All week, I was excited to write a scathing column about DeSean Jackson. Then Howard Dean got in the way.
For those of you who limit your news intake to pandemics and presidential politics, let me take a moment to catch you up. Jackson seems to be a fairly silly man who is paid a great deal of money to play professional football. Earlier this month, he highlighted a quote some attribute to Adolf Hitler and praised Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan on his Instagram account. A few days, later Jackson posted somewhat of an apology, explaining, “My post was definitely not intended for anybody of any race to feel any type of way — especially the Jewish community. What I posted … I definitely didn’t mean it to the extent that you guys took it.”
We don’t know yet whether Jackson’s commentary was an example of reflexive social media positioning or premediated bigotry (or both). But his thoughtless behavior reminds us of the deep and widening breach between American Jews and other racial and ethnic communities that is becoming even more important in the context of the current national conversation about racial justice and the role of the Jewish community.
Less predictable and more puzzling is the conduct of Dean, an equally silly man who was once the governor of Vermont and a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004. Dean resurfaced recently when he chose to attack the American Jewish Committee (AJC) for its perceived sin of naming a Christian woman to serve as that organization’s director for combating anti-Semitism.
This is the tweet Dean sent: “Unfortunately Christians don’t have much a reputation for anything but hate these days thanks to Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell and other Trump friends. AJC gets no points for this.”
https://twitter.com/GovHowardDean/status/1282013403238871040?s=20
The woman in question, Holly Huffnagle, is a friend of mine. I met her a few years ago, after I had concluded my brief tenure as director of the AJC’s Los Angeles region, and I advocated strongly for her to be hired. When we first met, she explained to me that her Christian religious beliefs had motivated her to join the fight against anti-Semitism; she persuasively argued that defeating this threat would require a cooperative effort between people of different faiths and ethnic origins.
If we accept help only from those who agree with us on every other topic, we are needlessly isolating ourselves and undermining our efforts to succeed.
I did not ask her about her positions on issues such as abortion rights and marriage equality, nor did I ask if she knew Franklin Graham or Jerry Falwell. To this day, I do not know the answers to those questions, nor do I care. The fight against anti-Semitism requires support from across the religious, racial and political landscape. If we accept help only from those who agree with us on every other topic, we are needlessly isolating ourselves and undermining our efforts to succeed.
The progressive Jewish advocacy group IfNotNow, which promotes an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, takes a different perspective. “We welcome allies in the fight for Jewish safety — but it should be obvious that white Christians should not be leading [a] Jewish organization’s advocacy against anti-Semitism,” IfNotNow tweeted. “The AJC continues to show how out of touch it is with American Jews.”
There may be a conversation to be had about whether or not the AJC is out of touch with American Jews. But let’s save that one for another day. In the meantime, it is bewildering that both Dean and IfNotNow would castigate the organization for asking a Christian woman to lead a multireligious, multiethnic, multi-partisan fight against anti-Jewish hatred.
Some other time, we can discuss why IfNotNow specifically focused its dismay on “white Christians” and whether it would find a Christian of color more acceptable in this role. For now, let us simply regret that the polarization of American politics has become so intense that domestic partisan divisions now can undermine our community’s fight against anti-Semitism.
How unfortunate, how ironic, and how counterproductive. And how utterly, completely and overwhelmingly sad.
Dan Schnur teaches political communications at UC Berkeley, USC and Pepperdine. He hosts the weekly webinar “Politics in the Time of Coronavirus” for the Los Angeles World Affairs Council & Town Hall.
