#JusticeForGeorgeFloyd
I’ve been thinking, processing, feeling, and most importantly... listening. So much has come up for me in the last few days, and while I’ve been sharing a lot of posts that I found impactful to my stories, I feel like I need to say more.
I’ve never identified as part of “white society.” My identity as a Jew has always been first and foremost - not only as my religion, but as my nationality and cultural identity as well. I identify as a minority in America. When I think of the term “white supremacy,” I think of people that hate ME and my community and people just as much as other minorities. I’ve never been a racist - at least not in the shallow and widely used definition of the term. My father marched with Martin Luther King Jr and risked his life time and time again for the civil rights movement. I grew up with parents who taught me that we are all human and creations of the same G-d. My family follows the Chabad tradition and philosophy (which granted, has its own issues with racism among some of its followers) and the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe who put an emphasis on treating ALL people with love and spreading more acts of goodness and kindness. But in spite of all of that, the color of my skin is still white. And because of that, and only that, I have benefited from a society built to lift up people with white skin and beat down people with black skin. That makes me part of the problem. I am just as susceptible to the institutionalized racism and the undercurrents of racial stereotypes that run through nearly every aspect of our society. Most of us don’t even notice we are being primed and conditioned to think, feel and behave in certain ways. It’s past time that we start to pay attention, notice, and make change.
It’s not the Black community that has a problem with racism, it’s the white society that is infected to its core with this virus of inherent and institutionalized racism. It’s white society that needs to fight it and root it out.
For the last few years, I’ve had an internal battle with my support of Black Lives Matter. Not because I don’t support and value the mission and message, but because some of its leadership has aligned with the BDS movement - a movement that is aimed at demonizing and delegitimizing the State of Israel - the land of my people. It hurt and pained me (still does) that a movement that I want so badly to align myself with, had seemingly excluded me in this way. Over the last week or so I’ve done some deep diving and soul searching to figure out how to resolve this conflict in myself. I can’t say it’s completely resolved - but I’ve come to some realizations. Ultimately, now is the time to fight for the Black community. Hate is rooted in fear and ignorance and we are ALL susceptible to it. Even those that are the victims of it. If I want to root out the hate towards my community and people in THIS country, it needs to start with the deepest and longest form of hatred that this country was quite literally built on - and that’s towards the Black community. How can I hope to root out any form of hatred when this one still runs so deep? If we can start here, then we can start to make changes from within. Some people within the BLM movement (SOME not nearly all) have made a false equivalency between the struggle of the Black community in the US and the struggle of the Palestinian people viewing Israel as the “white nationalist” oppressor. While I know how wrong this is, how can I fault people for being vulnerable to the subtle and not so subtle messages they are being fed? By fighting for a common goal alongside them, we can begin to help them realize how wrong they are about Israel. The same way they can open our eyes to so many subtle and not so subtle messages targeting their community that we’ve been vulnerable to.
That is why I am going to continue to speak up against injustice and continue to LISTEN. It is not my job as a white person to define what racism looks like. The same way nobody outside the Jewish community can tell me what Jewish identity means, or tell me what anti-semitism looks like, we as people with white skin can not tell the Black community what they should feel like, how they should be experiencing this world, or how they should respond. It is our responsibility to listen and to look inwards and make change. First within ourselves, our families, our communities, and then ultimately, the world.
I’ve seen too many people in my circle- well-meaning, good people - commenting on the riots, but making no comment about the murder of George Floyd or the injustices that Black people have been suffering for hundreds and hundreds of years. If you’re focusing solely on how people are responding to injustice and violence, I’m sorry but you’re completely missing the point and part of the problem. We don’t get to tell those suffering how to or how not to respond. We need to HEAR them and do the work we need to do on ourselves and our society. And don’t let yourself fall victim to the same subtle messages of stereotype and hate that people are trying to fight against. In many cases, the rioting and violence has been instigated by white agitators - not the Black community or Black Lives Matter. As Chris Cuomo so well said it - it’s judging symptoms and missing the illness.
As much as it hurts, I need to recognize my role as part of the problem. I can only promise to listen, speak up, and do better to be part of the solution.