[Peace-discuss] Upcoming roundtable on Racism, anti-semitism

[David Green]

 https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1700575573515587&set=gm.1297388696943296&type=3&theater
A day after the brouhaha about a panel on socialism which I organized (sic), I received a FB invitation to this event on campus. The FB page makes it hard to see unless you click several times, but there are 10 people involved, 5 Jews, albeit a couple of whom may have something sensible to say. There are two blacks, one Arab, one Latina, and one gentleman with a distressingly WASP-sounding name.
There is a lot wrong with this event, and nothing at all right that I can perceive. It equates racism and anti-Semitism on campus, while in fact anti-Semitism is not a problem on this campus; that is to say, it is exactly absolute zero of a problem on this campus. But of course, the BDS movement is a mild "problem" on this campus.
Islamophobia is a problem on this campus. Historically, it has been a problem at the Program for Jewish Culture and Society, which is represented on this panel. But no matter, Islamophobia can be safely marginalized in the context of this "problem" as it is constructed by the make-up of this panel and the generally Zionist assumptions on this campus.
One of the panelists, Scott Gendell, clearly evidences the most virulent aspects of Zionist and anti-Palestinian propaganda, about which I've written on Mondoweiss (http://mondoweiss.net/2014/12/dissecting-predictable-necessary/). If racism deserves to be equally represented in panel discussions about racism on this campus, then here you have it.
Hillel is represented, but Students for Justice in Palestine is not; nor is Jewish Voice for Peace. Yes, Sayad Kashua may shed some light on the subject. But the context mitigates an incisive critique of the proceedings. It's this panel that is symptomatic of the problem, and the problem is not "anti-Semitism and racism on campus." It is repression of a variety of dissident perspectives on this campus, all evidence of underlying class issues. 
Steven Salaita has been a harsh critic of this brand of "multiculturalism" on campus. Perhaps someone should fly him in; the more the merrier.
But then again, the Salaita experience was never really about shedding much-needed light on Israel/Palestine as an actual real place. It was just a way of working out some differences about identity politics on campus.
These are serious, long-standing issues, nothing new. It's remarkable how little progress the "progressive" community has made in actually addressing these issues, either rhetorically or substantively.
David Green


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