No to racism, yes to anti-Semitism

The actress Seyi Omooba finally got her breakthrough in 2019. She was cast to star in the musical The Color Purple, based on the Pulitzer-winning novel by Alice Walker.

Alice Walker: The Color Brown mixed with the Color Red

However, the Curve Theatre in Leicester abruptly dismissed Miss Omooba when her 2014 Facebook post came to light. In it Miss Omooba, a devout Christian, said that homosexuality wasn’t “right” and she did “not believe you can be born gay”.

She sued the theatre for denying her religious freedom and recently lost the case. The theatre administration explained, plausibly, that irate homosexuals would have picketed the production – as a minimum. As a maximum… well, it was best not to contemplate what they might have done.

As a pragmatist myself, and one who has in the past received death threats from homosexuals scorned, I can understand that position. Moreover, I’m willing to accept, for the sake of argument, the right of sexual and racial minorities to express their grievances through riotous displays.

Where I’m beginning to have a problem is in the rather selective nature of such righteous outbursts. For, while Miss Omooba’s statement of Christian beliefs was deemed incompatible with her appearance in The Color Purple, no one seemed to mind the virulent public anti-Semitism of the novel’s author.

In 2017, three years after Omooba committed her crime against wokery, Alice Walker wrote a poem It Is Our (Frightful) Duty to Study the Talmud. [A note to Miss Walker: Stick to prose, dear. Your verse is pathetic formally, poetically and in every other way.]  

She must have dutifully undertaken such study, which led her to conclusions that, had he survived the Nuremberg Trials, would have won Julius Streicher’s effusive approval. Here are some choice excerpts:

Are Goyim (us) meant to be slaves of Jews, and not only
That, but to enjoy it?
Are three year old (and a day) girls eligible for marriage and intercourse?
Are young boys fair game for rape?
Must even the best of the Goyim (us, again) be killed?
Pause a moment and think what this could mean
Or already has meant
In our own lifetime.

You may find that as the cattle
We have begun to feel we are
We have an ancient history of oppression
Of which most of us have not been even vaguely
Aware. You will find that we, Goyim, sub-humans, animals
– The Palestinians of Gaza
The most obvious representatives of us
At the present time – are a cruel example of what may be done

With impunity, and without conscience,
By a Chosen people,
To the vast majority of the people
On the planet
Who were not Chosen.
Not chosen to receive the same dubious
“Blessing” of
Supremacy over the Earth,
Humans, and Beasts of this realm. As is
Stated plainly in the first chapter
Of the Bible we all read.
The Unchosen who, until now,
Were too scared of being
Called names
To demand to know why.

It is a “Blessing” Jesus did not want.
One that, risking crucifixion, he refused.
One reason he is loved
By those who recognize a good
And righteous person
When they encounter one.
Seen in this light he wasn’t even
A spiritual progressive, but a committed
Revolutionary: a Che Guevara
Of the ancient past.

… We discover this
To our enlightened grief
As we study
The Talmud,
Our own ignorance,
And the devastating impact of both
On our abandoned world.

The reference to Jesus as “a Che Guevara of the ancient past” shows that Miss Walker’s understanding of Christianity is as subtle as her grasp of Judaism is firm. She bolsters the latter accolade by wholeheartedly endorsing David Icke’s book And the Truth Shall Set You Free, which gave Streicher even a better run for his money.

According to Icke, Jews are “alien lizard people”. “A small Jewish clique” is responsible for the Russian Revolution and both World Wars. And if that wasn’t enough, it then “coldly calculated” the Holocaust to pave its way to the creation of the Jewish state, whose sole purpose in life is to oppress the Palestinians.

According to Miss Walker, this “brave book” isn’t anti-Semitic at all, and those who claim it is just seek to undermine the Palestinian cause. Yes, and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is scholarly commentary on indisputable historical facts.

Unlike Miss Walker, I hate to indulge in racial and ethnic stereotypes. However, it’s hard to ignore the open anti-Semitism of many American black leaders, such as Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan and Andrew Young, along with a legion of their followers. More recently, the deafening BLM chorus also struck some consistent anti-Semitic notes.

One can’t escape the feeling that opposition to racism, both in America and Britain, can comfortably coexist with hatred of Jews. More generally, leftist and woke inclinations happily go hand in hand with the kind of anti-Semitism that’s hard to describe as anything other than Nazi. Our own wokest party, Labour, is a case in point.

Sanctimonious proponents of the dominant cancel culture routinely block appearances of Israeli scientists at international conferences. Conservative writers and politicians have their proposals of fellowships withdrawn at Oxford and Cambridge. Christians, black or white, find themselves ostracised for finding anything wrong with propaganda of homosexuality.

Yet no one ostracises Alice Walker and her ilk. She is solidly mainstream, a courageous champion of the Palestinian cause and a steadfast fighter against racial oppression – of anyone except the Jews.

This last qualifier doesn’t appear in the Oxford University Press’s blurb on Alice Walker. This is what does appear:

“Alice Walker’s work had already established her as an accomplished artist and activist. Her work explores race, gender, sexuality, and class, building on Walker’s observations and experiences as a child and young adult in the rural South… Like her work, which always offers the unexpected but necessary commentary, Alice Walker is an artist who has succeeded at remaining fresh.”

I beg to differ: Alice Walker’s commentary is neither necessary nor particularly unexpected. It’s hateful, bigoted, ignorant and Nazi-like. But then who am I to argue with Oxford University Press?

1 thought on “No to racism, yes to anti-Semitism”

  1. Generally speaking blacks hate Jews. Jews with their history of being discriminated against came to the USA, succeeding and thrived. Even markedly so. The blacks see this as a negative against them. Why, asks the black, are THE JEWS able to do so well, but WE are not? Obviously something sinister going on here.

Leave a Reply to BertE. Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.