While (white) Jewish Americans have a history within the civil rights movement, we have done much since then to perpetuate white supremacy and add to the oppression of Black Americans as a result; not always intentionally, but often as a way to assimilate into the majority white-Christian America.
And so I want to be clear about my original TikTok: I was not asking for anyone in the Black community to be empathetic to Jewish suffering, especially since we’ve got a whole lot of work to do on our end to repair the harm we’ve caused.
I don’t expect your empathy, but I do request that you be intentional in your rhetoric and avoid using antisemitic tropes that end up hurting all of us in the long run.
A lot of (white) Jewish people don’t understand this perspective yet, and I hope to put more labor into helping them understand. I truly believe that bridging these communities together will be the path toward collective liberation for us all.
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