Posted on 11/19/2003 1:49:14 AM PST by kattracks
I did not bother to tell her that without my glasses I could not see the face or color of a questioner so far away, that my answer to the question would have been the same no matter what color the questioner happened to be.
As I was trying to leave, one woman, who said her name was "Lupe," (she was dressed in a button-festooned serape, and had a cross tattooed between her eyebrows), and who loped after me, and continued to demand that I deal with the Palestine question. She kept trying to get at me physically. One of the organizers kept putting her own body between Lupe and me. Lupe behaved like a trained operative, her rage was legitimized, empowered, by her politics.
The three young African-American women who had invited me were VERY supportive of me, they hugged me and thanked me for coming and looked rather embarrassed about what had happened.
What's important is this: Not one of them tried to stop what was happening, not one stood up and said: "Something good has just turned ugly and we must not permit this to happen." Thus, the "good" people did nothing to disperse the hostility or to address the issues. Perhaps they were simply unprepared on the issues; perhaps they agreed with the view that Israel is an apartheid state and that anyone who would dare defend it was supposed to be treated as a traitor and enemy. Perhaps they simply lacked the courage to stand up to the fundamentalists in their midst.
Afterwards, my son told me that he was on his feet the minute The Questioner spoke and although I could not see him either, I was glad to know that he was in the room. Things could easily have turned much uglier. (By the way: Talk about gender apartheid! The conference confined him to his men-only single chair section).
It seemed that The Questioner had at least one, and possibly two henchwoman with her. Clearly, she wanted to "get" the pro-Israel white Jew.
I couldn't help reflecting on my life's work against racism. For example, in 1963, I joined The Northern Student Movement and tutored Harlem students. This was the Northern branch of the civil rights movement. In the late 1960s, I was involved with both the Young Lords and the Black Panthers. I marched outside the Women's House of Detention when they jailed Angela Davis. I was involved in the Inez Garcia case and have written extensively about the cases of both Joanne Little and Yvonne Wanrow, two women of color who, like Garcia, had killed (white) men in self-defense. In the mid-70s, I interviewed Jews from India, Iran, Afghanistan, and North Africa, and Jews who had fled Arab lands about "cultural" or "ethnic" racism in Israel. By the early 1970s, I also began organizing against Jew-hatred on the left and among feminists in America. Over the years, I have lectured on the complexities of both racism and sexism in the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East, and in Japan.
Here's what's sad. Clearly, my speech touched hearts and minds; there was room for common ground and for civilized discourse. But not once the word "Palestine" was uttered, not when "Palestine" is seen as a symbol for every downtrodden group of color who are "resisting" the racist-imperialist American and Zionist Empires. Once the "Palestine" litmus test of political respectability was raised, everyone responded on cue, as if programmed and brainwashed. It immediately became a "white" versus "brown" thing, an "oppressed" versus an "oppressor" thing.
These are the Brownshirts of our time. The fact that they are women of color, womanists/feminists is all the more chilling and tragic. And unbelievable. And to me: Practically unbearable.
Afterwards, my son, ever-wise, said: "Well mom, you have your answer. The Jew-haters will never allow you into their wider, wonderful world. You can't go back."
Phyllis Chesler, Ph.D, is the author of twelve books, including the international bestseller WOMEN AND MADNESS. Her most recent book is The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It.
And continues: "In the late 1960s, I was involved with...the [racist criminals] Black Panthers. I marched outside the Women's House of Detention when they jailed [the degenerate murderer] Angela Davis.."
More: "It seemed that The Questioner had at least one, and possibly two henchwoman with her. Clearly, she wanted to "get" the pro-Israel white Jew.."
And finally it dawns on Phyllis: "These are the Brownshirts of our time. The fact that they are women of color, womanists/feminists is all the more chilling and tragic. And unbelievable. And to me: Practically unbearable.."
Hey Phyllis, you lay down with dogs and now you're shocked that you've got fleas???? I'd say it's long past time for you to sit down and do a soul-searching reality check. Try starting here: "We have met the enemy and he is us."
--Boot Hill
An equal oppurtunity religion.
A disembodied voice demanded to know where I stood on the question of the women of Palestine.Palestinian men rape and murder their own sisters.
Now she is surprised that they have turned on her, as she treated so many others, ignoring reality and logic when it didn't fit her ideology.
No, what it is is very predicable. Finally her eyes are opened.
Why is it chilling?
Why is it tragic?
Why is it unbelieveable?
"Feminist", "Womanist", "Communist" all the same flavor.
Regards,
People are complex and very rarely always right or always wrong.
Is there a correlation there, perhaps?
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