Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/author/warrenblumenfeld/page/2/)
While I and other European-heritage Jews clearly understand that we have been accorded white privilege vis-à-vis minoritized “racial” communities, we also understand the history and legacy of anti-Jewish persecution and, yes, how dominant groups have racialized us as well. And I believe at this point in history, individual Jews would answer the question, “What is my race?” in very different ways.
The importance of electing politicians with strong critical thinking skills is revealed by the spectrum of opinions politicians hold about climate change: some officials deny the problem, while others confidently identify humanity as the culprit of environmental degradation. Warren Blumenfeld passionately investigates disbelievers’ opinions by reviewing some of Rick Santorum’s comments about climate change.
Imagine a protest rally where organizers wore “F— Christianity shirts” and were encouraged to bring weapons to the rally in support of Second Amendment rights. Now, replace “Christianity” with “Islam,” and you have the Draw Muhammad contest in Phoenix, at the same Islamic community center that so-called lone shooters Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi once attended.
Though the Catholic Church has scratched, tarnished, and clouded the stone that is the Emerald Isle with its wheel of oppression, the people have spoken loudly and clearly, and by so doing, have dismantled some of the spokes on that wheel and have polished the stone to brilliance once again. In what can only be seen as an historic vote, for the first time anywhere in the world, the people of the Republic of Ireland voted overwhelmingly, by a majority of 62 percent to 38 percent, to sanction marriage for same-sex couples with all the legal benefits and responsibilities already granted to different-sex couples (thereby dismantling a spoke on the wheel of Catholic oppression). An estimated 60.5 percent of the eligible 3.2 million registered voters turned out to the polls. Though the Irish government passed civil partnership legislation in 2010, which could have been rescinded by future legislative actions, this popular referendum now constitutionally codifies the legal standing of same-sex couples. In another clear defiance of the doctrines and warnings of the very powerful Catholic Church, a similar referendum was taken in 1993, which for the first time in that country decriminalized same-sex sexuality (dismantling another spoke), and in 1995, legalized divorce (dismantling yet another spoke).
What kinds of messages are we sending our youth? Do we truly understand our own complicity in the bullying we see in our schools? Unless and until we grapple with the ways in which our society promotes and gives justification to such bullying, we will never truly solve these problems.
The GOP’s philosophy of an unrestricted free market system increases the size and magnitude of mega global corporations that gobble up small and emerging entrepreneurs. It attempts to deny basic human and civil rights to LGBT people, rights that are routinely accorded to heterosexual people. How is this a “pro-life” party?
Though the AFDI’s Islamophobic and racist actions is doing have been classified as “free speech,” that does not mean that we have to tolerate it by not speaking up. We have the right, as well, to take this case to the court of public opinion and call it out for what it is: a hateful reaction to an already minoritized and misunderstood group of people.
Violence in the face of hate only brings about more hate, thus creating an unending cycle. How could Pam Geller and the AFDI justify their perverse event as free speech?
Without condoning the clashes with police, rock throwing, looting, and arson against local businesses, when a society generally and police forces more specifically consistently treat its citizens like “2s,” “3s,” or “4s,” when people see no hope for a better future, when parents fear for their children’s very lives, the inevitable eruptions in Baltimore should can come as no surprise.
Marriage equality for same-sex couples is indeed a federal issue. If such judicial waypoints as the Emancipation Proclamation and the decisions of Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade were not reached by the Supreme Court, American society today would remain indefensibly worse.