The Trump years were, in an ironic way, a boon for social and racial justice organizations. The brazen manifestation of crass and dangerous racism served
After the Derek Chauvin verdict last Tuesday, the only logical place to be was with Black Lives Matter in the streets in front of the
For each week of the Counting of the Omer, we plan one or two (or more, if the motivation strikes) posts that tie the theme
Yesterday I was floored by the callous disregard for justice – no, I’m used to that. What I was floored by was its blatentness. To
Pictures by Gili Getz; text by Salem Pearce On Sunday, more than 1,000 Jews in New York converged on Amazon’s bookstore in Midtown Manhattan to
Our observance shouldn’t be limited to studying Jewish involvement in the Civil Right Movement (we see you, Freedom Riders). Black History Month isn’t about patting “white saviors” on the back but rather about celebrating the accomplishments of African-Americans.
We harm the black community – Jewish and not – when we appropriate black culture. We reinforce the idea of black culture as a commodity to be sampled, mocked, and tossed aside when we’re finished.
These two texts challenge us to pay close attention to the power dynamics involved in a hegemonic body adopting cultural products of a subordinate group. Sometimes erasure comes through restricting the minority practice of its own culture, as in Antiochus’s later persecution, which we marked on Chanukah. But sometimes erasure comes through cultural appropriation, depending on a subordinate group to create culture, and then taking it and turning it from culture to artifact, from lifeline to epitaph.
If you’re worried about hail victory salutes in DC and swastikas in parks and on subways (as we should be), start asking not whom you should disallow, but whom you should invite into your life.
“While we agree with many of Isaiah’s sentiments, and we too think that the poor, and the orphaned should be protected, we cannot abide the extreme and unfair language that Isaiah employs to describe our beloved city.”