We often see conservatives, and even White-advocates, citing the KKK as an example of unacceptable hate. “Sure, I’m a White-advocate, but it’s not like I’m the KKK!!”
A while back, I reviewed a history of the original KKK. You can find it here and here. It turns out, the Klan wasn’t as bad as they make it out to be, and there was a lot of deception going on, even 150 years ago, to make the Klan look bad.
I got to thinking about it, and it occurred to me that a hundred years from now, people will be saying the same things about the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and Sons of Liberty. None of them are actually “hate-groups,” and all of them have been subject to smear campaigns and lies from official sources. I know that Proud Boys, as a group, is not a White-supremacist organization. I won’t be around a hundred years from now to educate people about it; all they’ll have is “official sources” that state otherwise. The Proud Boys will have been transformed into the new Klan.
The real point I want to make here has nothing to do with these groups. It has to do with neo-Nazis and Jews – and yes, I’ve been writing a lot about this topic lately.
I’ve lost count how many times I’ve seen this argument:
The Jews have been expelled numerous times from European countries. Here’s a visual, courtesy of Wired:
Considering the fact that Jews have been expelled so many times, isn’t it reasonable to surmise that they’ve been doing something wrong? After all, in our own personal lives, when we meet somebody who nobody likes to have around, we assume that he’s a toxic person.
That’s the gist of the argument, and it seems like a reasonable one. In fact, I agree that we Jews have done some things wrong. We’re definitely not blameless – and yet, if you read my previous two posts, you’ll see that ignorant people are quick to draw erroneous conclusions from things they are unfamiliar with.
Today’s Orthodox Jews do some weird things. Centuries of exile, and countless rabbis, have yielded a body of tradition that daunting, complicated and often bizarre.
If today’s ignorant masses, in the form of neo-Nazis, interpret such traditions in the worst possible way, why would we assume otherwise about the ignorant masses of centuries past?
In this case, Jews are like the KKK or Proud Boys. Since we’re different, we’re easy targets, and people with little education and no desire to learn will attack us online. A few generations ago, they’d be coming at us with torches and pitchforks. Today, they take cheap shots at us on social media. It’s been pointed out that I can block them.
Yes, I can block them, and my life would be less stressful – but I know that somewhere, an unstable person is reading those posts, and since his life is already pitiful, he’ll attack a synagogue with a gun or a bomb. Those posts are precursors to incitement to violence. That’s why we should not ignore them.
While we’re on the topic, I’ll remind my readers that CRT is also a precursor to incitement to violence. CRT is worse, because it’s promoted by official, and well-funded, organizations.
We need to speak up against both CRT and anti-Jewish rhetoric.
