#514 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Monday November 21)
Good morning,
DAVE CHAPPELLE AND ANTISEMITISM
Many of you by now have watched the last week’s Dave Chappelle Saturday Night Live monologue. It was long. It was inappropriate. It parodied the performative apologies we demand of Kyrie Irving. It furthered the notion of some Jewish global (or, at least Hollywood based) cabal. And it gave some quarter to antisemitic remarks. And, despite all of this, at many times it was funny.
I’ve done an informal test this past week to ascertain how people received the monologue. Most of my Jewish friends were appalled. Many watched it multiple times. The Jewish press has sported headlines about it nearly every day. Everyone is talking about it.
As for my non-Jewish friends, Black and white, most hadn’t watched it. Those who did thought it was funny or stupid or too long. None of them spoke to the palpable soft antisemitism embedded in his words. None bothered to watch it twice. A great big nothing-burger.
The anger felt by many in the Jewish community was justified. After all, Chappelle’s words presented again the notion that some insidious Jewish cabal controls Hollywood and its messaging (and joking about it doesn’t change the fact that he raised this canard). It gave Black Americans a “pass” for antisemitism because of their historic abuse in America. It furthered the debunked notion that “the Jews” were important actors in the slave trade (the number of Africans who participated in the slave trade and freemen that owned slaves exceed Jewish involvement). And it predicted backlash from “whoever they are” (which could be read as “the people who control our news” or “the Jews”).
The biggest problem isn’t so much that Kanye harbors antisemitic beliefs as that his Kanye’s tweets went globally and were retweeted to millions of people. Similarly, Chappelle’s monologue was seen by millions. Sadly, when we have a young population that accesses most of its news from social media, the unhinged rantings of Kanye gain the stamp of normalcy, while Chappelle’s response loses context and nuance.
THE RESPONSE
This likely will make many of you angry, but I think the response may be excessive and damaging.
Part of me believes we should leave Chappelle alone and this all blows over. He’s a comedian. He offends. Comedy is mean by its very nature. And people have lost their sense of humor. Let’s see what else he says to offend everyone else in coming weeks. If this is a single instance, let it go. If he continues down this path, a response is warranted.
Perhaps the best response to Chappelle would be to note the disappointment in hearing some of the historic biases against Jews coming out of the mouth of a Black man, who should know better. Common cause among disparaged minorities should be acknowledged. How about a statement that says:
We support the right to say offensive things in comedy
Sometimes comedy can cause harm when it furthers racist tropes, as this did
Black people can be antisemitic, just as Jews can be racist. In both instances, it is wrong
One cannot compare anything to the holocaust. It is sui generis in its murderous evil.
Similarly, no one can compare anything to slavery. It is the ultimate debasement of one’s humanity over generations. Its impact continues to plague our society.
The response to Kyrie Irving points out the futility, and perhaps damaging, exercise performed every day when someone states an opinion or uses the wrong word or phrase or simply missteps. We require public rebuke and then put them through a reeducation program. Do we really think that these acts of remorse actually carry meaning? Is the person actually changed?
Do we think that, after public sanctions of Kyrie Irving, those Black Americans who might share some of the views expressed by him somehow are going to be persuaded they are wrong because Kyrie was punished? I believe the opposite is true. “Look what they did to this successful Black man. All he did was recommend a movie.” Obviously, the movie is an antisemitic, counter-factual diatribe, of the Louis Farrakhan variety. It is vile. It is absurd. It deserves to remain hidden and viewed only by the neo-Nazis who thrive on this stuff.
SIDEBAR: By the way, don’t rent this antisemitic layering of falsehood upon falsehood. Someone did and did a summary of its contents, so we don’t need to waste the time or money. Here it is in the Jewish Daily Forward: https://forward.com/news/524892/hebrews-to-negroes-movie-summary/
Rather than attack Kyrie Irving and demand multiple apologies and providing him “education,” we should be going after the message. It is, after all, the message that is most dangerous—not the basketball star. This same sort of thing plays out across America when we demand that people be called out, given a “time out” and put them through a performative educational process that, if anything, makes them more angry or racist. People don’t respond well to force-fed education. And they don’t respond well to watching their icons being publicly humiliated.
What upsets me most about all of this is the either/or nature of the Black and Jewish experience. There is embedded in the Chappelle monologue the notion that the Jews ought not complain—Black people have had it worse and they can’t really be held accountable because they “didn’t cause the holocaust.” Well, guess what Dave, but the Jews didn’t cause slavery, either, notwithstanding what Louis Farrakhan and other hate-mongers want to claim.
One of the most powerful things Chappelle touched upon perhaps wasn’t intended quite as I heard it. He said that one cannot use the words “the” and “Jews” in the same sentence. He made light of it, but he’s right. To lump all Jews together is to support the canard that the Jews act as some organized globalized cabal.
WE ARE IN A SPARTACUS MOMENT
But what the Chappelle monologue and the ensuing controversy highlighted to me is that we are in our “Spartacus moment.”
There is a scene in Spartacus when the Romans demand that the title character, who led a slave revolt, step forward for punishment. One by one, each of the slaves steps up and declares, “I am Spartacus.” They discovered their strength through identification with each other and standing together.
The Dave Chappelle monologue and the response to it demonstrate a tension between the Black and Jewish communities. It’s not open warfare, but the various controversies with antisemitic comments by Kanye and Kyrie are indicative of at least a minority of that community having negative opinions of Jews. In a different context, a couple of months ago there was a stir in the Los Angeles City Council when a member was recorded disparaging various minorities but particularly her Black colleagues.
THE JEWS AND THE BLACKS
In Chappelle’s monologue, he indicated that the words “the” and “Jews” should not be used together in a sentence. While he says this jokingly, he’s right. It cheapens the individual agency of each person by lumping them together in a dehumanizing way.I would maintain that word “the” should not appear before “Gay,” “Black,” “Latinos,” or “women.” There are plenty of members of each of these groups and there is a divergence of views within their community. To lump people together in groups is to succumb to the racism below the surface of Donald Trump’s statement that certain Jews weren’t true to their Judaism because of beliefs that don’t agree with his. And when we refer to another group as “the Blacks” or “the immigrants,” we deny the individuals in that group their individuality and their agency. We must approach each other as individuals, who may identify with the group, yet disagree with their fellow members.
I think we are at a moment when I can say “the Jews” and Chappelle can say “the Blacks” as may relate to broad statements of personal identity, but neither of us can use these cheap “throw them all together” phrases in speaking of the other.
With all the anti-gay hatred, the attacks on Asian Americans, the police brutality committed against Black Americans, and the startling rise in antisemitism, it’s high time we all see the writing on the wall. There is an ugly underbelly of America that wants all of us marginalized or, worse, deported or killed—and certainly fighting amongst ourselves. Hate is now the flavor of the week.
The sooner people of all minority groups realize that they must stand against hatred not only of their discrete ethnic, political, religious, or gender identity group, but against all of them, the greater the likelihood this can be neutralized. It is important that we stand together and build bridges to each other. Only then will we all possess the power to stand against the hatred that has spread from behind rocks into the light, given cover by Donald Trump and provided a mouthpiece by cable news and social media.
This is our Spartacus moment. We are all Jews. All Black. All Latino. And all Gay.
Have a great day,
Glenn
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