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Pro-Palestinian brownshirts try to break up meeting on local community organizing
By adamg on Tue, 06/27/2006 - 8:02pm
Mister Goat reports on a bunch of pro-Palestinian protesters trying to break up a meeting/celebration called to promote local racial and economic justice, by the Jewish Organizing Institute:
... Every protester besides the guy with the sign was white, and they were now shouting down a Black community leader. What's more, a white guy outside, his face pressed against the window, was shouting that (black voting-rights activist) Ron (Bell) was racist. I must say, if you've never heard a small group of white men heckle a Black community leader for "racism," you've never seen self-righteousness. ...
Shai Sachs was there as well:
... The neo-Nazis brownshirt white supremacists who think that every Jewish group is part of some kind of oppressive international regime? And who threaten and attempt to silence our African American brothers and sisters with physical intimidation?
Drown the bastards out.
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Comments
Thanks, but a disagreement
First off, thanks for the promotion, Adam! It's the first time that I've been featured on Universal Hub, and I appreciate it. I feel like I've been selected for an anthology. :)
I do have to say, while I know that you took it from Shai's blog, I have to object to the use of the term "brownshirts" in the headline, as well as Shai's direct comparison of the protesters to neo-Nazis. In addition to treading dangerously around Godwin's Law, it's simply not accurate.
What you had last night was a half-dozen self-righteous men, all but one of them white, fixated on one issue. Their behavior was racist, and their willingness to disrupt a Jewish event and demonize one group there (which had one representative sitting at a table) was anti-Semitic. I use that term guardedly, as I believe that it's crucial not to equate pro-Palestinain activism with anti-Semitism. But these folks crossed the line in their brazenness, their singling out, and their rhetoric.
But that does not make them neo-Nazis. There are, sadly, plenty of neo-Nazi groups active in the region and the country; I don't want to post links and give them web traffic, but they include the National Alliance, the National Socialist Movement, and various others. Let's not cloud the picture by tossing around terms like "Nazi" casually.
A few other notes
Sorry to keep writing, but a few other minor notes. "Jewish/black volunteer meeting" actually isn't an accurate description of the event. It was an event meant to enable people to learn more about local community organizing efforts, which was put together by the Jewish Organizing Initiative. To see the event's website, visit http://tipsfromtheroots.awardspace.org.
I also must question Shai's assertion that the disruptors "threaten and attempt to silence our African American brothers and sisters with physical intimidation." While the disruptors' upstaged and shouted at an Africa-American speaker, I know of no threats or physical intimidation, and I was sitting pretty close to the front where it went down. That's not to say that I didn't miss something, but if so, I'd like to hear more details. But we shouldn't exaggerate here. What happened last night was obnoxious enough when we keep strictly to the facts.
Thanks for the clarifications
I've changed the headline - I was trying to show it wasn't just a Jewish meeting, but yeah, my description wasn't particularly good.
As for "brownshirts," certainly, let's not trivialize the Holocaust by endless Nazi references (and, yes, I say that as somebody who once referred to some nut defacing cars in JP as a "parking Nazi"). But at the same time, let's not forget that the Nazis didn't just appear out of nowhere to start their mass murders. They started with small steps, such as sending guys with brown shirts to disrupt meetings of other parties, sometimes with their fists. Obviously, no physical violence occurred the other night, and maybe I'm getting paranoid in my old age, but it does seem like we're entering a new age of anti-Semitism (more so in Europe, I guess).