By Phyllis Chesler at Israel National News June 30, 2020
How soon will these so-called “activists” start attacking living human beings? Oh wait. That’s already been happening. Op-ed.
Whenever people suggest that I write about The Moment or about something “relevant, trendy, eye-catching” I usually decline. Only once have I been tricked into chasing after the brass ring/the gold at the end of the rainbow, and I’ve regretted it ever since.
I prefer the more eternal verities, the subject that I alone see and care about because the rest of us are not seeing what I see. I’m the one who prefers opera, Torah, classic films and classical music, great literature, the work of the Ages.
I understand that this is old-fashioned, not cutting-edge, best left behind as we rush headlong into a future which has no past.
The Daily Mail reports that a group of “activists” moved a guillotine in front of Jeff Bezos’s house in Washington D.C. to demand that Amazon be abolished because it “works directly with the police to surveil us, stoking racist fears in the name of profit. Doubling down on their union-busting and mistreatment of workers. END THE ABUSE AND THE PROFITEERING, ABOLISH THE POLICE, THE PRISONS, AND AMAZON.”
A sign read: “Support our poor communities. Not our wealthy men.”
Statues have been be-headed, desecrated, toppled—how soon will such “activists” start attacking living human beings? Oh wait. That’s already been happening.
And so the fight against anti-black police brutality is revealed as performance art, a massive, long-lasting, and in-your-face protest against capitalism, white supremacy, and racism. (Jew hatred, masquerading as anti-Zionism is rarely considered racism.)
What we are seeing is the weaponization of the last forty years of politically correct thinking in the Western classroom, the Western media, the EU, and at the United Nations. Some of these ideas are valid, even noble—but now, it is no longer enough to expand and deepen our knowledge of history, to include missing personages, to offer alternative narratives—now, we must shame, destroy, and disappear all those whom we have labelled as “oppressors,’ “colonialists,” “racists.”
What we are seeing is a Perfect Storm caused by at least the following factors: the Wuhan Virus epidemic; the temporary or long-term tanking of the world economy; the temporary or permanent end of life as we’ve known it.
Many of the young people who are marching are idealists with time on their hands. They have no school, no job, no social life, and have gone stir crazy in lockdown.
But more: The marchers and their organizers have all learned from the continuous Intifadas against Israel: Individual Jihad stabbings and shootings; rushing the border en masse; tossing grenades, Molotov cocktails, torching cars, blowing up stores, buses, hotels, discos—and precious civilians too. And they want to emulate it.
One side claims that all police are brutal, vicious, and racist and that police departments must be abolished or seriously de-funded. Another side claims that black-on-black crime is very high and that the police have been trying to deal with the problem of gun-toting gangbangers, dope dealers, human traffickers in minority communities. If the police force is thinned out, minority communities will be the first to suffer.
You decide who’s right. Maybe both sides are right. What then?
Meanwhile, flying below the radar, and very dangerous to even mention, are the random, unprovoked attacks that black men, sometimes black women too, have perpetrated on elderly, female, mentally disabled, or lone male civilians who are usually white. Arguably, such attacks may have been going on for years.
These attacks may have nothing to do with the BLM protest. Like so many Jihad attacks, these attackers are usually seen as mentally ill criminals, schizophrenics or bi-polar, who are off their meds and/or are homeless. We only know their race because videos surface.
The mainstream media dare not describe people in terms of their race or religion, especially if the perpetrators are men of color, are Muslims, or Arabs, or who have shouted out Allahu Akhbar before an attack.
Remember all those black attacks on visible Jews who look “white?” That was going on long before the Virus struck and the protests began. Nothing to see here. This is not racism, this is not anti-Semitism? Remember Jersey City? These incidents are all examples of lone (Jihad?) attacks, no ideology has empowered these violent individuals.
Describing reality is now a thought crime, a hate crime too.
Prof. Phyllis Chesler is an Emerita Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies at City U. of NY, a legendary feminist leader and best-selling author of 18 books so far, including The New Anti-Semitism; Living History: On the Front Lines for Israel and the Jews; Islamic Gender Apartheid: Exposing A Veiled War Against Women; A Family Conspiracy: Honor Killings. Her work has been translated into many European languages and into Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Hebrew. She is a Fellow at The Middle East Forum, and at the Institute for the Study of Global Anti-Semitism and Policy (ISGAP). Since 9/11, Dr. Chesler has focused on the rise of anti-Semitism, the demonization of Israel, and the nature of terrorism; the rights of women, dissidents, and gays in the Hindu, Sikh, and Islamic world, writing studies and position papers. A proud mother and grandmother, she lives in Manhattan..www.phyllis-chesler.com
