NYT Opinion: I’m Glad the Lesbian March Banned Jewish Stars

[OriZ 3,157]

This weekend, at a lesbian march in Chicago, three women carrying Jewish pride flags — rainbow flags embossed with a Star of David — were kicked out of the celebration on the grounds that their flags were a “trigger.” An organizer of the lesbian March told the Windy City Times that the fabric “made people feel unsafe” and that she and the other members of the lesbian March collective didn’t want anything “that can inadvertently or advertently express Zionism” at the event.

 

Laurel Grauer, one of the women who was ejected, said she’d been carrying that Jewish pride flag in the march, held on the Saturday before the city’s official Pride Parade, for more than a decade. It “celebrates my lesbian, Jewish identity,” she explained. This year, however, she lost track of the number of people who harassed her for carrying it.

I’m sorry for the women, like Ms. Grauer, who found themselves under genuine threat for carrying a colorful cloth falsely accused of being pernicious.

But I am also grateful.

Has there ever been a crisper expression of the consequences of “intersectionality” than a ban on Jewish lesbians from a lesbian March?

 

Intersectionality is the big idea of today’s progressive left. In theory, it’s the benign notion that every form of social oppression is linked to every other social oppression. This observation — coined in 1989 by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw — sounds like just another way of rephrasing a slogan from a poster I had in college: My liberation is bound up with yours. That is, the fight for women’s rights is tied up with the fight for gay rights and civil rights and so forth. Who would dissent from the seductive notion of a global sisterhood?

 

Well, in practice, intersectionality functions as kind of caste system, in which people are judged according to how much their particular caste has suffered throughout history. Victimhood, in the intersectional way of seeing the world, is akin to sainthood; power and privilege are profane.

By that hierarchy, you might imagine that the Jewish people — enduring yet another wave of anti-Semitism here and abroad — should be registered as victims. Not quite.

Why? Largely because of Israel, the Jewish state, which today’s progressives see only as a vehicle for oppression of the Palestinians — no matter that Israel has repeatedly sought to meet Palestinian claims with peaceful compromise, and no matter that progressives hold no other country to the same standard. China may brutalize Buddhists in Tibet and Muslims in Xinjiang, while denying basic rights to the rest of its 1.3 billion citizens, but “woke” activists pushing intersectionality keep mum on all that.

 

One of the women who was asked to leave the ####### March, Eleanor Shoshany Anderson, couldn’t understand why she was kicked out of an event that billed itself as intersectional. “The lesbian March is supposed to be intersectional,” she said. “I don’t know why my identity is excluded from that. I felt that, as a Jew, I am not welcome here.”

 

She isn’t. Because though intersectionality cloaks itself in the garb of humanism, it takes a Manichaean view of life in which there can only be oppressors and oppressed. To be a Jewish #######, let alone one who deigns to support Israel, is a categorical impossibility, oppressor and oppressed in the same person.

That’s why the march organizers and their sympathizers are now trying to smear Ms. Grauer as some sort of right-wing provocateur. Their evidence: She works at an organization called A Wider Bridge, which connects the L.G.B.T.Q. Jewish community in America with the L.G.B.T.Q. community in Israel. The organizers are also making the spurious claim that the Jewish star is necessarily a symbol of Zionist oppression — a breathtaking claim to anyone who has ever seen a picture of a Jew forced to wear a yellow one under the Nazis.

 

No, the truth is that it was no more and no less than anti-Semitism. Just read Ms. Shoshany Anderson’s account of her experience, which she posted on Facebook after being kicked out of the march.

 

“I wanted to be in public as a gay Jew of Persian and German heritage. Nothing more, nothing less. So I made a shirt that said ‘Proud Jewish lesbian’ and hoisted a big Jewish Pride flag — a rainbow flag with a Star of David in the center, the centuries-old symbol of the Jewish people,” she wrote. “During the picnic in the park, organizers in their official t-shirts began whispering and pointing at me and soon, a delegation came over, announcing they’d been sent by the organizers. They told me my choices were to roll up my Jewish Pride flag or leave. The Star of David makes it look too much like the Israeli flag, they said, and it triggers people and makes them feel unsafe. This was their complaint.”

 

She tried to explain that the star is the “ubiquitous symbol of Judaism,” and that she simply wanted “to be Jewish in public.” Then, she “tried using their language,” explaining “this is my intersection. I’m supposed to be able to celebrate it here.”

It didn’t work. Ms. Shoshany Anderson left sobbing. “I was thrown out of lesbian March for being Jewish,” she said. Just so.

For progressive American Jews, intersectionality forces a choice: Which side of your identity do you keep, and which side do you discard and revile? Do you side with the oppressed or with the oppressor?

 

That kind of choice would have been familiar to previous generations of left-wing Jews, particularly those in Europe, who felt the tug between their ethnic heritage and their “internationalist” ideological sympathies. But this is the United States. Here, progressives are supposed to be comfortable with the idea of hyphenated identities and overlapping ethnic, sexual and political affinities. Since when did a politics that celebrates choice — and choices — devolve into a requirement of being forced to choose?

 

Jews on the left, particularly in recent years, have attempted to square this growing discomfort by becoming more anti-Israel. But if history has taught the Jews anything it’s that this kind of contortion never ends well.

 

It may be wrong to read too much into an ugly incident at a single march, but Jews should take what happened in Chicago as a lesson that they might not be as welcome among progressives as they might imagine. That’s a warning for which to be grateful, even as it is a reminder that anti-Semitism remains as much a problem on the far-left as it is on the alt-right.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/27/opinion/im-glad-the-#######-march-banned-jewish-stars.html

 

I tend to agree with him. I have long noticed that in stuff such as what I am posting below, Jews or Judaism are always excluded for some reason.  As if they're not still attacked more than most of the groups they do seem to care about. What happened in the march did not surprise me, it is just a shame that those that claim they are for inclusion and tolerance, pick and choose who is worthy of such.

 

Edited June 30, 2017 by OriZ

[IAMX 3,055]

None of these movements resemble the rights movements that fought for actual freedom. Now they're just a bunch of crybaby lefties.

[Dashinka 24,653]

2 minutes ago, IAMX said:

None of these movements resemble the rights movements that fought for actual freedom. Now they're just a bunch of crybaby lefties.

But they claim to be progressive.  Seems a bit regressive to me.

[OriZ 3,157]

20 minutes ago, IAMX said:

None of these movements resemble the rights movements that fought for actual freedom. Now they're just a bunch of crybaby lefties.

 

16 minutes ago, Bill & Katya said:

But they claim to be progressive.  Seems a bit regressive to me.

Once they start picking and choosing they lose any relevance or validity with me.

Edited June 30, 2017 by OriZ

[Dashinka 24,653]

6 hours ago, OriZ said:

 

Once they start picking and choosing they lose any relevance or validity with me.

I love to see how they are rebranding identity politics as "intersectionality".

[Dashinka 24,653]

For a show about nothing, everything seems to relate back to it.

 

 

[IAMX 3,055]

7 hours ago, Bill & Katya said:

I love to see how they are rebranding identity politics as "intersectionality".

Doing what the left does best when people reject their ideas.. throw tantrums.

[smilesammich 10,727]

14 hours ago, OriZ said:

This weekend, at a lesbian march in Chicago, three women carrying Jewish pride flags — rainbow flags embossed with a Star of David — were kicked out of the celebration on the grounds that their flags were a “trigger.” An organizer of the lesbian March told the Windy City Times that the fabric “made people feel unsafe” and that she and the other members of the lesbian March collective didn’t want anything “that can inadvertently or advertently express Zionism” at the event.

 

Laurel Grauer, one of the women who was ejected, said she’d been carrying that Jewish pride flag in the march, held on the Saturday before the city’s official Pride Parade, for more than a decade. It “celebrates my lesbian, Jewish identity,” she explained. This year, however, she lost track of the number of people who harassed her for carrying it.

I’m sorry for the women, like Ms. Grauer, who found themselves under genuine threat for carrying a colorful cloth falsely accused of being pernicious.

But I am also grateful.

Has there ever been a crisper expression of the consequences of “intersectionality” than a ban on Jewish lesbians from a lesbian March?

 

Intersectionality is the big idea of today’s progressive left. In theory, it’s the benign notion that every form of social oppression is linked to every other social oppression. This observation — coined in 1989 by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw — sounds like just another way of rephrasing a slogan from a poster I had in college: My liberation is bound up with yours. That is, the fight for women’s rights is tied up with the fight for gay rights and civil rights and so forth. Who would dissent from the seductive notion of a global sisterhood?

 

Well, in practice, intersectionality functions as kind of caste system, in which people are judged according to how much their particular caste has suffered throughout history. Victimhood, in the intersectional way of seeing the world, is akin to sainthood; power and privilege are profane.

By that hierarchy, you might imagine that the Jewish people — enduring yet another wave of anti-Semitism here and abroad — should be registered as victims. Not quite.

Why? Largely because of Israel, the Jewish state, which today’s progressives see only as a vehicle for oppression of the Palestinians — no matter that Israel has repeatedly sought to meet Palestinian claims with peaceful compromise, and no matter that progressives hold no other country to the same standard. China may brutalize Buddhists in Tibet and Muslims in Xinjiang, while denying basic rights to the rest of its 1.3 billion citizens, but “woke” activists pushing intersectionality keep mum on all that.

 

One of the women who was asked to leave the ####### March, Eleanor Shoshany Anderson, couldn’t understand why she was kicked out of an event that billed itself as intersectional. “The lesbian March is supposed to be intersectional,” she said. “I don’t know why my identity is excluded from that. I felt that, as a Jew, I am not welcome here.”

 

She isn’t. Because though intersectionality cloaks itself in the garb of humanism, it takes a Manichaean view of life in which there can only be oppressors and oppressed. To be a Jewish #######, let alone one who deigns to support Israel, is a categorical impossibility, oppressor and oppressed in the same person.

That’s why the march organizers and their sympathizers are now trying to smear Ms. Grauer as some sort of right-wing provocateur. Their evidence: She works at an organization called A Wider Bridge, which connects the L.G.B.T.Q. Jewish community in America with the L.G.B.T.Q. community in Israel. The organizers are also making the spurious claim that the Jewish star is necessarily a symbol of Zionist oppression — a breathtaking claim to anyone who has ever seen a picture of a Jew forced to wear a yellow one under the Nazis.

 

No, the truth is that it was no more and no less than anti-Semitism. Just read Ms. Shoshany Anderson’s account of her experience, which she posted on Facebook after being kicked out of the march.

 

“I wanted to be in public as a gay Jew of Persian and German heritage. Nothing more, nothing less. So I made a shirt that said ‘Proud Jewish lesbian’ and hoisted a big Jewish Pride flag — a rainbow flag with a Star of David in the center, the centuries-old symbol of the Jewish people,” she wrote. “During the picnic in the park, organizers in their official t-shirts began whispering and pointing at me and soon, a delegation came over, announcing they’d been sent by the organizers. They told me my choices were to roll up my Jewish Pride flag or leave. The Star of David makes it look too much like the Israeli flag, they said, and it triggers people and makes them feel unsafe. This was their complaint.”

 

She tried to explain that the star is the “ubiquitous symbol of Judaism,” and that she simply wanted “to be Jewish in public.” Then, she “tried using their language,” explaining “this is my intersection. I’m supposed to be able to celebrate it here.”

It didn’t work. Ms. Shoshany Anderson left sobbing. “I was thrown out of lesbian March for being Jewish,” she said. Just so.

For progressive American Jews, intersectionality forces a choice: Which side of your identity do you keep, and which side do you discard and revile? Do you side with the oppressed or with the oppressor?

 

That kind of choice would have been familiar to previous generations of left-wing Jews, particularly those in Europe, who felt the tug between their ethnic heritage and their “internationalist” ideological sympathies. But this is the United States. Here, progressives are supposed to be comfortable with the idea of hyphenated identities and overlapping ethnic, sexual and political affinities. Since when did a politics that celebrates choice — and choices — devolve into a requirement of being forced to choose?

 

Jews on the left, particularly in recent years, have attempted to square this growing discomfort by becoming more anti-Israel. But if history has taught the Jews anything it’s that this kind of contortion never ends well.

 

It may be wrong to read too much into an ugly incident at a single march, but Jews should take what happened in Chicago as a lesson that they might not be as welcome among progressives as they might imagine. That’s a warning for which to be grateful, even as it is a reminder that anti-Semitism remains as much a problem on the far-left as it is on the alt-right.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/27/opinion/im-glad-the-#######-march-banned-jewish-stars.html

 

I tend to agree with him. I have long noticed that in stuff such as what I am posting below, Jews or Judaism are always excluded for some reason.  As if they're not still attacked more than most of the groups they do seem to care about. What happened in the march did not surprise me, it is just a shame that those that claim they are for inclusion and tolerance, pick and choose who is worthy of such.

 

this is so absurd, why in the world would the star of david on a pride flag be a trigger? i was reading, trying to get to the gist of what went down and noticed that the orginal link was no longer available (not your link oriz). i found this update: http://chicagoist.com/2017/06/27/dyke_march_women_asked_to_leave_it.php. i don't agree with these women being ejected, but at least this shed's a little light on their reasoning behind it. a bit more than just the star of david being a trigger.

 

"####### March previously released a statement saying the women were asked to leave because the women "repeatedly expressed support for Zionism" (a controversial Israeli political ideology) "during conversations with Chicago ####### March Collective members." ####### March organizer Iliana Figueroa also told Chicagoist on Sunday afternoon that the women were asked to leave because their flags symbolized a threat (whether inadvertent or intentional) to Palestinians for some people at the march.

In this new statement, ####### March organizers say the women were ejected because they expressed "Zionist views that go directly against the march’s anti-racist core values"—in particular, by changing the wording of pro-Palestine chants during the march. The statement also shows that one of the women had texted with an organizer before the event to ask whether her flag would be welcome there, and she was told it would be:

The group in question was heard disrupting chants, replacing the word “Palestine” with “everywhere,” saying: “From everywhere to Mexico, border walls have got to go.” One of the individuals, Laurel Grauer, is the Regional Director of A Wider Bridge, an organization with ties to the Israeli government that was protested for pinkwashing at the Creating Change Conference in Chicago in 2016. It was later revealed that Laurel was aware of ####### March’s anti-Zionist position from pro-Palestine memes and art that were posted on the ####### March page, and was also aware of the fact that her flag could be interpreted as being at odds with that position. The night before, she contacted an organizer to ask if her flag would “be protested.” The organizer told her the flag was welcome, but reminded her that the space is one that supports Palestinian rights."

 

[OriZ 3,157]

19 minutes ago, smilesammich said:

this is so absurd, why in the world would the star of david on a pride flag be a trigger? i was reading, trying to get to the gist of what went down and noticed that the orginal link was no longer available (not your link oriz). i found this update: http://chicagoist.com/2017/06/27/dyke_march_women_asked_to_leave_it.php. i don't agree with these women being ejected, but at least this shed's a little light on their reasoning behind it. a bit more than just the star of david being a trigger.

 

"####### March previously released a statement saying the women were asked to leave because the women "repeatedly expressed support for Zionism" (a controversial Israeli political ideology) "during conversations with Chicago ####### March Collective members." ####### March organizer Iliana Figueroa also told Chicagoist on Sunday afternoon that the women were asked to leave because their flags symbolized a threat (whether inadvertent or intentional) to Palestinians for some people at the march.

In this new statement, ####### March organizers say the women were ejected because they expressed "Zionist views that go directly against the march’s anti-racist core values"—in particular, by changing the wording of pro-Palestine chants during the march. The statement also shows that one of the women had texted with an organizer before the event to ask whether her flag would be welcome there, and she was told it would be:

The group in question was heard disrupting chants, replacing the word “Palestine” with “everywhere,” saying: “From everywhere to Mexico, border walls have got to go.” One of the individuals, Laurel Grauer, is the Regional Director of A Wider Bridge, an organization with ties to the Israeli government that was protested for pinkwashing at the Creating Change Conference in Chicago in 2016. It was later revealed that Laurel was aware of ####### March’s anti-Zionist position from pro-Palestine memes and art that were posted on the ####### March page, and was also aware of the fact that her flag could be interpreted as being at odds with that position. The night before, she contacted an organizer to ask if her flag would “be protested.” The organizer told her the flag was welcome, but reminded her that the space is one that supports Palestinian rights."

 

And I quote from my OP:

 

That’s why the march organizers and their sympathizers are now trying to smear Ms. Grauer as some sort of right-wing provocateur. Their evidence: She works at an organization called A Wider Bridge, which connects the L.G.B.T.Q. Jewish community in America with the L.G.B.T.Q. community in Israel. The organizers are also making the spurious claim that the Jewish star is necessarily a symbol of Zionist oppression — a breathtaking claim to anyone who has ever seen a picture of a Jew forced to wear a yellow one under the Nazis.

 

So my guess is that has something to do with your post. I highly doubt they "repeatedly expressed support for zionism", and if they changed "Palestine" to everywhere - wth is wrong with that? If people are allowed to bring "palestine" into those marches(which they often do), why is someone else, then, not allowed to say everywhere, or Israel, or even zionism? Although it's not even certain they did the latter. And saying "zionist views that go directly against the march's anti-racist core values" is just laughable, sorry. Same old same old zionism is racism argument. The part in bold "The space is one that support Palestinians rights" - I'm sorry isn't everyone entitled to the same rights? As you yourself said, absurd. I say good on them for not letting them hijack this march and turn it into yet another Israel bashing one, at least while they were able to participate, if that's what they did.

Edited June 30, 2017 by OriZ

[smilesammich 10,727]

2 minutes ago, OriZ said:

And I quote from my OP:

 

That’s why the march organizers and their sympathizers are now trying to smear Ms. Grauer as some sort of right-wing provocateur. Their evidence: She works at an organization called A Wider Bridge, which connects the L.G.B.T.Q. Jewish community in America with the L.G.B.T.Q. community in Israel. The organizers are also making the spurious claim that the Jewish star is necessarily a symbol of Zionist oppression — a breathtaking claim to anyone who has ever seen a picture of a Jew forced to wear a yellow one under the Nazis.

 

So my guess is that has something to do with your post. I highly doubt they "repeatedly expressed support for zionism", and if they changed "Palestine" to everywhere - wth is wrong with that? If people are allowed to bring "palestine" into those marches(which they often do), why is someone else, then, not allowed to say everywhere, or Israel, or even zionism? Although it's not even certain they did the latter. And saying "zionist views that go directly against the march's anti-racist core values" is just laughable, sorry. Same old same old zionism is racism argument. The part in bold "The space is one that support Palestinians rights" - I'm sorry isn't everyone entitled to the same rights? As you yourself said, ridiculous. I say good on them for not letting them hijack this march and turn it into yet another Israel bashing one, at least while they were able to participate, if that's what they did.

i seriously don't understand how a gay pride parade would ever devolve into an israel bashing parade but, i do believe the women were informed that the organizers were committed to being inclusive of palestinians and they chose to ignore it. that being said, it was just two chicks. i don't see the big deal. or trigger, whatever.

[OriZ 3,157]

Just now, smilesammich said:

i seriously don't understand how a gay pride parade would ever devolve into an israel bashing parade but, i do believe the women were informed that the organizers were committed to being inclusive of palestinians and they chose to ignore it. that being said, it was just two chicks. i don't see the big deal. or trigger, whatever.

Many of them do. In fact, many of any parades that have to do with the left or "inclusion" do. And it was starting to - they were making chants about Palestine. It usually ends up going further than that. Being inclusive of Palestinians is not an issue and I'm sure the women had no problem with that nor did they try to shut up or eject any pro palestinians there, they were the ones who were being shut up. I think if the other people had the right to chant whatever they were chanting, these women were well within their rights to chant what they did. I don't see it as them ignoring anything or disrupting anything.

[IAMX 3,055]

1 minute ago, OriZ said:

Many of them do. In fact, many of any parades that have to do with the left or "inclusion" do. And it was starting to - they were making chants about Palestine. It usually ends up going further than that. Being inclusive of Palestinians is not an issue and I'm sure the women had no problem with that nor did they try to shut up or eject any pro palestinians there, they were the ones who were being shut up. I think if the other people had the right to chant whatever they were chanting, these women were well within their rights to chant what they did. I don't see it as them ignoring anything or disrupting anything.

The left are the worst illustrators of tolerance and inclusion. Just have an opposing view and you'll see the most worthless bigoted people.

 

This is often why lefties often find themselves unemployed or unable to find gainful employment, milking social services off the back of useful people. Nobody wants someone like that representing their company.

Edited June 30, 2017 by IAMX

[OriZ 3,157]

Just now, IAMX said:

The left are the worst illustrators of tolerance and inclusion. Just have an opposing view and you'll see the most worthless bigoted people.

I wouldn't generalize but I agree there are some on the left with tunnel vision. They only care about the issues they care about and everything else is null and void. Just like I said, they claim to be for inclusion, but rarely do you ever see anything to do with Jews - it's always muslims, blacks, hispanics, trans, gay, palestinians, etc. Jews don't matter to them so they're routinely omitted. 

[smilesammich 10,727]

5 minutes ago, OriZ said:

Many of them do. In fact, many of any parades that have to do with the left or "inclusion" do. And it was starting to - they were making chants about Palestine. It usually ends up going further than that. Being inclusive of Palestinians is not an issue and I'm sure the women had no problem with that nor did they try to shut up or eject any pro palestinians there, they were the ones who were being shut up. I think if the other people had the right to chant whatever they were chanting, these women were well within their rights to chant what they did. I don't see it as them ignoring anything or disrupting anything.

supporting palestine doesn't equal antisemitism. sorry. 

these women were informed before hand, but i guess saying that i don't think they should have been removed is enough.

[IAMX 3,055]

4 minutes ago, OriZ said:

I wouldn't generalize but I agree there are some on the left with tunnel vision. They only care about the issues they care about and everything else is null and void. Just like I said, they claim to be for inclusion, but rarely do you ever see anything to do with Jews - it's always muslims, blacks, hispanics, trans, gay, palestinians, etc. Jews don't matter to them so they're routinely omitted. 

Also, in cucked Europe, they routinely engage in anti-semitic demonstrations, as seen throughout Europe and in Europarl plus the UN. Seems they love regression too. Always funny watching the left support the most barbaric cultures, just wish they'd have the nuts to go to those people's land and protest about gay rights. #WhenLiberalFantasyMeetsIslamicReality

Edited June 30, 2017 by IAMX