I shared this post about Kanye West last year. If you click the link, you’ll see thousands of comments that are:
Showing him support
Claiming he’s right
Attacking people for calling him out or for condemning his hatred
Antisemitic
Attacking Jewish commenters
We barely had time to catch our breath before Jew hatred became so much worse than it was then. I read an article earlier this week stating that it will take decades for this to be fixed. Decades to undo the damage being done today. Never again is now.
*******
The text I wrote when I initially shared the post is below:
I’ve reported a few of the more outrageously antisemitic comments in this thread (including the comment where one commenter called another commenter a “fucking Jew lover”). There are so many references to “the Elites” and “them/they”, etc., and I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t more than a little in awe to read so much hatred aimed at me and my fellow Jews. And just as alarming – if not a little more so – are those individuals who aren’t spewing vitriol, the ones who would seem “normal” if they weren’t virtually nodding their heads and calmly agreeing with the plethora of antisemitic canards being flung about all over the place.
Regardless of what we Jews do in the face of antisemitism, it seems that we’re fucked. If we try to ignore it and don’t respond, the antisemitism continues. If we call it out (and even if we don’t) and that person faces repercussions, the haters claim it “proves” the allegations against us are true, and the antisemitism continues.
Sometimes, it takes the relatively quiet form of the occasional online comment from random strangers with profiles showing a clear affinity for hatred and white supremacy, while other times, it’s Kanye West threatening to go “Deathcon 3” on us, or Dave Chappelle dancing back and forth across the line so fast on SNL that we can’t agree on what his true intentions were, leaving everyone to draw their own conclusions (and of course, if we Jews dare to call him out, the antisemitism continues).
I’m not naïve (or maybe I am…). I know that antisemitism has always existed – it’s not a new phenomenon. I know what we Jews have been through – our experiences large and small (whether you believe them or not), as a group and as individuals. I know that we have the emotional baggage of generations of collective trauma weighing us down – trauma that can be hard to shake off (and sometimes makes us do and say stupid things). It simmers below the surface, waiting for signs of impending danger, because we know it will come eventually, sooner or later.
I don’t know if someone who isn’t part of a persecuted minority can really understand what it feels like to be one of us – to always be wary and on your guard. To always wonder if your concerns and fears will be taken seriously by others – especially at times like those we’re experiencing now, when the hatred feels particularly strong and far-reaching, overwhelmingly so. I cannot get my head around how normal it has become to witness so much antisemitism. Every time I go online I feel like I’m drowning in a sickening sea of hatred, and it is so fucking exhausting and sad. I desperately wanted to believe that people were better than that.
Apparently, I was wrong.
