Anti-semitism thread: onwards from 2023

that steve mcguire person seems very unstable

fwiw I don't expect university administrators to do anything else, but I also think that calling universities to account is a noble and worthwhile goal for both students and faculty. just because people shouldn't expect any better doesn't mean people shouldn't demand better.

also tho, not sure this is the correct location for this discussion. maybe best for Israel/Palestine post 10/7 - follow-on events/thoughts as relate to other countries

i don't understand why anyone with a brain expects elite universities to do anything but suppress and crack down on student organizing and mass protest of any kind

― budo jeru, Sunday, April 21, 2024 9:27 AM (one hour ago)

as someone "with a brain" who went to an "elite university" ... the university administration definitely chooses their battles. It is so not "crack down on student organizing and mass protest of any kind" ... I can only speak to my own alma mater and UC Berkeley (where I have friends that work there and get the "memos"), both of which pride themselves on their histories of student activism and protesting. Do they always choose correctly? Fuck no.

but recently, chatting about the "Spring Weekend Poster" incident with a former college housemate ... she used the phrase "Rally On the Green U" to refer to our alma mater ... because when we were students, there were always groups protesting various things, and the administration was pretty laissez faire about it.

i was at cal throughout the 90's and I remember them being relatively tolerant of student demonstrations (which in those days were usually around prop 187/ending afirmative action, plus grad student strikes and tuition hike protests).

FWIW, during the 1980s there were student protests at all University of California campuses to induce the UC Regents to divest from South Afrtica - which they did do in 1986

i wasn't trying to call anybody itt stupid, i was just reacting to some reporting elsewhere. my point was just that these institutions' function is to reproduce the ruling class, and it's good to keep that in mind, rather than taking them at their word that they strive to "examine" or "dismantle" abc or whatever it is that they would say. i rarely have time to formulate my posts with the care that a lot of the threads on ILE like this one demand, so i apologize. and sorry for further derailing

Yes we have a thorough grounding in Marxism 101. Thanks though!

ok

Student Leader of Columbia Protests: ‘Zionists Don’t Deserve to Live’

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/26/nyregion/columbia-student-protest-zionism.html

The student, Khymani James, said in the January video that “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.”

lol oops

Truly depressing L for the Columbia protestors to have let this dumbass be identified as a leader

yall are really listening to a genocide-enabling birdcage liner trying to disempower the largest student protest movement in the past 25 years? ridiculous how ready you are to fall in line

“this one student leader said something bad! this means the whole movement is suspect and should be shut down” get the fuck out of here with that bullshit

Nah, I'm going to draw the line at incitement to murder. Not going to get the fuck out of here.

A quick scan of lLX political threads would provide plentiful examples of death-dealing rhetoric similar in tone to “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.” Wishing death on large swathes of people who disagree with you is fully normalized in political discourse these days. Candidates for public office issue ads where opponents are put in the cross hairs of a rifle scope. It is so ingrained now that urging any moderation of this rhetoric is dismissed as the crime of "tone policing".

tabes my dude this dumb asshole fucked up and he fucked up a lot of people when he fucked up

“this one student leader said something bad! this means the whole movement is suspect and should be shut down” get the fuck out of here with that bullshit

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table)

Fwiw nobody here said the second sentence you said here

some Boston Latin grad who wants to go to congress can't be facecamming his violently-tinged vent session onto the gram and then letting himself be held out as a leader of a protest movement three months later, whatever happens next is his fault not the New York Timeses

as a Jew actively in a leadership position of an (admittedly small) Jewish community that is working to oppose the state of Israel's genocidal actions, I can assure you that this rhetoric and brand of "leadership" is counterproductive and not helpful. Also sort of murder-y and antisemitic (how does this enlightened student distinguish between, say, a Jewish Voice for Peace member, and a Zionist? is there some sort of badge I should wear?)

hi Shakey

Hey there Shakey!

need a mansplaining-equivalent word for when non-Jews lecture Jews about Judaism, anti-semitism, Zionism, the history of Israel, the Holocaust, etc. Goysplaining?

Well, I don't think that Jews necessarily own the history of Israel or Zionism, but I still know what you are talking about and I see it a lot.

yall are really listening to a genocide-enabling birdcage liner trying to disempower the largest student protest movement in the past 25 years? ridiculous how ready you are to fall in line

the guy said it himself, posted himself saying it on his own instagram, and has now had to apologize for it, so I'm not sure what parts of that should be ignored because you don't like this newspaper

like the appropriate response to this is "this guy should go fuck himself" not "but the NYT is bad boo hoo". If that's your response, I am deeply suspect of your beliefs.

I haven't read the NYT since all the Judith Miller shit

You missed a lot of news.

they have wordle now

honestly I'm suspicious of anyone who doesn't support the destruction of the NYT

but David Brooks

ok sorry maybe if a 20 year old on tik tok had posted this story everyone would be less resistant

Acknowledging that he’s a dumbass is fine, the problem is (as ever) the media’s decision to focus on one dumbass “leader” (who holds no real power or sway) rather than what the protests are about.

Focusing your attention on him is just letting yourself be tricked.

I'm ideally not going to pay attention to this man after today tho maybe he'll make it to congress eventually

Cops are cracking skulls in support of actual genocide, one college kid’s bad opinion does not matter.

if a kid has a bad opinion and is standing around with the megaphone are people gonna keep protesting or are they gonna go home

doofus apologized is he gonna take one for the team and disappear or is he high on status

Acknowledging that he’s a dumbass is fine, the problem is (as ever) the media’s decision to focus on one dumbass “leader” (who holds no real power or sway) rather than what the protests are about.

this is the anti-semitism thread. Your track record with identifying anti-semitism is, how shall we say, not great, so maybe fuck off

I remember thinking I was a Weatherman-type radical during Iraq antiwar protests in the 90's, but I just went home and went to bed, no actual street-fighting

this kid has a big mouth and that's about it

Whether I've personally heard of someone is a pretty bad measure of whether I should care if he calls for murder. Whether he has a platform is a better one.

I remember thinking I was a Weatherman-type radical during Iraq antiwar protests in the 90's

in '90-'91?

Aw, Shakey thought you’d empathize more with someone caught out for saying stupid and abhorrent things online.

yeah, thereabouts

Aw, Shakey thought you’d empathize more with someone caught out for saying stupid and abhorrent things online.

put up or shut up you fucking clown

If you search for his name up until two days ago, he has a ton of mentions in major news outlets. He held press conferences on behalf of the protestors, he isn't just some guy. xp

(i.e. pre-current-controversy mentions)

ay i've got a jewish kid who is about to have a bar mitzvah and idk that i believe anyone who says they want to murder zionists truly differentiates between who are zionists and who are non-zionist jews. my wife has said she is sometimes glad our kid has my extremely non-jewish last name bc she has descendant ptsd from her survivor dad, and it's been triggered of late. she's not into israel btw but two things can be true: israel can be run by some awful, genocide-committing right wing scumfucks, and some protestors can be using this moment in time to find a safe space to spew their previously held vile beliefs. my kid was wondering why the hotel where his mitzvah is going to be will have a security guard outside the gate, i told him they do that for all events, bc what am i supposed to tell him?

i mean it seems reasonable to *not* tell those who have felt the sting of antisemitism they should shut up about it bc those who who co-opted a righteous movement to spew those views are doing it from inside that righteous movement.

keep in mind i'm someone who just responded yesterday to a text from a friend who was asking about how my kid was doing with the israel stuff by getting into how i thought what israel was doing was fucked, which he disagreed with fairly vehemently, and i was reminded via a note to self it's never good to text about politics.

Mr. James was raised in Boston, and graduated from Boston Latin Academy, according to a 2021 interview with The Bay State Banner.

He told The Banner that at Columbia, he planned to study economics and political science. “The ultimate destination is Congress,” he said.