“To even admit you are acting out of a perception of potential liability is thought in some circles to create a risk of liability. But this thinking in some cases creates enormous risk because the people who are articulating risk only think along one line of vulnerability, the one they understand—or because their logic is easily bent towards a pre-determined conclusion by ideologues prepared to manipulate it.” #TimothyBurkehttps://timothyburke.substack.com/p/academia-on-the-inside
@interfluidity This leaves out that a big part of this wave of protests, especially in the earlier phases, is harassing other students. (Whether for their religion, ethnicity, or opinions, it's all bad.) This is altogether different from the 60s when pro-war students were not harassed, and I haven't heard of that as a feature of more recent protests until Oct 7.
@djc@interfluidity Accepting Burke's description (although my impression is that things have gone considerably farther), he doesn't draw the necessary implication.
From a Jewish student's point of view, it's not an acceptable situation that racist invective is forbidden if directed against any group other than Jews, but allowed against Jews.
@BenRossTransit@djc (i think we'd probably disagree on what counts at "racist invective" under these circumstances. as do different factions among Jewish students on campus.)
@BenRossTransit@djc (i think it a true point that, for example, many campuses would find ways not to have Charles Murray come on campus to offer, however politely, views about likely genetic group differences in IQ. even politely expressed arguments that Israel is conducting a genocide might make some Jewish students feel discomfort as real as some Black students encountering Murray. my view would be both conversations have to be tolerated regardless. i agree that has not been the practice.)
@djc@BenRossTransit i can assure you both can make Jewish kids with strong identification and attachment to Israel feel pretty horrible! and also that Jewish kids (and adults) do not universally agree on either question. (a difficult thing in the US Jewish community now is that a large group who previously had squish mixed feelings about zionism are becoming polarized towards outright antizionism, which might make this passover worse than any proverbial thanksgiving.)
@interfluidity@djc I was talking about slogans like "Intifada revolution," "burn Tel Aviv to the ground," "Qassam brigades you make us proud" along with the Zionist-free zone and celebration of Oct 7.
And it's harassment, not speech, when they yell these slogans (or even things that are in bounds as subjects of discussion, like genocide) at Jewish students walking to class.
@BenRossTransit@interfluidity@djc Or "no means yes, yes means anal." The "I want to kill Zionists" line is a lot more visceral than bringing Murray to campus and the only thing that's similar against other groups led to big changes in how US uni campuses treat speech and launched the careers of feminists who pointed out early that this was a violence threat rather than some legal debate over criminal procedure in sexual assault cases.
@Alon@BenRossTransit@djc obviously people targeting epithets directly at people walking by is more visceral than a Charles Murray talk.
but (referring back to the #TimothyBurke piece that inspired the thread), the vast majority of the protest is not that at all, but might still be uncomfortable, disturbing, hurtful to people simply by virtue of its content. and that should be tolerated, even though i agree in practice there have been less-than-uniform standards of that sort of toleration.
@interfluidity@BenRossTransit@djc The "I want to kill Zionists" line is from the leader of the Columbia protest; this isn't nutpicking. Likewise, open celebration of 7.10 is not a fringe view in Palestine advocacy but is in SJP (and JVP).
@ikentcpel@Alon@BenRossTransit@djc no, it doesn’t. some fool says outrageous things. it’s not incumbent on everyone in the drum circle to take a break + publicly denounce it. all this started with a real, less dumb, question—do Jewish kids just going about their lives, dressing and acting like they did before all this—face pervasive harrassment. i think the answer is no, but it’s an empirical question we can’t definitively answer.
@interfluidity@ikentcpel@Alon@djc It's not "some fool," it's a leader of the group. And he remains as leader after a vague semi-apology.
Imagine a group of defenders of southern culture camped out on the college green, devoting the vast majority of their time to scholarly rebuttals of the curriculum's denigration of Robert E. Lee and John C. Calhoun, and only occasionally yelling racist epithets at Black students walking by.
@BenRossTransit@ikentcpel@Alon@djc (oh and leaders are often nuts. they are almost always weirdoes, the opposite of representative. it’s one of the paradoxes of “representative democracy” that the elected class may be called upon to represent, but they can never be representative.)
@interfluidity@BenRossTransit@Alon@djc Not sure about your parentheses. I really hope that was sarcasm. Otherwise didn’t you just justify the orange nut as a leader of normie R-s?
@ikentcpel@BenRossTransit@Alon@djc absolutely, tarring Americans with Trump’s pathologies while he was President is a form of unjust collective responsibility akin to racism. even Americans who for whatever reason elect not to disavow their President when some third party demands it. Netanyahu is a grifter and war criminal, but Israelis don’t inherit that status, though he is their leader, even if they won’t disavow on demand.
@Alon@ikentcpel@BenRossTransit@djc no. protesters in general have little organizational association with groups that coordinate and organize them. ANSWER was involved in many anti Iraq War protests. protesters do not have to answer for them. and even US Trump voters and Likud voters do not bear the sins of the leaders they vote for. i voted for Obama, who innovated and routinized assassination. he is a murderer. but i am not.
@interfluidity@ikentcpel@BenRossTransit@djc Out of campus, yes, you're right (but then the chants do matter). But on campus, the leader was elected by the students on the encampment - IIRC his position was to be the protesters' rep in negotiations with the university. It's way tighter and they've shown ability to kick out people they don't want from the quad (e.g. Zionists).
@Alon@ikentcpel@BenRossTransit@djc the conversation in which he said his main stupidities was in January, long before the much larger protests now. he’s a dude from one campus (these protests are now a national phenomenon), made a “leader” long before the scale of participation is what it is now. he’s nothing more than a well picked nut. you can find others too. but they are not typical.
@Alon@ikentcpel@BenRossTransit@djc many of the protesters are antizionist. that is the position from which they are protesting. if you hold dear and deeply the opposite position, exposure to any of what they are doing may be painful. that is quite distinct from racist or antisemitic, however. a growing fraction of American Jews is antizionist. a remarkable accomplishment of Israel’s leadership.
@interfluidity@Alon@ikentcpel@djc "Antizionist" has a multitude of meanings from the Satmar rebbes to Sinwar & Khameini. The term is often used to intentionally blur distinctions.
I believe the number of American Jews who, like many SJP leaders, supported the Oct 7 massacres and want them to be repeated, is very small.
The number who have deluded themselves about what Hamas & SJP stand for is much larger, and yes Bibi deserves a lot of the blame for that.
the basic antizionist position to which many not-right-wing Americans, including many American Jews, are gravitating towards concedes that "Jewish and democratic" is too great a contradiction, and so advocates a secular liberal state without religious or national favoritism.
that position may or may not be practical, but it is not advocacy of anything ethically horrid.
@interfluidity@BenRossTransit@ikentcpel@djc I mean, yes, Bibi steals money from the Israeli public. It's well-known, to the point that his supporters cope by saying that he's really stealing it on their behalf. And also, if you say "let's defeat Bibi," the entire Palestine movement will yell at you for being a liberal Zionist.
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