Controversy swirls around first-term Representative Ilhan Omar, D-Minnesota: Back in 2012 she tweeted: “Israel has hypnotized the world. May Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.”
Last month, she wrote that U.S. support for Israel was “all about the Benjamins baby,” signifying Benjamin Franklin who appears on the $100-dollar bill.
A few weeks later, she told an audience in D.C. that
I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is O.K. to push for allegiance to a foreign country.
Confronted about this latter remark by her Democratic colleague, Nita Lowey, Omar replied:
I should not be expected to have allegiance/pledge support to a foreign country in order to serve my country in Congress or serve on committees.
Though we all the right to criticize any country including our own and Omar raises important and critical concerns related to campaign financing, Omar crosses a line into hate speech when she injects/infects age-old antisemitic stereotypes and tropes of Jews being ruled by money and wealth and they cannot hold full allegiance to their countries of residence.
This latter trope was lodged against John Fitzgerald Kennedy when he was campaigning for the presidency. Being raised Roman Catholic, he was accused by critics of holding dual allegiances: to the United States and to the Pope who will dictate policy.
Explaining the reasoning behind the expanded resolution and defending Omar, Speaker Nancy Pelosi told a crowd of reporters:
I feel confident that her words were not based on any anti-Semitic attitude,” asserted Pelosi, “but that she didn’t have a full appreciation of how they landed on other people where these words have a history and a cultural impact that might have been unknown to her.
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Pelosi quite possibly may be correct that Omar “didn’t have a full appreciation of how [her words] landed on other people.” Perhaps she did not know the stereotypes and tropes targeting Jews. Maybe Omar did not intend to offend. How can we truly know her motives?
Here, though, we must separate “intent” from “impact,” for while someone may claim good intentions, the impact of their actions on others may, in fact, be prejudicial, offensive, or oppressive, which the perpetrators must acknowledge and own.
Ignorance, however, cannot be used as a defense for oppressive language and behaviors. As members of all groups and identities, we must do our homework in better understanding the many forms of oppression and the stereotypes surrounding each.
As a white person, for example, it is my responsibility to comprehend historical and current factors that continue to marginalize “the other” with the stereotypes that pigeon-hole and categorize people of color. And as a white person, it is my responsibility to educate myself without expecting people of color to “teach” me.
I have studied the stereotypes and tropes used to maintain and perpetuate oppression. Regarding those employed again Jewish people, I have complied a partial list, which includes:
- Killers of God
- In Service of / Fathered by the Devil
- Host Desecrators
- Poisoners of Drinking Wells & Transmitters of Diseases
- Usurers
- Ritual Murderers & Abusers of Christian Children
- Forced Circumcisers of Non-Jews
- Immature / Inadequate Religious Consciousness
- Clannish
- Alien “Race”
- Wanderers / “Stateless”
- Holders of Dual / Multiple Loyalties
- Proselytizers to Judaism
- Freedom-Killing Communists
- Super Capitalists
- Sexually Perverse
- Oversexed or Sexually-Frigid Females
- Lecherous Males of Christian Women
- Feminized and Non-Athletic Males
- Controller of World Economic Systems
- Greedy for Wealth
- Financially Cheap and Cheaters
- Controllers of the Media
- Exaggerators of the Extent of Anti-Jewish Oppression
- Exploiters of the Oppressed
When anyone “uses” an already marginalized group to advance their own agendas or careers by tokenizing or feigning support, that itself is an act of oppression. Donald Trump used Jews by accusing the Democratic Party of being “anti-Israel” and “anti-Jewish” by passing the resolution against hate.
I thought yesterday’s vote by the House was disgraceful,” Trump said. “I thought that vote was a disgrace, and so does everybody else if you get an honest answer. The Democrats have become an anti-Israel party. They’ve become an anti-Jewish party, and that’s too bad.
Rather than attacking the vast majority in the House of Representatives who voted across party lines in favor of the resolution, 407 to 23, Trump should criticize the 23 Republicans who did not.
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