It’s because of this interconnected struggle that we can’t sit quietly and watch pinkwashing organizations like A Wider Bridge paper over Israel’s harmful policies toward Palestinians — policies that harm gay Palestinians in Haifa as well as in Ramallah. This pinkwashing is an integral part of Israel’s “Brand Israel” public relations strategy, which appeals to racist ideas of Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims as backward and intolerant in contrast to the supposedly enlightened Western liberalism of Israel.

Well those certainly are two sentences next to one another. How is A Wider Bridge part of the governmental "Brand Israel" strategy? Does the fact that Israel seeks to promote its LGBT policies necessarily make all queer Israelis mouthpieces for the government? What, exactly, does A Wider Bridge do that constructs Palestinians and Arabs as backwards? If A Wider Bridge seeks only to "paper over" Israeli governmental policies, why is it hosting avowedly left-wing organizations like Jerusalem Open House who regularly and openly criticize the Israeli government? Apropos my recent Tablet article, how does A Wider Bridge emphasize Israel's "Western liberal[]" character when it is among the few North American organizations to devote significant attention to Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewish narratives?

One searches in vain for answers which are not forthcoming. And they need not be forthcoming, because the meta-answer is that "whenever queer Israelis are present, they're in on the Zionist plot." What more needs to be said? Two Jews are an argument, three are a conspiracy.

It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that the heart of Bratt's column does not focus on seriously arguing for why the sort of exclusion she promotes is justified. The heart of it, rather, is an ode to how good it feels to be part of this protesting community. I'll quote her at length:

So often, calls for dialogue or critiques of protest rhetoric are invoked to mask the deep need for self-reflection and critique. Rather than listening to and grappling with the urgent cry for justice expressed at Creating Change, many commentators have reverted to the usual accusations. 

Yes, banning an organization from a conference or protesting the reception it hosted may have been disruptive. But why are we so afraid of disruption? 

At our alternative Shabbat service, hosted by Jewish Voice for Peace-Chicago and Coalition for a Just Peace in Israel-Palestine, I saw a community united by a shared sense of what it will take to bring about the world we want to see. Sometimes, that will include disruption. As we read from the weekly Torah portion about the splitting of the Red Sea, we asked one another, “What does it mean to divide and conquer? How can my true liberation be bound up in your drowning, your oppression, your suffering?” What we were welcoming that Shabbat was not rest, but action. Not comfort, but empowerment. The sea parting for all of us, or none. The world that is on its way, not the world as it is. 

As the space filled with yearning and energy, we drank up the feeling of being surrounded by those who shared our commitment to building community in the name of justice for all.

The ecstatic, almost messianic zeal one reads in these words is meant to be uplifting. It is actually terrifying. When I read this passage, I immediately turned to Milan Kundera's thoughts on the matter:

She would have liked to tell them that behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil and that the image of that evil was a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unison.

And so we get the earnest question about why anyone should be concerned about "banning an organization from a conference or protesting the reception it hosted." What could possibly go wrong, when it feels so right to be "surrounding by those who shared our commitments," and off they went with fists raised and march slogans (of "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free") chanted in unison?

Bratt concludes with what has to be a sick joke: lamenting the "increasingly personal attacks on activists [in Israel], legislating against human rights organizations, and escalating state and vigilante violence that goes unchecked." To write that even as her cohort precipitated just such an attack, even as it drove off such an Israeli human rights organization, even as it used its coercive power and implied threat of violence against progressive Israelis secure in the knowledge that they would go unpunished, is an outright mockery.

But it did crystallize one further thought in my mind. A few days earlier, Maya Haber put out a call urging progressive Jews to invest in liberal and progressive infrastructure in Israel. Through the 1990s, conservative Jews dedicated vast sums of money funding think tanks and NGOs and programming and institutes, which paid dividends in prompting the nation's right-wing drift post Oslo. The left should respond in kind; building its own civic society network to revive Israel's dormant progressive base. And I agree with her. whole-heartedly! That is one of the most important things that progressive Jews and non-Jews can do to help precipitate a just peace wherein both Jewish and Palestinian self-determination rights are actualized on equal terms.

But the problem Haber overlooked is that a considerable element of the left doesn't want to see a reinvgorated Israeli left. Certainly, they claim to be appalled by efforts to marginalize Israeli peace organizations; groups like Breaking the Silence or B'tselem. Yet it turns out that when such groups try to present their message to the world, they're targeted with the same exclusionary zeal as all other Israelis. Ami Ayalon is among the highest-ranking Israeli security officials to support "Breaking the Silence". But when he came to speak at Kings College London, it was at the invitation of the Israel Society, and it was anti-Israel protesters throwing chairs and smashing windows in a bid to drown him out. Likewise with Moshe Halbertal at Minnesota, preparing to explain why military forces (Israelis included) are obligated to put their own troops at risk in order to protect civilian populations.  And likewise with Jerusalem Open House. JOH has to be counted among the human rights organizations Bratt claims to care so much about. Yet when the chips were down, she was among those demanding they be silenced, and A Wider Bridge was the organization that had their backs.

The reason for this incongruity is that, once you're deep enough down the rabbit hole, the prospect of a "Zionist left" is more threatening to them than a Zionist right. The latter only confirms their prejudgments about what Zionism is and inevitably must be. The former, by contrast, challenges these preconceptions, it would force them to reckon with alternate possibilities and consider richer narratives. Jerusalem Open House, A Wider Bridge, Ami Ayalon -- they aren't protested because they're going to say something outrageous to progressive ears. They're protested because they'll say something that, if truly considered as part of an egalitarian commitment to deliberation, would probably have resonance.

It wouldn't, to be sure, be the sort of resonance that leads to raised fists and chanted slogans. It would not be the sort of feeling Bratt would want to "drink up". But it would provide the foundations for a genuine progressive step forward. And with regard to that ambition, Bratt is not an ally. She's a saboteur.

B.o.B.'s Pro-Flat Earth, Pro-Holocaust Denier Diss Track

So this happened. The rapper B.o.B. put out a diss track targeting Neil DeGrasse Tyson for the mortal sin of noting that the earth is, indeed, round. The track, titled "Flatline" (get it?), also contains quite a few other conspiracy theories, including a shoutout to Holocaust Denier David Irving and the lyric "Stalin was way worse than Hitler/That’s why the POTUS gotta wear a Kipper."

For the most part, I find this more amusing than anything, though I am worried that I may not be able to listen to my two different versions of "Haterz Everywhere" guilt-free anymore. I do want to briefly point out two things, though:

(1) It's amazing how conspiracy theories hang together, and how the Jews always get roped into them. Flat earthism is nuts in its own right, but there's no inherent reason to think its adherents should have any particular views on Jews. Yet of course it is entirely unsurprising to hear Jews pop up here.

(2) The Gawker post actually doesn't mention the Holocaust denier thing at all (they do allude to there being more conspiracy theories in the lyrics other beyond belief in a flat earth). To be sure, pointing that out might kill the buzz of "haha, B.o.B is so stupid and ridiculous, beefing with Neil DeGrasse Tyson." Flat earthism is just dumb, but it doesn't really hurt anyone; anti-Semitism is more of a killjoy. Still, it strikes me as unlikely that other overt forms of racism or intolerance would pass by similarly unremarked-upon. The distinction, I feel, is that pointing out anti-Semitism -- even in such clear terms -- is considered to be gauche. It isn't something that we should keep a critical eye on and interrogate when we see it, it is something that we're all too sensitive towards and should be more willing to let slide.

Now to be sure, I'm not particularly threatened by this musical track (frankly, associating Holocaust denial with "Earth is round" denial is doing me a favor). So in a functioning deliberative space regarding anti-Semitism, I wouldn't really mind simply laughing this incident off. Indeed, (as much as a performative contradiction as this is) I don't think there's much more to say about B.o.B.'s Holocaust denial other than to snicker at how idiotic he's being. But it still stands out to me that it wasn't mentioned at all, and I think that failure is reflective of something worth pondering about.

"An Intersectional Failure" To Include Mizrahim

Tablet Magazine has just published an article, "An Intersectional Failure: How Both Israel’s Backers and Critics Write Mizrahi Jews Out of the Story", that looks at recent discussions concerning intersectionality and how they might apply to the situation of Mizrahi and other non-Ashkenazi Jews. The article, coauthored by JIMENA's Analucia Lopezrevoredo and myself, notes that even as there has been a recent flurry of  writing on intersectionality as it pertains to the Jewish community, none of the writers (critics or defenders of the concept) have even mentioned Mizrahi or Sephardic Jews. This absence echoes a larger erasure of non-Ashkenazim from both Jewish and non-Jewish conceptions of the global Jewish community.

Title notwithstanding, this is not a problem restricted to the context of Israel. Certainly, discussions about Israel -- whether they seek to cast it as a "White" state by and for European colonists or downplay the very real discrimination and mistreatment non-Ashkenazi Jews continue to experience in Israel -- are one very important forum where this phenomenon can be identified. But there are more broad cultural implications as well, including disrupting the assumption in Western circles (Jewish and non-Jewish) that Ashkenazi culture is the default Jewish culture, emphasizing and celebrating the long history many Jews had in the Arab world and their important contributions to Arab and Middle Eastern culture, and incorporating the plight of Jews driven out of Arab countries into broader discussions of achieving a Mideast peace.

These issues, as one might expect, do not lend themselves uniformly to either conventional "left" or "right" narratives.  But too often, "non-Ashkenazi Jews are engaged with only as far as they support someone else’s narrative. Once they seek to speak in their own voice, their putative allies disappear." That needs to change.

Our concluding paragraph reads as follows:

Mizrahi, Sephardic, and other non-Ashkenazi Jews have stories and demands which pose a challenge to Jewish and non-Jewish groups of any political persuasion. But the obligation to be intersectional does not end when a marginalized group ceases to say what one wants to hear. Taking non-European Jews seriously means taking them seriously on their own terms. This basic principle of justice is one in which both the non-Jewish and Ashkenazi Jewish communities have often failed to uphold. They, and we, need to do better.

Speaking for myself, I hope that this column triggers a needed discussion both in and out of the Jewish community. Serious consideration of non-Ashkenazi Jewish perspectives is not an option for groups that want to talk about Jews, or Middle Easterners, in a just and egalitarian fashion.

Protesters Storm Jewish Event at LGBT Conference

A briefly canceled, then reinstated event featuring the Jewish LGBT group A Wider Bridge and the Israeli LGBT group Jerusalem Open House was shut down part way through as nearly two hundred protesters stormed the event and commandeered the stage. It represents an unfortunate end to an unfortunate saga, and another entry in the growing effort to exclude all but the most rabidly anti-Zionist Jewish voices from global deliberative discourse.

Part of the blame for the chaotic reception is due to fumbles by the host organization, the National LGBTQ Task Force, whose initial cancellation decision greatly elevated the controversy over the event and turned what might have been an isolated group of protesters into a full-blown calamity. But we ignore the toxic conditions that have allowed such illiberal tendencies to fester in progressive organizations. As I wrote in my last post:

To be most generous to the conference organizers, one suspects that they knew that various anti-Israel radicals would try to disrupt the event, knew that they would not be able to stop them, and knew that this occurrence would distract from the "community-building, social atmosphere" image the conference wanted to display. But let's be clear: that rationale is a tacit acknowledgement of just how deep that prejudice runs. It is a capitulation; an admission that they don't have the resources to tackle it and so certain LGBT persons are outside its protective purview.

And that's what we're seeing here. Even if there were some evidence that the Israeli government is actively seeking to leverage its relatively strong LGBT record to "cover" for the occupation (and I continue to think that's oversold), it's become abundantly clear that the "pinkwashing" label has taken a decidedly conspiratorial edge. Any LGBT organization in Israel, or any Jewish LGBT organization anywhere, that is not avowedly anti-Zionist (which is to say, any of substantial size) will simply be asserted to be part of a grand Zionist pinkwashing plot. At that stage, the "pinkwashing" charge has become anti-Semitic root to branch.

A Wider Bridge and Jerusalem Open House are not opposed because they are mouthpieces for the Israeli government. They're opposed because certain purportedly progressive groups want to have a conversation about Israel that does not include Israelis. For the most part, they want to have a conversation about Jews that does not include Jews save those token few who sign on to the exclusionary project. The spurious "pinkwashing" label is there to legitimize this campaign.

It seems that every couple of years Jews get reminded once again that -- when push comes to shove -- nobody (left, right, or center) has our backs. We can't count on LGBT groups to protect our LGBT members. We can't count on anti-racism groups to protect our non-White members. We can't depend on general civil rights groups to protect any of our members. Each time, the message is not "you're one of us" but rather "you're here at our sufferance." I'd love, just once, to be proven wrong on this. But it hasn't happened yet.

Two Links on the Mizrahi Moment

Two older links regarding Mizrahi Jews that I'm posting because (a) they're good articles and (b)  I want to ensure I have them saved for later.

The first, by Ophir Toubul, argues that Israel's White Ashkenazi Left Doesn't Own the Peace Process. I actually had already read this piece before and found it exceptionally insightful, and wanted to make sure I had it memorialized for future reference.  It presents the case for a "Mizrahification" of the peace process and Israel writ large that can genuinely and respectfully interrelate with the broader Middle Eastern community, without pretending that the Mizrahi community represents some post-Zionist fantasy of Jews alienated against Israel and ready to effectively jettison their Jewish communal affiliation and become a subordinate member of a pan-Arab identity.

The second, which I found while searching for the first, interviews American Mizrahi Jews to get their thoughts on a movement by American Arab groups to get "Middle Eastern" disaggregated from "White" on the Census. Their thoughts are fascinating, complex, and often deeply ambivalent. Most would identify as Middle Eastern if given the chance, and many articulated instances of discrimination based on their Middle Eastern appearance. But unlike their Muslim and Christian Arab brethren (organizing under the slogan "Check it right, you ain’t white!"), the Jews were often reluctant to self-identify as "people of color." Some suggested that for them anti-Semitism was a more serious day-to-day discriminatory threat than anti-Middle Eastern sentiment, and (implicitly) that "people of color" denotes a particular type of discrimination qualitatively different from that which they experienced. Others simply didn't seem to view identifying as "Middle Eastern" and identifying as "White" as competitive with one another.

Anyway, both articles are good reads, and so both are getting a plug and permanent enshrinement on my blog's archives. Congratulations.

Evicting Jewish Settlers and the Arab MK Who Cried Foul

Israel can be a weird place sometime, at least for persons who think it's straightforward one:

Israeli troops forcibly removed Jewish settlers from homes they said they had purchased from Palestinians in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron on Friday, prompting some right-wing Israeli lawmakers to threaten to withhold support for the government.

So far, not that weird. Maybe some folks would be surprised that this particular Israeli government would evict Jewish settlers in any case. But that's not the strange part. The strange part is who was among the objecting lawmaker:

Three right-wing lawmakers, two from Likud and another from the ultranationalist Jewish home party, said they would not attend parliamentary votes on Monday in protest at the move.

“It is forbidden to evict Jews from their homes and there will be consequences, we demand the prime minister’s involvement in the matter,” said Ayoub Kara, a Druze Arab Likud lawmaker.

 So ... that's not exactly the statement one expects to read from an Arab MK, even one on the Likud list (most Arab members of the Knesset are part of the Joint Arab List). But it just goes to show you that Israel is a much odder place than one gives it credit for.

(For my part, for what it's worth, good riddance to these Hebron settlers. But nobody asked me).

Trumping the Undercard

I got to say, this is pretty neat:

Boxing promoter Bob Arum plans to make a statement against Donald Trump with an all-Hispanic undercard on his next big pay-per-view show. 

Arum said Tuesday that he'll feature all Hispanic fighters on the undercard of Manny Pacquiao's third meeting with Timothy Bradley on April 9 in Las Vegas. Arum called it "the Donald Trump undercard." 

Arum is no fan of the Republican presidential contender's calls for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and the deportation of an estimated 11 million people living in the country illegally. 

"I want them to know there are a lot of people that have their back and are not going to allow them to be deported," Arum said. "And if Trump got elected, I would be in the streets with them protesting."

At one level, it's not too surprising that a boxing promoter would take this stance, given the importance of the Latino community as the main base of boxing fandom in the United States. But still, it's a bold step and one that, as a boxing fan, I'm proud to see.

This article also informed me that before his boxing promotion career Arum, now 84 years old, was an attorney with the Department of Justice in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. He's also a graduate of Harvard Law -- a distinction he shares with fellow boxing promoter Lou DiBella. Famed boxing adviser Al Haymon is also a Harvard alum. Turns out that there are a lot of really smart cookies in the boxing business!

The Zionist Space Conspiracy Continues, Part IV

Yair Rosenberg has the deets. Israel is voted into the UN space agency just as a new planet is discovered. Ali Abunimah is right to be concerned.

Prior entries in the series here, here, and here.

LGBT Conference: Hearing from LGBT Jews Would Be Too "Divisive", Not "Safe"

The National LGBTQ Task Force canceled an event from its "Creating Change" conference, apparently due to the host groups' ties to Israel. The event, which would have been on Friday, featured A Wider Bridge, a  group that seeks to present the stories of queer Israelis to the North American American LGBTQ community, and Jerusalem Open House, a prominent Israeli LGBT advocacy and activist organization. While initial reports cited "safety" concerns as the rationale, there were no reports of any incipient violence. A statement from National LGBTQ Task Force Executive Director Rea Carey confirmed that the cancellation was instead due to the "divisive" nature of hearing Jews and Israelis speak about their experiences:

“Last week, we decided to cancel a Friday night reception at the Creating Change Conference entitled ‘Beyond the Bridge.’ We cancelled the reception when it became clear to us it would be intensely divisive rather than the community-building, social atmosphere which is the norm for Friday night at the conference. While we welcome robust discourse and political action, given the complexity and deep passions on all sides, we concluded the event wouldn’t be productive or meet the stated goals of its organizers. We also have the overarching responsibility to ensure that Creating Change is a safe space for attendees. Since the cancellation, we have been accused of being many things including being anti-Jewish, or anti-Semitic — which are wrong and deeply painful to those of us in the National LGBTQ Task Force family. We believe in the self-determination of all people, no matter where they call home, the right of LGBTQ people to live in peace and safety, and in constructive dialogue that moves the work for social justice forward. We are an organization dedicated to LGBTQ freedom, justice and equality for all.”

The cancellation is particularly painful given Jerusalem Open House's efforts to recover from the horrific stabbing attack perpetuated by an ultra-Orthodox Jewish extremist at the Jerusalem gay pride parade. That attack deeply traumatized the gay rights community in Israel, and one of the goals of international conferences like these is to let vulnerable queer communities know that the rest of the world has their back. But, of course, Jews can never count on the rest of the world to have our backs, or fronts, or sides. It's a very "divisive" thing to do, after all.

To be most generous to the conference organizers, one suspects that they knew that various anti-Israel radicals would try to disrupt the event, knew that they would not be able to stop them, and knew that this occurrence would distract from the "community-building, social atmosphere" image the conference wanted to display. But let's be clear: that rationale is a tacit acknowledgement of just how deep that prejudice runs. It is a capitulation; an admission that they don't have the resources to tackle it and so certain LGBT persons are outside its protective purview.

I also have to note how, as is so frequently the case, the bald rejection of being labeled "anti-Semitic" is not coupled with any argument why (let alone any consideration of the possibility their interlocutors have a point). Indeed, while they transition straight into universal formulations of their organizational values, they can't spare a word to confirm that they apply to Jews specifically. Do Jews have the right to "self-determination" (do they count as a "people"? It's hardly a closed question). Do they think Jews have the right to organize social justice oriented dialogue on their own terms (evidently not). Perhaps they think it is self-evident that refusing to even listen to Jewish and Israeli LGBT voices describe their own experiences is not anti-Semitic. It doesn't seem self-evident to me, nor to the prominent voices in that community who have blasted the decision. But as is too frequently the case, the spectre of anti-Semitism doesn't prompt introspection, only defensive complaints of how "hurtful" it is.

Finally, the invocation of "safe space" here finely demonstrates my intuition that this concept is a check Jews are not entitled to cash. Here, "safety" is being deployed as a weapon; as a narrative tool to cast Jewish and Israeli groups as inherently putting the lives of others at risk. Jews are hardly the only minority group whose mere presence is taken by some to constitute a threat. When the National LGBTQ Task Force endorses that narrative, it is inscribing violence, not combating it.

The event will be hosted instead at a hotel across the street from the main conference venue. One hopes that the publicity, at least, will give them more attendees. But one also hopes that the remaining participants in the conference will take their owns steps to ensure that LGBT spaces are open to the voices of all.

UPDATE: The Task Force has reversed its decision and reinvited A Wider Bridge. Kudos.