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Recent titles of interest:

HOMO IRREALIS: Essays, by Andr Aciman. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.) In this collection, the author of Call Me by Your Name and other novels contemplates the life of the imagination, and the ability to hold competing realities simultaneously in mind.

FAUST, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Translated by Zsuzsanna Ozsvath and Frederick Turner, with illustrations by Fowzia Karimi. (Deep Vellum, paper, $15.95.) A new translation gives readers occasion to revisit the classic and timeless story of ambition and moral compromise.

DISPATCHES FROM THE RACE WAR, by Tim Wise. (City Lights, paper, $17.95.) Drawing on events from the killing of Trayvon Martin to the Black Lives Matter protests last summer, Wise calls to account his fellow white citizens and exhorts them to combat racist power structures.

VINELAND REREAD, by Peter Coviello. (Columbia University, paper, $20.) Coviello, an English professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, argues that Thomas Pynchons novel Vineland is an underrated masterwork of political comedy and humanism.

WRITING THE VIRUS, edited by Andrea Scrima and David Dario Winner. (Outpost19 Books, paper, $18.50.) Early in the pandemic, the literary journal StatORec invited writers to describe what they were going through. This anthology gathers 31 of their responses.

More than ever, Ive been using music as a buffer, when needed, against the outside world. In that vein, I finally cracked open TESTIMONY, Robbie Robertsons autobiography. A big fan of the Band, I was eager to learn more about the roots of the groups singular sound. As history, the book delivers. Sure, there is plenty of Dylan and the Big Pink section is especially strong but there is also lots of great stuff about obscure early episodes and encounters, musical and not, that helps illuminate the origins of songs that made characters like Virgil Caine and Crazy Chester indelible and illustrate how much hard work was involved. Still, I find Robertson less likable as the book proceeds (granted, likability is not a key rock n roll attribute) and sense a creeping defensiveness that is surely tied to his being just one side of the story. Levon Helm tells another in This Wheels on Fire. Thats next on my list.

Ed Shanahan, Metro reporter and senior staff editor

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New & Noteworthy, From Faust to Life in Lockdown - The New York Times

Walter Suza| Guest opinion columnist

My mother was the child of my Black grandfather and my grandmother, who had white ancestry. In preschool in rural Tanzania, I was surprised to hear other kids label my mother as mzungu, which is a Kiswahili word for white person. That word did not make sense because my mother was just mama to me.

In my early teen years, I began to realize the impact of the skin color label given to my mother. Other kids with darker skin labeled me soft because the color of my skin was lighter. This saddened me because all I wanted was a chance to play soccer with those kids.

I couldnt understand why I was labeled soft, because I was convinced I played soccer as hard as the other kids. In spite of the effort I put into soccer, I found myself waiting on the sidelines for one of the other kids to get tired so I would be allowed in the game.

When I was 19, I left Tanzania for Zimbabwe, where I faced more surprises about how skin color was used to categorize people. I arrived several years after Zimbabwes independence and witnessed segregation of Black and white neighborhoods, a remnant of racist policies in the former Southern Rhodesia.

I lived in a neighborhood for coloreds (people of mixed race) and attended a predominantly colored school. My Black schoolmates often asked me whether I was colored, which sounded odd to me, because I considered myself a kid just like them.

After my arrival in the United States in 2000, I encountered questions about skin color in college application forms. Questions such as, Are you Black or African American or Are you White made me wonder why they needed to know this on a college application.

I also heard on a regular basis words such as black sheep, black heart, black market, black book, black eye and so on. This made me wonder about the use of black in situations that had a more negative context.

This is how I learned that we live in a world that judges people based on their skin color. It was living in the United States that I was labeled the black guy and experienced the N-word for the first time.

Today, this reality makes me worry about my Black children experiencing discrimination because of the color of their skin.

In 1959, a white man named John Howard Griffin attempted to experience the reality of being Black in America. Black men told me that the only way a white man could hope to understand anything about this reality was to wake up some morning in a black mans skin, writes Griffin in the book Black Like Me.

Griffin took a drug that turned his skin black and found himself facing the grim reality of racism and loss of his privileges when his skin was white including having to deal with death threats.

Griffins experiment confirmed that racism starts with our perception of ones physical features such as skin color followed by unfavorable treatment of the victim.

Unfortunately, a large segment in our country denies that racism exists.

In the book White Like Me, Tim Wise writes: I would not be the white guy who would assume (Black people) were exaggerating, making things up, or fabricating the difficulties of their daily routine.

I agree. It would be wrong to question anyones experience with racism. And if we truly believe in the Declaration of Independence, we must also be willing to address our struggle with racism because it denies others their right to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

In addressing the issue of skin color and its contribution to racism, we must also be willing to consider other points of view.

First, although race has been primarily about skin color, at the genetic level, all humans share 99.9 percent of our genetic blueprint DNA.

Second, science also explains that black and white as colors are about absorption or reflection of light. We see an object as white when it reflects almost all light and black when it absorbs most of the light.

Third, if we dont agree with the science, perhaps we might agree with the spiritual principle that All men are created equal.

In other words, all people are shades of black and white.

In his I have a dream speech, Martin Luther King Jr. said, I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

I hope that America will realize that the skin we wear are gifts from our biological parents. We did not choose our parents. We all carry eternal innocence deep in our souls. That innocence connects us in our humanness.

You are just Black and white like me.

Walter Suza of Ames writes frequently on the intersections of spirituality, anti-racism and social justice. He can be contacted atwsuza2020@gmail.com.

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Walter Suza: We are all just Black and white like me - Ames Tribune

Several weeks ago, Donald Trump threatenedto blockadeNew York, New Jerseyand Connecticut, ostensiblyto protect the rest of the country from the coronavirus pandemic. Trump soon pivoted away from that position.

Most mainstreamobservers and other members of the American news media mocked Trump for his threats and took them (again) as evidence of his ignorance about the Constitution and the rule of law. ButTrump was testing norms and boundaries,with the goal of shattering them later.

Last week, DonaldTrump took the next step in his escalating war against democracy andthe rule of law,commanding his cult membersto"liberate"Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia from the "stay-at-home" public health measures that have been enacted in an effort to slow down the rate of infection and death from the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump's threats against state governors isa violation ofthe presidential oath of office. Legal scholars and other experts have also suggested thatDonald Trump's words of incitementcome close tothe definition of treason in Article III of the Constitution, "Levying war against the United States."

Mary McCord, a former acting assistant attorney general, addressed this in the Washington Post:

President Trump incited insurrection Friday against the duly elected governors of the states of Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia. Just a day after issuingguidancefor re-opening America that clearly deferred decision-making to state officials as it must under our Constitutional order the president undercut his own guidance by calling for criminal acts against the governors for not opening fast enough.

Trump tweeted, "LIBERATE MINNESOTA!" followed immediately by "LIBERATE MICHIGAN!" and then "LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!" This follows Wednesday's demonstration in Michigan, in whicharmed protestorssurrounded the state capitol building in Lansing chanting "Lock her up!" in reference to Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and "We will not comply," in reference to her extension of the state's coronavirus-related stay-at-home order. Much smaller and less-armed groups had on Thursday protested on the state capitol grounds inRichmond,Va., and outside thegovernor's mansionin St. Paul, Minn.

"Liberate" particularly when it's declared by the chief executive of our republic isn't some sort of cheeky throwaway. Its definition is "to set at liberty," specifically "to free (something, such as a country) from domination by a foreign power." It's an echo of the "Second Amendment remedies" rhetoric of the 2010 midterm election. It's clearly a violation of federalism principles, and it's quite possibly a crime underfederal law. And insurrection or treason against state government is a crime in Virginia, Michigan and Minnesota, as well as most states. Assembling with others to train or practice using firearms or other explosives for use during a civil disorder is also acrimeinmanystates. But the president himself is calling for just that.

Donald Trump's foot soldiers haveobediently followed their Great Leader's commands. By the hundreds, Trump's cult members have descended upon state capitals across the country. Their "protests" are actually staged events paid for and organized by individuals and groups connected to the family of Education Secretary Betsy DeVosand other major right-wing funders.

Nonetheless, these fake "protests" are an effective political tool because the mainstreamnews media, beaten down by the Republicans Party after many years of gaslighting and abuse, treat such dangerous buffoonery as legitimate reflections of the public mood rather than as extensions of the Trump administration'spsychological operations campaign.

At these "rallies" Trump's cultists proudly display symbols of their commitment, such as flags emblazoned with his name and white supremacist symbols ofrebellion and insurrection. Armed right-wing militia groups are also participating in thesestaged anti-"stay-in-place" protests. Many of the protesters have brandished assault rifles and other weapons.

White privilege takes many forms. Nonwhites and Muslims would neverbeallowed to behave in such a threatening manner. If hundreds of camouflage-wearing, heavily armed, black and brown people and/or Muslims (or "socialists," for that matter) gathered in state capitals across the country with the goal of threatening, intimidatingand inciting armed rebellion against state governments, police and other law enforcement agencies would have likely used lethal force.

Tim Wise, who is one of America's leading antiracism activists and scholars, and the author of such bestselling books as "White Like Me,""Dear White America"and "Under the Affluence," has described Donald Trump as a "human opioid" of white privilege, white rageand white racism.

In turn, Trump's supporters are eager drug addicts. They are evidentlywilling to risk their lives to show their love and support for him by attending his human coronavirus petri-dish rallies.

As part of an ongoing series of conversations here at Salon, I recently spoke with Tim Wise about what the coronavirus pandemicrevealsabout the deadly consequences of white privilege and other forms of social inequality in America. Wise also explains how Donald Trump, as a white man (and a Republican),benefits from a level of presumed competence and intelligence not afforded to black and brown people. Moreover, if Donald Trump were notwhitehe would long ago have been impeached and removed from office.

Wise also discusses how Nazis and other fascists and right-wing extremists are taking advantage of the coronavirus crisis to advance their war on America'smultiracial democracy.

You can also listen to my conversation with Tim Wise on my podcast "The Truth Report"or through the player embedded below.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

I took a walk yesterday and I was dutifully following the rule to stay six feet away from other people. I then had a realization: As a black man in America, I am already conditioned to having to obey all the new rules of social distancing forcedby the coronavirus pandemic. When I walk down the street, especially when it is dark outside, very often white people try to avoid me.

People of color have to deal with attributional ambiguity all the time in terms of trying to understand other people's behavior. What was that look? What was that clutching of the purse or the briefcase? Why did they get off the elevator when I got on it?Black and brown people know what it is like to be looked at by white people as carrying some type of contagion. For the most part gay white folks during the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic being a notable exception white folks are not used to being viewed as potential carriersof something awful.

White folks are not used to people of color moving away from them or looking at them funny. There are now many millions of people in American right now who perhaps for the first time in their lives are having a type of existential crisis.

They have to ask themselves, "If I go outside will I be safe? Can I go drivearound? Can I walk or jog around the neighborhood? Can I go to the store and be safe?" Now, those are alllegitimate questions in the middle of a pandemic.

But of course, the irony is that millions of Americans ask those same questions every day, with or without a virus breathing down their neck. People of color, especially black people, have to wonder, "Can I go for a jog around the neighborhood?" Why that question? Because black and brown people have to deal with the fact that someone in that neighborhood might call the police on them.

Can I just go driving around? Well, not if I'm a person of color because I may become a victim of racial profiling by the police and that can escalate tome being shot and killed or otherwise abused. Women must ask themselves about public space and where they can go safely because of the reality of sexual assault and rape culture.

The coronavirus is an opportunity for people with privilege,and American society as a whole,to broaden their empathy for others.

Will you have a job? Will you have health care? Will it be affordable? Are you going to die? These are the things that lots of people think about all the time. When this crisis is over, many Americans will still be thinking about those questions because of social inequality and how they are living it.

You have described Donald Trump as a "human opioid" of white privilege, racism and anger. Watching Trump's negligent and malicious response to the coronavirus, and the enduring love and support from his cult-like supporters, has proven the wisdom of your observation.If Donald Trump werea black man or a Latino or a woman he would have been removed from office several years ago.

Only white people, especially white men, are allowed to be as incompetent as Donald Trump and still remain in positions of power. Donald Trump and his administration's foot-dragging in response to the coronavirus was intended to keep his poll numbers up. It was intended to not scare the markets. It was intended to put a happy face on things, but all of that obviously delayed much-needed testing. It delayed the rollout of the economic package which just passed. As a practical matter, Trump's incompetence delayed getting money to people who desperately need it. And of course, Trump's incompetence delayed getting the masks, ventilatorsand other equipment that was needed to save lives.

Tens of thousands of white people are going to die because of Donald Trump's incompetence. And much of that incompetence and delay intaking the necessary steps to prepare the country to better deal with the virus was connected to his xenophobia and his racism, with his obsessions with China and the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border as somehow being responsible for the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, or a way of stopping it from coming here.

A good number of those people who are going to die are Trump's voters. It is very obvious that Donald Trump and his administration are willing to kill his own base of supporters in order to try to win re-election in 2020.

Why is there still so much shock and denial among the American people and the mainstream news media about the Trump regime's cruelty and malevolence? For example, Trump and his servants have been denying needed medical equipment to Democrat-controlled cities and other parts of the country. People are dying as a result of that decision. Trump and his inner circle have been profit-seeking and engaging in other corrupt behavior during the pandemic. Trump and his sycophants have consistently put Trump's re-election as being more important than the American people's lives.They want people to go back to work and risk death. None of this should be a surprise, given America's history of violence against nonwhite people. Why the cries of, "This is not who we are!" when in so many ways itis?

That can all be explained by the country's broken educational system. Obviously, most people really don't know the history of the United States. Moreover, they don't even know the most basic contours and realities of the way that this country has actually operated for most of its history.

It's also motivated reasoning. If we start with the premise that most people are decent, then that makes it harder to look into the face of America's ugliness. There is also the question of being implicated in that ugliness and injustice. Denying those facts makes it easier to function.

If you're white, especially, and if you're middle-class or above and you've got health care while other people do not, then you are implicated in an unjust system.

As James Baldwin said, "Once you acknowledge the truth, now you're on the hook."White folks really don't want to be on the hook. So it's easier to deny what all of our senses are telling us. Donald Trump is so bold with his racism and racial resentment that he makes it harder for white people to deny the reality of this country's past and present.

The Age of Trump and the coronavirus is another opportunity for white supremacists and other right-wing extremists and terrorists to engage inevil. The SPLC has documented a 50% growth in the number of so-called "white nationalist" groups in the United States between 2018and 2019. A white supremacist terrorist was plotting to blow up a hospital in Kansas City where coronavirus patients are being treated. Nazis have been caught planning to use the coronavirus as a biological weapon to kill Jews, Muslims, nonwhites, FBI agents and others. The news media haslargely been silent about these happenings.

Sothese Nazis are saying that they're going to go get coronavirus and then give it to Jewish people. Let's imagine for moment that a group of Muslims in this country were caught plotting that they were going to do the same thing to Jewish people or the FBI.

They would all have been rounded up. It would be on the news constantly. If a person of color had threatened to blow up that hospital in Kansas City, it would have been on the news 24/7. By largely ignoring these stories about Nazis and other white supremacists and right-wing extremists, the American news media is allowing these groups to flourish. The coronavirus quarantine is necessary for public safety, but it is also an opportunity for far-right extremists to radicalize more people, especially young people online who are not in school and participating in other activities.

Many of these right-wing extremists are "accelerationists" who want civilization to collapse. They are waiting for society to fall apart. They want America and the West to run out of food. They also want to target the country's infrastructure. The mainstream news media is underreporting and therefore diminishing that very real threat during the coronavirus crisis.

Let's engage in a thought experiment: Ifwhite folks had realized in the 1960s that racism and white supremacy hurts them too, what would America look like today? Specifically, if white Americans had had such an epiphany,how would the country be positioned to respond to the coronavirus pandemic right now?

Many things would be different in the United States and the world. Of course, there would be some people still locked in the cult mentality of racism. They would not change. But in terms of positive changes, there would be a more robust social welfare system than the piecemeal one that exists today with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. The Great Society was greatly limited by anti-black animus and racism.

The social democracy that the New Deal tried to create would also be broader and more inclusive, and therefore much stronger and more resolute in the present and future. All the federal programs that white people love, such as the GI Bill and FHA and VA home loan programs which basically created the white American middle class, would have been expanded to more fully include black and brown Americans.

The United States would also have a much better and more robust public health care system if white racism and racial resentment had not been used by conservatives and those allied with them to gut the government's infrastructure and the very idea that government can do good in the world.

Especially worth highlighting in this moment of fake right-wing "populism" is how the pain that working-class white people have been experiencing in the last 50 years about their jobs, the economyand their lives more generallywould have been greatly limited in a true multiracial social democracy. There are many positive changes which would have made for a better, more affluent, prosperous, healthyand safe American society, if not for the power of white supremacy.

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Tim Wise on Trump, the coronavirus and the pandemic of ...

One of several signs which hang in Elizabeth Hall, each a response to the white nationalist flyers recently posted and then removed. (Joshua Wineholt / The Signpost) Photo credit: Signpost Archives

The 22nd Annual WSU Diversity Conference was held virtually Oct. 1 and 2. The theme focused on connections and disconnections in society with oppressed populations.

There was an opening keynote presentation by Pepper Glass, an associate sociology professor at WSU, who has published research on many topics such as racial inequality and social movements.

There were several sessions and presentations given by WSU faculty and people who work around Ogden. The closing keynote presentation was from Tim Wise, a public speaker who goes around high school and college campuses to talk about systemic racism and how to dismantle it.

According to the diversity programs website, the events were chosen with intent to explore ways and opportunities where we can align what we say with what we do, and look for the connections or disconnects that allow things to happen.

One of the discussion events, Being a Person of Color in 2020, was presented by JuanCarlos Santisteban and Greg Noel, who are both counselors at the WSU Counseling & Psychological Services Center.

Noel says the focus of the panel discussion was on the social climate of 2020, and then looking at that climate from the lens of Black, Indigenous and people of color.

Participants were encouraged to share their experiences about everything that has happened so far in 2020.

Greg and I both believe that conversing about these things is how we start our healing, and having conversations about this is what helps create understanding, clarity and eventually unity because it brings us all together, Santisteban said.

Participants shared their experiences and then gave advice to one another throughout the discussion.

Other topics in the discussion were engaging with one another, showing up with one another in spaces, discrimination, being your authentic self, being an ally, empathy and learning and growing.

The more we create these spaces where we can have these conversations, thats where were going to gain understanding and were going to start to see each other and see each others hearts, Santisteban said. At the end of the day our hearts all pump the same way.

At the end of the discussion, Santisteban encouraged participants to continue tapping into their courage to continue having these conversations.

This is how were going to heal, understand and create unity by continuing to have these conversations, Santisteban said.

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Starting conversations at the 2020 Diversity Conference - The Signpost

My Prior Experience With Ethnic Studies in CA

Four years ago, I was still a budding student at Cleveland Charter High School in Los Angeles, California. As a graduate of the distinguished CORE magnet program in humanities, I was a proud student of interdisciplinary courses, ranging from ethnic studies, gender and sexuality studies, philosophy, sociology, and more. My high school education was certainly unique for its time, which Im both grateful for and concerned by. If I knew then what I know now, I would have been steadfast to reform my ethnic studies curriculum to be more inclusive of my Jewish identity. In fact, many more minority students may have difficulty reforming theirs, if they arent equipped to shape state proposals for CA Ethnic Studies curriculum as it is being standardized right now.

Not only did my high school education significantly shape my views about the world, but they also informed my relationship with myself, my people, and my culture. As an Israeli-American Jew and Zionist, learning about terms and methods of social justice in academia forced me to dive into the complex history of various minorities in America. Furthermore, with my many identities, it forced me to look inward and question my place within the fabric of America and the world at large. Lets explore some of the controversial experiences I faced that could have been prevented had my education been more transparent and inclusive.

Imposing Whiteness and Downplaying Antisemitism, Past & Present

Hefty readings, lectures, and conversations on the systematic oppression of Black Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, Latino Americans, and South Asian/Middle Eastern/Arab/North African (SAMEAN) Americans dominated discourse particularly in my junior years race unit. I cherished learning about it. Curriculum on the gradual integration of Irish, German, Italian, and other Euro-Americans into white society also was part of the program, but this is where my identity was often left between.

Jewish representation was frequently discussed under the lens held to Euro-American integration into the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant majority. It was confined to an Ashkenormative approach, where the diasporic European Jewish (Ashkenazi) history of my dads family was told yet reduced to a story of gradual assimilation and a success of almost no hurdles. The Sephardi Moroccan-Israeli story of my mothers family was simply not discussed, nor was that of any other Jew of color. This was a convenient structure which was encouraged and exacerbated by a retired faculty member who returned to volunteer teaching periodically, declaring that antisemitism is no longer an issue, decades after the Holocaust. If I knew then, what I know now, I would have been able to respond to this teacher with confidence.

Contrary to her bias, we know today in 2020 that nearly 60 percent of Californian students my age and younger have no knowledge that 6,000,000 Jews were murdered at the hands of Nazi Germany (nonetheless, for not being white natives of Europe) directly contributing to the preservation of antisemitic tropes and notions that Jews comprise the peak of the privileged. Im sure that these students were just as ignorant on the diversity of the Jewish people and the genealogical and cultural Levantine ties we share with each other. As ignorance about Jewish people prevails and white supremacists continue to terrorize our Jewish communities at synagogues, rallies, cultural centers, universities, and so forth, our story of continued struggle for acceptance must also be included in ethnic studies and taught to future generations of Americans.

In the same breath, while discounting the lasting role of violent antisemitism, disproportionate antisemitic hate crimes, and institutionalized Jew-hatred via biased education, this faculty member would also vent about Jewish financial success amid the generational trauma and systemic racism against other marginalized minorities. It instinctively felt like a reductionist dichotomy of oppressor and oppressed imposing both whiteness where it was conditionally granted to us and revoked at seconds-notice. This was clearly antisemitism to me, amid due representation for others, but because of that phenomenon of emphasizing justice (without Jews) the very idea of accountability was squarely ignored by this teacher and her colleagues in the classroom.

Erasing the Ethnic Dimension of Jewish Identity

In another significant instance, I can vividly recall one of my ninth grade teachers proclaiming during a sudden discussion of antisemitism that Honey, Jews are not a race. She proceeded, Jews are a religion. I have Jewish friends. At the time, I knew deep inside that were not a separate race, but looking around the room at other speechless Jewish peers, I had a hard time mustering up the courage to explain that we are an ethnic and religious people, similar to Armenian and Hindu Americans. She may have had good intentions, but like a colorblind optimist, this instructor stifled conversation surrounding how to combat the way Jews are treated, and even how we manifest our peoplehood.

While this error was later acknowledged by another teacher in class two years later, one can imagine how stumped Jews like myself felt seeking solidarity, as peers racialized us and simultaneously stripped us of any claim to ethnicity. If you cant name it, you cant shame it and if I had known then what I know now, I could have empowered Jews of my generation to speak for ourselves before an authority figure could distort the narrative.

Overlooking the Antisemitism of Anti-Racist Authors & Speakers

Getting into the particular content of my ethnic studies curriculum, it was not even an afterthought that various authors of assigned readings and book titles had an avid track-record of antisemitism, including anti-Israel expression. So often, we just had no idea until we read the content ourselves. Sparsely was it acknowledged by my teachers that Karl Marx, St. Augustine of Hippo, and F. Scott Fitzgerald authors of Western ideological canons or modern literature expressed antisemitism in their writings.

However, never was it spoken that Alice Walker, African American acclaimed author of our assigned book, The Color Purple, had endorsed antisemitic conspiracy theorists and even propelled her own anti-Jewish poetry. The contribution of this distinguished author to our understanding of the African American experience, including the bitter legacy of slavery is critical. However, Walkers antisemitic conspiracy theories must also be addressed. Her narrow-minded bashing of Israels existence and stripping of Palestinian agency (amid intransigence and bigoted incitement of Palestinian leaders to anti-Jewish violence), affirmed the moral failure of my school programs unquestioning endorsement.

Nor was it shared in classroom activities that some of the civil rights leaders we were taught to glorify and follow had conflated the Jewish people with their deepest enemies. It took some news headlines, years after graduation, for me to understand how these figures felt about people like me. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, one of the most prolific anti-apartheid activists who I campaigned for in a class South African mock election, had uttered support for terrorist organization Hamas to the detriment of Jewish (and Arab) civilian life.

Not a single word of comfort or nuance was provided by my teachers when Tim Wise, author of White Like Me and anti-racist speaker entrepreneur, spoke to my entire program class (an annual program expense) ultimately to invoke his paternal Jewish ancestry, tokenize himself, and virtue-signal about how Israel is (unilaterally) oppressing the Palestinians. Wises support for the B-D-S movement also proved concerning much later than I would realize. BDS is a hate campaign that has established itself globally for the past two decades in tandem with organizations responsible for international Jewish civilian murder, like Hamas and the PFLP, under the false brand of non-violence and social justice.

Likewise, it was completely out of hand for my 12th grade teacher in digital humanities to randomly assert before my class that the worlds only Jewish state composed a lingering form of colonialism and apartheid, during a lecture on Algerian literary reflections of French colonialism and existentialism all while staring me (a proud Israeli-American) dead in the eye and silencing any response. Amid clear historical distinctions between Israeli democracy and South African apartheid, this inappropriate and slanderous comment created a moment of discriminatory intimidation I will never forget.

The connection between my curriculum and the air of anti-Jewish hostility produced on campus was remarkable. Microagressions cut deep over time, undetected or even peddled by non-Jewish peers. However, the antisemitic dogwhistles and even overt antisemitism patched together throughout our studies as an example of what American society has historically been, was often there to see for all. Jewish students shrugged and became desensitized. Our non-Jewish friends took note at our complacency, and likewise, just moved on.

Abusing Intersectionality to Homogenize Diverse Experiences & Alienate

The deliberate and irredeemable criminalization of Israel in each of the aforementioned settings of authoritative education was no less than the criminalization of my identity etched in stone and the minds of my peers. This is just my impressionable high school experience not my college experience at UCLA, where in a friends ethnic studies lecture, the Jewish community was conflated with our white supremacist killers for our majority support of Jewish self-determination. We were lucky to have acted then, urging our Jewish peers to snap out of complacency, organizing more effectively to make a broad-reaching difference with a series of demands to our administration and Title VI cases, of which I have been a proud part of.

Across the board, many instructors in my home state have taken the legal philosophy of intersectionality originally intended to address the nexus of bigotry that people with multiple oppressed identities face and abused the concept to create a politicized discourse of uniformity among different struggles that oppressed communities face. They have homogenized diverse experiences ranging from Native American genocide, to Japanese internment, and the making of Palestinian refugees as a pretense for selectively alienating or excluding entire communities of color that do not fit their paradigm including Mizrahi Jewish refugees and their descendants (like myself). This disparity has been noted by scores of coalitions for comprehensive ethnic studies curriculum, namely JIMENA, the AJC, Amcha Initiative, JCRC, Alliance for Constructive Ethnic Studies, and many more organizations.

This gap includes a lack of education as well on other indigenous MENA minorities, such as Kurds, Copts, Assyrians, Armenians, Imazighen, and more, who, in their homelands, embody oppressed minorities under a non-white (and non-Western), Arab regional hegemony. These facts transcend simplistic formulas of power propelled by an inequitable ethnic studies curriculum, which omits the experiences of minorities in other parts of the world (and in diaspora in CA) for which representation and nuance is so crucial for sustainability.

Taking Action Today For A Better Tomorrow

My experience with California ethnic studies prior to its current mandate (AB-1460) is just a drop in the ocean of what institutional marginalization Jewish minority students have encountered on campuses nationally in the past several years. Its not about what I knew then anymore, its about now.As the California Department of Education (CDE) finalizes its official required ethnic studies curriculum with skewed and problematic sources, modeled for dozens of states to come, its no longer an option to grieve over the past we have to mobilize our community and demand that our voices, histories, contributions, and representation be included for our future.

Sign the petition now to ensure that the Jewish and Israeli-American voice is heard and that no bias or discrimination against our community is included by the CDE.Share the voices of Jewish students with Include Our Voices on Instagram to spread the conversation. Email the CA Dept. of Education to secure our future inclusion in the fabric of America and build relationships with your local school board members. Leave a thank-you messageto the office of CA Governor Newsom for withholding his signature from AB-331s hasty and biased ethnic studies proposal and for ensuring more time and inclusivity.Lastly, share this article to keep this momentum going and educate others to positively shape years to come.

Disclaimer: the views expressed in this blog are the authors own and do not reflect that of his employer, the IAC.

Originally posted here:
If I Knew Then What I Know Now: A Demand for Ethnic Studies Representation - The Times of Israel