The worriers love to say
”Jews are the canary
in the coal mine”
as if we are always
united.
Pragmatists understand
that if a people never
in agreement
on any thing
all of a sudden
agree
on one thing
it carries a high degree
of certainty,
say, it certainly means
something.
For years, I meditated alone. Exercised my breath solo. It was my time to be myself with my self. It was challenging. And annoying. It was time in solitude for a solitary figure. I needed the time alone to do the breath work and I needed the meditative practice to be apart, resting and recharging ahead of further social endeavors.
In that time I met and connected with many beautiful souls, passing by on their own journey into the wonderful. The more verbose among them loved to talk about holding space, holding a small circle of trust, of community, even if only in passing. It was only much later that the trees melted from view and I finally saw the forest — the space.
We do not hold much space for others, not in our schools, not in our jobs, not on the road, and only rarely on planes. The skies used to be my favorite place to connect before seat-back screens, smartphones, and iPads displaced human connection as the best use of our time on planes. It felt like a last refuge, and it, too, was lost.
And then, in pushing my partner to pursue an active interest in her own practice, I ended up in my first breathworks workshop. Once again, I was told space would be held. I should be free to tear, cry, laugh, or fart. Whatever spirit possessed me, let it in and out, like Frank Herbert suggested we all do with fear.
It took almost a week for the connection to click. We have outsourced the emotional, psychological, and intellectual space we once held for once another to professionals who cannot hope to provide the individualized treatments we need, because they do not travel with us over time, through lives that are complex and must not be reduced to one party’s retelling from a fallible and impressionable mind, often victim to its own flaws, environmental factors, and the body’s own whims.
We have outsourced communal support to certified bureaucrats who hold space for us because we pay them. They serve a valuable role given the breakdown of our society and our inability to show up for one another because the rat race drowns the slowest runners. But our slowest runners are drowning, and we should stop to consider how we failed them, what role we play in our friends and family falling behind in a race rigged in favor of those with multilevel advantages, whether by birth, circumstance, or both.
We need to start holding space for one another. Every lasting civilization has known the community is only as strong as our weakest link, because we are all connected. Every civilization has placed exile as a punishment worse than death, because being alone, cast out from your people, is a festering wound that can never be cleaned.
We need to hold space for one another, or there will be no space left, for anyone.
Installation at Burning Man
Please. Pretty, pretty, pretty please stop sharing outrage at her juvenile tome, the book that should have been written by a person who thrives on bridge-building, not attention-seeking. I have no intention to link to it or to any review of it because we have built indiscriminate tools that lack the ability to perceive when you are sharing honestly or ironically or just wanted to an easy dunk.
And this book is bad. I don’t need to read it to know. I’ve read enough of her columns and seen enough appearances to know that she will only change when it is personally profitable to her and her brand. As long as the controversy remains positively correlated with her career trajectory, she has no incentive to drop the act.
Maybe it isn’t an act. To that I can’t attest, having never met her or any of her friends or close colleagues. But, judging by the image she consciously projects, her foray into the nightmare-inducing world of antisemitism will be shallow, reductive, and understood and explained only through her guarded vantage point.
Her built-in biases block the very possibility that the book would be enlighten its reader on anything other than the mind of its author. And while there is most definitely a market for such books, their titles usually aren’t a clarion call for fighting one of the oldest and most persistent hatreds in the world.
Again, I’d rather not link to any of her work, but if you think I’m being too hard on her, please spend less than five minutes reading one of the articles that pops up when you google “Australia Christmas Island detention” and compare what you just learned with Bari’s dispatch for the New York Times from that country.
A year ago, a popular writer on Twitter took umbrage when another was upset that President Donald Trump’s separation and detention camps were compared to concentration camps. This was long before Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez riled up the Twittosphere with her similar remarks. But this writer, instead of focusing on the many other apt comparisons, suggested that the situation could be compared to Gaza instead.
It was an easy way to score points against two apparent ideological enemies, Republicans and a certain segment of American Jews.
But that was misreading of the original criticism’s intent. Asking activists not to compare the horrific conditions of the Trump camps to the nausea-inducing murder sites run by Nazi soldiers was not intended to support the inhumane Republican policy. It was a reminder that there were no elected officials in the Reich who were able to demand access to Treblinka, with the explicit purpose of criticizing the Final Solution. But Democratic members of Congress can and do visit the detention centers.
So, it’s not that the comparison makes me uncomfortable, it is that its misuse is treading on the unmarked mass graves of my family for likes.
You want to compare to Israel's abhorrent theft of Yemeni children from their refugee parents in the fifties? Go right ahead.
But we don't even know the names of my father's uncles because the Nazis not only murdered them, they erased them out of existence. How many Germans protested these decisions? Not millions, like in America. How many German legislators worked against the regime?
This is not comparable to the Nazi reign of terror. You can criticize tragic policies without exaggerating and stepping on the trauma of others. But if we keep cheapening historical sins to beat the drums louder, the people who need to be convinced will not listen once the opposition is being silenced by force.
Maybe, in retrospect, calling Romney a Nazi was not only unhelpful, but steeled Republican resolve against criticism of Trumpian antics on the campaign trail.
Maybe, if we rely on perspective and not hyperbole, we can find our way out of these dark times, together.
Because divide and conquer is their strategy. And it is working flawlessly.
As the story continues to morph into a Beltway and Brooklyn bonanza, the forest being missed for all the very shallow trees in direct line-of-sight of journalists and tweet-happy politicians talking about Representative Rashida Tlaib’s diplomatic drama is the exhausting MO of the New York Times and other such actors who thrive off the pseudo-event and prefer it to the labor-intensive work of reporting and contextualizing current events.
Since the infuriating journalistic malpractice better known as the final months of the 2016 election, criticism of the New York Times and its inability to handle the task of standing up for the truth during a sustained systemic assault on our shared reality has become almost a shorthand joke.
BUT HER EMAILS!
And yet the crisis at the Times didn’t start in 2016. Or in 2010, when they were filming Page One.
I am not as old as others. But I was politically conscious in 2004. I remember how the press, in general, and the New York Times, in particular, slammed John Kerry as a “flip-flopper” literally echoing the George Bush campaign’s talking point. And it stuck. Not because it was the most salient, or the most accurate, but because the reporters and editors at the top-tier publications in the country decided it should.
Here is an example from March of 2004. The writer admits the talking point is a Republican branding.
And let’s see how the Times chose to summarize 2004 in a word.
Why did “flip-flopper” resonate, they wondered. Almost like how they wondered in November of 2016 how they missed support for Trump. And how they keep interviewing racists to crack the key of why the Inciter-in-Chief is popular.
Which brings us back to the last 48 hours of agony for most Jews that are Very Online. Israeli journalists thrive on divisive stories. It’s how they go from writing in Ynet or Haaretz to graduating to the big league of American newspapers. So it was no surprise a month ago when one pounced on an annoying discrepancy in Israeli politics.
Rep. Tlaib and her colleague, Rep. Ilhan Omar, are public supporters of BDS, the boycott, divestment, and sanction movement against Israel. A relatively recent Israeli law permits authorities to refuse entry to BDS activists, but the foreign minister can recommend exceptions to the controversial law.
For those who don’t know, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu runs such a tight ship that for almost four years he was also the foreign minister. Ahead of the wasted election in April, Bibi decided to shore up his support by handing out cabinet positions to his allies. So he elevated Israel Katz, who placed second in the recent Likud primary, from transportation minister because he knew he could count on Katz to leave the diplomacy to Dear Leader.
Fast forward to July, when a journalist at Haaretz realized the decision will obviously not fall to the puppet in the foreign ministry.
Cue news outlets falling in line because most foreign journalists see it as the “paper of record” in Israel. Notice the one that feeds the President of the United States his news briefings.
The story caught Bibi by surprise and he was forced to issue an immediate response by one of his most trusted friends and surrogates, Israeli Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer.
The two would be allowed to visit, it would seem, since Netanyahu had more to gain domestically from showing his friendship with Trump was the only thing stopping the tide of “dangerous Democrats” from drowning support for Israel.
But that wasn’t good enough for some reporters. And they kept hammering away on the story, refusing to let it die down quietly.
It’s almost like they were hoping it would keep being covered by every available outlet until Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC talked about it enough times that Trump would notice. And, like clockwork, Trump pressured Netanyahu to block their entry.
Which brought up to the epitome of a pseudo-event: Rep. Tlaib writing a letter requesting a humanitarian exception to visit her grandmother under the condition she not “promote boycotts” during her visit.
Of course, it took less than 24 hours for her to reject the approval of her request. Let’s see how the Times covered this reversal.
And here I thought this was the last time she could visit her grandmother, an opportunity no one should pass up under the given restrictions, as Korean families know well on the occasions the North allows them to see each other.
For all the talk about double standards in expectations and coverage of Rep. Tlaib, it is telling their framing of the story misrepresented how events unfolded and muddled the lede.
She reversed course, you say?
I wonder what word the Times very loudly used on the former occasion of such reversals?
Actually, I really wonder if the writer is familiar with that episode of journalistic malpractice.
Oh. Wait.
It’s almost like the smoke-and-mirrors of the pseudo-event is the modus operandi for the New York Times.
Earlier this week I was struck by the lack of imagination exhibited in the self-described socialists of America.
I haven't seen a single socialist argue for closing the kidnapping centers and re-housing all asylum seekers by nationalizing motels near them until families can be reunited.
— Roei Eisenberg (@roeiwrites) July 3, 2019
But the process of nationalization is still too foreign for most Americans. Eminent domain, however, shouldn’t be. George W. Bush even used it to build a baseball stadium.
And there is a concept Americans do painfully understand, that could also be used to solve the current crisis: rent.
A former Walmart converted by Southwest Key (Reuters/Loren Elliot)
It costs the US government somewhere between $250 to $750 per day to house the children Trump’s troops — those loyal to his creed more than America’s ideals — kidnap from their parents.
Here is a map of a few private facilities in southwest Texas.
Screenshot from ProPublica (click on map to see how close you live to these tools of state oppression)
The majority of them are operated by Southwest Key, and you can dampen your day by reading this profile of that “nonprofit” charity’s founder in the New York Times.
The US government effectively pays rent to these nightmare machines. Private entities and individuals are making money off the pain and suffering of a cruel policy enacted by a raving madman. When his time is up, I hope the people who profited from these behaviors are held to account.
But until then there are people in need. And instead of performatively pretending to absolve our conscience by talking loud and occasionally getting arrested protesting, we should be proposing solutions.
2020 hopeful and Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke at the Homestead cruelty chambers in Florida (Reuters/Carlo Allegri)
There is a Democratic Congress now. And Republicans in the Senate may be heartless, but they all run in state-wide elections and no one wants to be the deciding vote against a sensible capitalist solution.
Here are the cheap motels in the same area of southwest Texas with available rooms tonight, according to a quick Google search.
The government can rent these properties until the children are reunited with their parents. There is no reason to keep a helpless child behind bars: they are not a flight risk.
These re-purposed rentals can offer medical services and counseling for the children until they are reunited with their parents. and we would still not reach the exorbitant daily costs of inflicting lifelong trauma on both parent and child.
Ordinary Americans might not be turned away from offering their support if migrant children and their parents were housed humanely and afforded access from the outside world.
A family with diapers and toys turned away by Border Patrol (Texas Tribune/Armando Martinez)
And, if we wanted to atone for our nation’s misdeeds, we would allow these families the option of staying for free on-site until they got on their feet.
Their immigration status, in such a just nation, would be resolved immediately: welcome to your new home, we are sorry beyond words that we separated you from your children.
If Congress wanted to do the right thing, it could.
It requires imagination. But tough times always do.
So please, Congress, for the love of an America that must cling to the hope of better ways: close the kidnapping centers, apologize, and help the families heal.
I was in the buzzing Ynet newsroom on election night 2015. Every other desk was doubled up on staff. At 11 pm, I was left alone to man the English edition, with the expectation of greeting my colleagues the next morning on a new day for Israel, the long-awaited end of the Bibi-era.
For those who weren’t paying attention to the minutiae of a tiny country’s election, leading up to that fateful day, the opposition was polling well-ahead of Netanyahu’s Likud party. His whole right-wing bloc seemed headed for a major reckoning.
So Bibi did what he does best, He got on social media and told his followers the Arabs were driving in hordes to the precincts. He warned them there was a real chance he could lose, baiting them with the most cynical and vile use of xenophobia — soon to be echoed by a certain Republican nominee.
But the frightening herd mentality of hope had already taken the Tel Aviv crowd. There was no chance, we thought, that he could pull off an upset this time. I even predicted — during a live televised interview — that it was highly unlikely and that his opponents, the Zionist Union, needed to start planning how to form their government.
The newsroom was jubilant heading into midnight, not because everyone was left-wing, but because change is inherently exciting for journalists. But the upbeat mood wouldn’t last.
By 2 am, when our resident math whiz tabulated initial returns by hand because the government’s website was crashing, there was a sense that things were about to turn. Even though it was early and far from all the precincts had finished reporting, Bibi was far ahead of the pack. I don’t remember the initial guesstimate, but it was around 34-35 seats — out of 120 — and not only was the Zionist Union underperforming by a dozen seats, but the stalwart of the Left, Meretz, might not pass the threshold.
Bibi pulled another electoral victory out of thin air.
Under the bright glare of the fluorescent lights, we all realized the new day we had wanted would not be coming with this particular sunrise. We put our heads down, disappointed, and worked to pass the time.
The larger picture came into light the next morning, when the final tally showed that Bibi won by gobbling up votes from his right — not the center or left — by cannibalizing Naftali Bennett’s Bayit Yehudi.
Bennett and Netanyahu (Photo: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90 )
Many of the journalists in that room were bloodied that night, and know better this time around: underestimate Bibi to your own detriment.
I often feel alone and misunderstood. But the joke played on the solitary is that we are not without company. There is a community of people not too unlike ourselves, unlike our many selves, to be built for every problem that leaves us feeling lonely.
I propose we try to make this world feel a little smaller, to bring our sapien society slightly closer.
In the first step towards making this a reality, I would like to suggest we adopt the methods of previously proven organizations, specifically AA.
Minority members working in creative fields, where most of their colleagues and bosses are overwhelmingly white, know firsthand the subtle microaggressions we face from our alleged workplace friends. But it is unhealthy to bottle it up, unwise to share publicly, and unproductive to foist on our loved ones.
To that end, maybe it is time we start a Minority Anonymous: a place where everyone is accepted and allowed to share their painful portrayals of life as the underrepresented, without fear of professional repressions.
And in the true spirit of the program we are adopting, MA would also seek to provide participants the tools to steel their hearts and minds, to cope with marginalization at work, and to know when and how to advocate productively.
I do not know what the next step is or where this all might lead. But putting words to website gets the ball rolling in the right direction.
To all those experiencing the indignities of discrimination in the workplace, you are not alone, you are not crazy, you are a victim of a professional death by a thousand petty cuts. I see you. And I hope to one day sit with you and share our stories eye to eye.
But what about Ben?
Just a reminder that Ben Shapiro, who is in bad faith calling for Ilhan Omar to resign over her AIPAC tweets, incited the Quebec City mosque shooter. The killer feverishly studied Ben's content before the massacre, prosecutors found. pic.twitter.com/ZlilwaZNsY
— Nathan Bernard (@nathanTbernard) February 11, 2019
But what about Steve?
Steve King:
— Legressive Reftist 🇨🇦 (@legressive_reft) February 11, 2019
“Nonwhites haven’t contributed to society as much as whites”
“We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies”
Ben Shapiro: Can’t just call people racist willy nilly
Ilhan Omar: *Criticizes AIPAC’s lobbying*
Ben Shapiro: Despicable Anti-Semitism pic.twitter.com/knswDyGtng
But what about the Establishment?
Ilhan Omar misspoke (and apologized!).
— No More Billionaires 2020🔥 (@maxberger) February 11, 2019
Trump is a fascist and the Democratic establishment are sellouts who enabled his rise.
Let's keep our eyes on the prize: it's multiracial social democracy or bust. Jews need to get on board!
But what about Palestine?
Ilhan Omar criticizes AIPAC
— Remi Kanazi (@Remroum) February 11, 2019
Folks criticize her language choice
She apologizes/affirms commitment to Palestine
Her mentions are flooded w/ racist, Islamophobic, anti-Palestinian responses
It's not about doing better/being more aware, it's about destroying Palestine advocacy
But what about human rights?
The plaque outside Rep. Ilhan Omar’s office is covered with well wishing post-it notes left over time. One woman just stopped by and left the following note which reads, “Criticizing countries which abuse Human Rights is the right thing to do and will never be Anti-Semitic!” pic.twitter.com/ASL06VIds9
— Marianna Sotomayor (@MariannaNBCNews) February 11, 2019
But what about Islamophobia?
Stressed out reading the backlash against @ilhan. I just read her apology that acknowledged the harm of anti-Semitic tropes while maintaining a moral commitment to not back down from critiques of problematic lobbies. Her mentions are now full of racists and Islamophobes.
— Margari Aziza (@Margari_Aziza) February 11, 2019
But what about racism?
Now that she’s been brought to heel, anyone still gonna argue that anti-blackness wasn’t one of the motivating factors in the attacks against Ilhan Omar?
— Petty is Praxis (@rtyson82) February 11, 2019
But what about Kevin?
Just in case we're losing track, this episode w/Ilhan Omar sparked after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy threatened "action" against her & Rashida Tlaib for their comments on Israel. You know, the same guy who tweeted this after a pipe bomb was sent to George Soros' house pic.twitter.com/70bguWp1JE
— Natasha Roth (@NatashaRoth01) February 11, 2019
But what about Nancy?
Nancy Pelosi has received $514,449 from the pro-Israel lobby. But I'm sure that's not why she spoke to Ilhan Omar about making factual statements.
— Rob (@philosophrob) February 11, 2019
But what about Israel?
Anti-semitism is REAL
— StanceGrounded (@_SJPeace_) February 11, 2019
But do not conflate and misuse that label. Calling out the government of Israel for it's crimes against humanity and AIPAC, a Pro- Israel lobby group that is effective in influencing Congress Members IS NOT ANTI SEMITIC!
I stand with Ilhan Omar.
But what about Trump?
"Am I missing something? This is about 100x worse than anything Ilhan Omar tweeted, but it seems to have barely merited any reaction at all. Trump’s reference here is crystal clear, isn’t it?" https://t.co/7aOB9jAC5s
— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) February 11, 2019
But what if it’s funny?
Ilhan Omar Thankful For Colleagues Educating Her On Painful History AIPAC Lobbyists Have Had To Endure https://t.co/W2g7nTATi1 pic.twitter.com/K8xZS1mll4
— The Onion (@TheOnion) February 11, 2019
Here we are. The phase where Serious Journalists tell the plebs their thinking is wrong, their feelings are invalid, and their opinions are worthless.
Just dropped in quickly on Twitter and am kind of amazed at the reporters piling on Schultz. I’ve no issue with journalists having ideologies. Straight up party loyalty is another matter.
— Matt Bai (@mattbai) January 30, 2019
For some (allegedly inexplicable) reason, after a week of painful layoffs, after the industry experienced a shock to the system, we now have to be lectured to by a bunch of established writers sheltered from the rough seas in which the rest of us are struggling to keep our heads above water.
Photograph by Ian Allen for TIME
But the Schultz situation is simple: a billionaire feels America has gone off the rails because the Republicans started saying the quiet part out loud.
And what grand ideas does the Coffee Putz have in mind?
To go back to a time when the quiet part was Ronald Reagan using a bullhorn to scare poor racist white people into thinking “welfare queens” are the reason they can’t get ahead in life.
Spare me, Howard. Please, spare all of us. But for the love of the good parts of a sometimes great nation, the fourth estate needs to get its shit together and stop shilling for this stingy shell of an excuse for a human being.