While I am pleased to see pieces in The Jewish Link that illuminate the need for recent protests to honor Black lives, I am saddened and angered by troubling viewpoints that forsake empathy and seek to uphold racially oppressive systems, as well. Last week, I took issue with two entries, in particular: Jonathan S. Tobin’s “When US Revisionist History Becomes Dogma” and David Hes’s letter to the editor “Clearing Up the Message,” (both published June 25, 2020).
Many people feel unsettled by the current reexamination of our nation’s history. It can be hard to acknowledge that the very things we have been taught to be so proud of in our country—liberty, justice, equality, opportunity—are, in fact, not realities for many of our fellow countrymen. It’s hard, but it’s also very necessary so that we can begin the work of realizing those ideals. Our understanding of history is, without a doubt, richer and more accurate when it includes the experiences of different groups that have been silenced by more traditional accounts. When Tobin erroneously conflates an emphasis on understanding diverse perspectives in history with revisionist history, he holds us back from engaging in the work to remedy these incongruities.
Tobin further attempts to delegitimize efforts to rectify our country’s tacit acceptance or outright glorification of racist figures by characterizing the statues that protesters seek to remove as “public art” rather than as monuments. Monuments are not just art; they represent what we value as a society. When we display monuments of people who promoted racist causes or whose achievements are so compromised by their racism, we display the wrong ideals. Tobin seems to take pride in the fact “that the arc of the nation has actually been primarily one of continuous expansion of liberty” without recognizing the irony that this arc has been driven by the very progressive thought and revolutionary action that he currently condemns.
Of greater concern, however, is Hes’s more overt racism. Hes positions “us decent people” against his “arsonist leaders,” “mobs,” and “assault rifle”- and “machete”- wielding “predators and criminals” who attack us with impunity. He highlights “almost daily assaults by blacks against our fellow Jews” and characterizes George Floyd by the “numerous encounters he had with the law” (misstating a charge of armed robbery and failing to acknowledge that such encounters must be understood in the context of racial bias in law enforcement that this movement seeks to expose and end). Failure to acknowledge how these images play into several centuries of racist ideas about violent Black people is unconscionable. We have to consider the dangers of publishing these words in our Jewish newspaper. Aside from the fact that it is a chilul Hashem, it is also irresponsible and reprehensible to spread racist ideas in any context.
I’m sure that Hes would say that he does not hate Black people and thus cannot be racist. Racism, however, is not just about hate. It’s about power—a power that gives some people greater security; feelings of self-worth; and social, educational, and financial opportunities because of their race, whether these outcomes are intentional or not. I know that the more I learned about anti-Semitism, the more I wished that others cared enough to learn. We are being given a comparable opportunity when it comes to understanding Black suffering. Our eyes are being opened and we’re being invited to learn and change for the better.
If these discussions make you uncomfortable, it means you’re listening the way you should be. It is uncomfortable to confront our society’s overwhelming failure to realize our ideal of racial equality. It’s probably even more uncomfortable to confront our own role in contributing to this failure. Lean into that discomfort. Many people before us have had to get very, very uncomfortable to dismantle oppressive systems that were responsible for unfathomable pain and suffering in the past. Thank God they did. We are all better for it, and our children and grandchildren can be better for the discomfort we embrace and the work we undertake as a result.
I’m not sure why Hes is so defensive, as if every demand to be heard and treated justly is somehow a personal affront to him. If you find yourself feeling similarly, or if you are not seeing the danger of his rhetoric, you are choosing to shield yourself from others’ pain as some misguided form of self-preservation. Most of us have been there at some point, and the good news is that people who care to do better and move past these instincts can. Take a deep breath, tell yourself that it’s not about you, and simply seek to understand. It’s a beautiful and powerful thing to let go of one’s angst and choose to move forward in a positive direction.
Rochel Klionsky resides in Teaneck and serves as an assistant principal at Success Academy Charter Schools in New York City.
