Let’s play a quick game. We’ll call it How Did Linda Sarsour React To…?
First question: How did Linda Sarsour react to Alyssa Milano’s criticism of her refusal to denounce Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan‘s anti-Semitic, homophobic, and transphobic statements.
Answer: Posting this article attacking Alyssa Milano and minimizing the antisemitism of Louis Farrakhan.
https://www.facebook.com/linda.sarsour/posts/10157081075230572
This moment, with Alyssa Milano, is exactly the type of thing black women were expecting. Alyssa is acting in accordance with the tradition of white women who use the labor of women of color when it’s convenient for them, and then use their power to trash those women when it becomes more expedient. Without being invited to speak at all, Alyssa brought up a 7 month old controversy in an attempt to force women of color to do exactly what she wants them to do. Yet these things weren’t a problem for her last month, when she was posting pictures of herself in D.C. protesting Kavanaugh, at demonstrations organized in large part by Women’s March.
We must be free to ask questions and offer criticisms of each other, but it matters greatly how these questions and criticisms are framed, and who they really serve. When you attempt to put people in situations where their only option is to behave exactly as you prescribe, that is an attempt to dominate. When misinformation is being spread, when someone’s character is being attacked, it prevents dialogue and understanding because it robs them and their allies of the chance to respond from a place that is anything other than defensive. It takes away our power to speak our truth as truth — only to say “but that’s not true”.
The demand to denounce Farrakhan may seem logical and even simple, but is it? Certainly his words are anti-Semitic, homophobic and misogynist, and obviously that is incompatible with our clearly stated values and principles. This is where white people stop, like this is the whole story, front to back.
If you spend any time in the poorest urban neighborhoods — which most white people do not even drive through — you see men in suits and bowties. Since the 1980s, when the crack epidemic and the War on Drugs made these neighborhoods literal war zones, the Nation of Islam has provided a stabilizing presence, reducing violence and providing alternatives for young men. Even Chicago’s first Jewish mayor, Rahm Emanuel, said in 2015 that the Nation of Islam had a role to play in reducing violence in the city.
If you spend any time working inside of prisons — which most white people will never even see — you would also observe the Nation of Islam providing services and support to black people who are incarcerated. Their prison ministry is focused on people getting out and becoming productive members of the black community, often through roles in providing security and peacekeeping.
Now, the Minister Farrakhan has said a lot of hateful things about white people, too, but I have never felt unsafe around the Nation of Islam. One reason is because, as I’ve stated above, I understand their self-appointed role to be one of protecting and securing dangerous environments, and in truth, they have equally protected my white body from harm. The second reason is a hypothetical, but it’s important to state: IF anyone in the Nation of Islam were to try and hurt me, our society is already set up in a way that I know that person would receive maximum punishment. Black men who hurt white women are most likely of all people to be sentenced to death.
All of this isn’t to say that hate speech doesn’t matter. It does. But white supremacists are not joining the Nation of Islam, not now nor ever. And because of their proximity to power in our society — literal access to the highest office in the nation — real white supremacists are who we all need to be focused on, together. As Tim Wise insightfully writes, there is a history here. “This shifting of attention from right-wing, white bigotry and anti-Semitism to Farrakhan is a predictable pivot… And it’s one about which most white folks don’t know very much, but about which black folks certainly do. It’s a history of white people telling black people who their ‘legitimate’ leaders and spokespeople are, or should be, and who among them is illegitimate and needs to be rejected.”
Alyssa Milano is calling for this specific kind of performative outrage, making a public statement condemning a Black man. This demand will have no impact on curbing anti-Semitism, neither in the Nation of Islam nor in our society. In conceding to her demand, the roughly 50,000 people who follow Farrakhan, plus the thousands more who work with the NOI in their communities, will also see themselves as denounced, which will have quite the opposite impact. Farrakhan will never change, but if we want the members of Nation of Islam to be more open to different points of view, then having people like Tamika Mallory — who has very clearly organized a movement that is at odds with his views — in the space as a leader is an important liberalizing influence.
Alyssa Milano and all the white women lined up behind her are actually enforcing the power of white supremacy through their misguided attempt to challenge hate speech.
Second question: How did Linda Sarsour react to terrorists firing over 400 rockets at Israeli men, women and children?
Answer: By attacking Israel for going after the terrorists, and justifying the rocket fire.
https://www.facebook.com/linda.sarsour/posts/10157086873715572
In the meantime, the game Sarsour is playing is called Let’s Pretend I Love Jews When I Truly Hate Them.
