Sad situation! But not so complicated. The black women need to acknowledge that there is a long tradition of Jewish Americans who have consciously fought for the equality of all Americans and have done enormous amounts to help black Americans. The Jewish woman has to acknowledge that in contrast to liberal, morally strong Jews like herself, there are deeply racist Jews, especially in Israel and American supporters of Israel. If they can't do this America will be fractured even further!
13
@virginia Kaufmann Sorry, I like the attempt to be even-handed, but in this case it comes off just like Trump saying "both sides" were at fault in the Charlottesville Nazi march in which Heather Heyer lost her life.
If Ms. Wruble had invited the late Rabbi Meir Kahane's Jewish Defense League to police Women's March, then there would be some equivalency here with the March's embrace of the virulently anti-Semitic and misogynistic Nation of Islam.
But of course that did not happen. All of the hate activity occurred on the other side: the side of Ms. Mallory, Ms. Bland, Ms. Sarsour and Ms Perez -- the radicals who espouse anti-Semitism, and appear to profit from financial shenanigans as well.
24
@Peter Blau
I don't know that "all of the hate activity occurred on the other side" and neither do you unless you are a part of the Women's March. All we know really are Wruble's accusations. We don't know whether she approached the group from a white supremacist perspective and refused to listen to or even consider the perspectives of the nonwhite women, a concern raised during the planning of the 2017 march.
5
Developing a powerful and truly intersectional resistance movement is very challenging. It's no surprise that the leaders of the women's march are not perfect. This is a work in progress and difficult discussion such as this are important. I would like to point out that the women's march principles of unity are truly inspirational and provide an excellent window into the noble aspirations of this work. (Just Google: "women's march, principles of Unity")
3
I had a sense of this. After attending the March in San Francisco, I sent the following email (less salutations, etc.) to one of the speakers, Ameena Jandali, a faculty member at Community College in SF. I did not receive a response.
I was at the Women’s March yesterday and found it exhilarating to be in an environment that was peaceful, purposeful, and powerful.
Your speech was well-written and you did an excellent job delivering your message. There was one point, however, that struck a discordant note with our group, and I imagine, others listening. You named multiple religions, races, and ethnic groups that experienced discrimination upon arriving in the United States. The list was long and all-inclusive with one exception: Jews.
The care and intention with which your speech was written makes me doubtful that it was an oversight, but I hope I am wrong. I stand with Muslims and people of all backgrounds as do all the people in attendance yesterday. Unfortunately, this omission was the only negative of a glorious day.
I welcome your thoughts and feedback.
35
@Diane Rosenfield her reply?
5
Well, most of this has been known for a while, so no surprises there. What is a surprise is that the NY Times put this article on the front page, above the fold, letting everyone know what's been happening.
Intersectionality means that I view the world in all my identities - as a Jewish woman and a proud Zionist (which BTW does not mean agreeing with every policy of Israel) it has been clear to me that anti-Semitism has been 'baked in the cake' of the March by its leadership. Failure to disentangle from a self -proclaimed anti-Semite and allow his people (Nation of Islam) to be security guards is just one aspect. How Ms. Wruble was treated is another. And - why is it that so often the haters of state of Israel (Ms. Sarsour, Alice Walker) - are anti-Semitic in other ways too.
The so-called 'leadership' of the March are shameless self-promoters who should resign immediately. They are a 'shonda' (shameful) to women.
65
How disgusting. So as a White, Jewish woman should I be walking a few steps behind anyone involved in the East coast brand of women's movements because I symbolize what they're railing against?!!
Palestinian issues of terrorism I guess are conveniently overlooked, Farakhan insults of Jews as "termites" are welcome. This movement will eat itself from within with this madness.
76
This is nothing short of a cheap dog whistle! I’m sure that the Women’s March leaders have strong opinions and views on a myriad of topics and ideologies, with many heated debates and intertwining relationships. Who doesn’t? However, accusing them of outright anti-Semitism and accusing the organization of being roiled in anti-Semitism, just because they rejected one Jewish woman from their leadership and because some of them don’t gush over Israel or, heaven forbid, even dare criticize Israel for it’s numerous human right violations, is nothing short of irresponsible! The elephant in the room is Linda Sarsour. A Palestinian. Ms. Wruble has been VERY careful not to mention her by name, which itself sends up a red flag, but it doesn’t take a genius (or much googling) to figure out that Linda Sarsour is an absolute lighting rod in Israeli media and with pro-Israeli supporters and activists in the US, New York, and on college campuses, This is more about anti-BDS and less about anti-Semitism. The New York Times should know better than to publish unsubstantiated aspersions and shallow political hit jobs like this!
17
@Jason When two leaders uphold the patriarchy the problem isn't the Jews or Israel.
14
I attended a women's rally at Washington Square Park not too long ago. Ms. Sarsour, a woman I had deeply admired, turned the rally from a women's rally into a anti-Israel rally. I am a secular Jew who supports Palestinians and their hope for a decent life for their children. If Ms. Sarsour did not see the need to speak of conditions in many other countries that are just as unjust, she could have stuck to the agenda that was promoted for the rally. I don't need to hear that Ms. Mallory does not 'trust' white women. I marched for civil rights, for black lives matter, for native Americans. Would any of these women march against anti-semitism? Jews have all the wealth? I don't know why my family lives from paycheck to paycheck then. I cancelled out my plans for the Washington rally and will march with MoveOn in NYC.
252
I am appalled to read that the women who are the leaders of the Women’s March, in particular, Tamika Mallory and Carmen Perez, are equally racist and anti-Semitic as the KKK, nazis, alt-right, white supremacists, white nationalists and all other racists! These women have said that “Jews need to confront their own role in racism”—this is a racist statement by women who should know better! Ms. Mallory is a strong supporter of Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam who have called Judaism a “gutter religion”. The Women’s March should be an all inclusive movement welcoming all regardless of gender, religion, race, sexual orientation or anything else. Since Jews are not welcome by the leaders of the Women’s March, I call for the immediate removal of these racist women!
557
I too support immediate removal of all those with racist viewpoints. @ellenost
38
@ellenost---No, it's not true that Farrakhan called Judaism a "gutter religion," but that's been repeated so many times it has come to be accepted as the truth. What he said was that when Muslims, Christians, and Jews don't obey the word of God they dirty their religion. Somehow "dirty" became "gutter" and Christians and Muslims were edited out of his comment. Sad to say but some Jews would find anti-Semitism with Farrakhan if he read the weather report out loud. I'm a white Italian guy and I was attacked by a Jewish organization for showing the last 20 minutes of Farrakhan's Million-Man March speech to the inner-city students in my high school English class. I was comparing it to Mark Antony's funeral oration in "Julius Caesar." The speech didn't mention one word about Jews, but the group attempted to censor it. They were stopped by the local chapter of the ACLU. Ironically, the head of the ACLU was Jewish, and he thought Farrakhan was "brilliant."
22
Jews were involved in the slave trade , and authoritative scholars documented this
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_views_on_slavery
Google for more
3
@Howard @Howard kaplan - I think just about everyone of every cultural and religious persuasion was involved in the Slave Trade... Christians, Muslims, Jews, and whatever various African tribes were practicing. The problem is with LF assertion that one group and one group alone is guilty.
26
@Howard kaplan the article you cite does not support your broad claim and in fact specifies that Jewish involvement in slave trade was “miniscule.” The article also discusses slavery from biblical times which is irrelevant to the issue here. So, the only concern remaining is why you would slap such a wildly exaggerated, even inaccurate, statement into this discussion, perhaps knowing that most people won’t go to read the Wikipedia article? What’s your motive, Mr. Kaplan?
18
@Howard kaplan. Blacks, Arabs and Muslims played an infinitely larger role in the slave trade then Jews. If the motives weren't dishonest why are those bringing up the wrongs of Jews silent about the far greater wrongs of blacks, Arabs and Muslims?
14
I am glad these things are out in the open - both the antisemitism endemic to Black culture and the racism endemic to Jewish culture - I trust the dialogue will lead to greater strength for all -
I would like to remind us that stoking possible divisions with human plants is a tactic much utilized by the FBI during various Civil Rights struggles of the 50s-70s - In the 21st century, Russia seems to be using such divisive tactics as well to weaken positive movements such as Black Lives Matter in the U.S.
Please remember we all benefit when antisemitism and racism are recognized as common destroyers of our authenticity. Only working together can we figure out how to make positive change for the good of all.
Respectfully, Jennifer Justice
251
@Jennifer Justice, Your comment about racism endemic to Jewish culture is simply not so. Jews have always been in the forefront of fighting against discrimination against Blacks. During the Civil Rights struggles you mention, Jewish volunteers far outnumbered every other group in the South. I known. I was there in the 60s. Kindly state your facts.
184
@Jennifer Justice
as a 70 yo black I can say I've encountered very little antisemitism among blacks, and some racism among Jews. Jews vis a vis blacks in the US enjoy a privileged position as whites, and criticism of Jews on that basis is not antisemitism. The nation of Islam is anti-Semitic and deserves criticism on that basis. At the same time it has been helpful to many in fighting poverty and racism, which deserves respect. If you find that difficult to manage, try this: many of us respect the state of Israel despite its current far right government's hostility to and oppression of Palestinians. NOI by contrast is certainly hostile to Jews, but hasn't the capacity to oppression them.
22
I was raised in a practicing Jewish home and we, and our entire congregation, were taught we should always work to repair the world. In the early 1960s our Jewish synagogue, like many others, sent buses down to the South as part of the civil rights move.
Your comment:"the racism endemic to Jewish culture" is not only Disrespectful and offensive, but wrong.
@Jennifer Justice
143
No zionist is ever fit for leadership within the human rights movement. So what probably happened is this:
Ms Wruble, clearly wearing her religion on her sleeve, claimed the moral authority of leadership because Judaism is all about sympathy for the oppressed. This was challenged by the others--ostensibly citing Palestine.
Low-level epithets ensued; but was it no Ms Wruble herself who claimed special moral status for "her people"?
Her error was therefore having it both ways. Yet one must necessarily choose either to represent oneself as an individual or as membership within a group. For example, if i label myself as a 'southerner', might i not expect references to the KKK?
Lastly, it's enlightening to witness how the struggle of Palestine has (finally!) insinuated itself into American politics. Jews who claim that anti-zionism equals anti-Semitism are digging their own graves...
10
@bill harris People who can't tell the difference between Jewish national self determination and the KKK are the digging their own graves.
34
Anti-semitism on the left is a myth, and nothing more.
Being against the policies of the state of Israel, and deploring their treatment of Palestinians, is not anti-Semitism, just as being against the policies of Robert Mugabe or Idi Amin is not anti-black. Being against the horrible slaying of Khashoggi by a Saudi despot does not mean you hate Arabs. Being against racism perpetrated by whites in America, or acknowledging that Thomas Jefferson owned slaves and had a familial relationship with his black mistress/lover, does not mean you hate white people.
Hope that clears things up for the Fox news crowd.
321
@Jack from Saint Loo
Thanks for letting us know Jack! I'll email you when I need proclamations on other myths.
50
@Jack from Saint Loo. This is not about being anti-Israel. Plenty of Jews oppose the policies of Israel. It is about perpetuating centuries old antisemitic tropes. You are deflecting concerns about antisemitism by pretending it’s all about Israel. It’s not.
143
@Jack from Saint Loo Anti-semitism is clearly not a myth. Organizations on the left who proclaim religious neutral ideals but focus on wrongs done almost exclusively by Jews, ignoring or justifying wrongs done by others, are anti-semitic.
112
The argument among these women is not about Judaism or anti-Semitism. It is about a critique of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. It’s destructive that this article fails to engage this debate honestly.
70
I'm an old white guy, but one who marched in 1963 in the
south in support of open accommodations. Enough with stereotyping. Work together for justice.
In 1964, three young civil rights workers were murdered in Mississippi for who they were and what they were working for. Two were Jews from New York and one was a black man from Meridian. :
"The murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner, also known as the Freedom Summer murders, the Mississippi civil rights workers' murders or the Mississippi Burning murders, involved three activists who were abducted and murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi in June 1964 during the Civil Rights Movement. The victims were Andrew Goodman and Michael "Mickey" Schwerner from New York City, and James Chaney from Meridian, Mississippi. All three were associated with the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) and its member organization the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). They had been working with the Freedom Summer campaign by attempting to register African Americans in Mississippi to vote. This registration effort was a part of contesting over 70 years of laws and practices that supported a systematic policy, begun by several states in 1890, of disenfranchisement of potential black voters."
96
The seeds of the death of an effective left? It is perhaps even an illusion that there is a “left”, given this? A sad state of affairs. Presently there is no real “right” either. Looks like seething baskets of intractable hate could win on either self proclaimed side of the political span.
Anti-black or anti-Jewish or anti-anything else some humans are born to and others aren’t is wrong, bound to create hatred and horrors, and then to create reactionary hatred and horrors.
But it surely won’t create a legitimate “left” that is ready to govern any more than it has created a legitimate “right” that has been ready to govern. This story, to the extent that it really is an accurate reflection of where things stand here, is an account of an historic and dangerous political low point that could get much worse for everybody.
34
Like men, women are stuck in asserting their personal identities and ideologies, as needs, that exceed the needs of many in crisis. It is the bain of generations of “me”, “I”, “am”, “want”, “must haves.”
We need the “we,” “us,” “are,” “need,” “must deliver,” kind of feminist leadership to replace unsustainable patriarchy and supremacy of every notion. That other vibe is nothing but “Centrist feminism still serving the elite rather than the masses.
9
Ms. Mallory may well have ancestors among the coastal tribes that actively sought and captured prisoners to sell as slaves. Has she confronted that aspect of her past?
Ms. Perez's Latin heritage includes the enslavement of Native Americans and ongoing racism regarding them and "mixed" Latins. Has she confronted that aspect of her past?
Ms. Sarsour's Muslim forebears from the north coast of Africa participated very actively in enslaving both black Africans and Europeans, in some areas not abolition slavery until the early 20th century. Has she confronted that aspect of her past?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/28/us/indian-slaves-genizaros.html
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/nov/18/africans-apologise-slave-trade
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Libya
239
Whether or not we recognize it, everyone has some kind of assumption about other groups of people - in other words, prejudice. The only way to end prejudice is to call it what it is, discuss it openly, challenge it with kindness, and try to do better. It seems like there's an opportunity to do that here.
While doing that, let's not lose sight of the reason for the original Women's March: that we are appalled by the words and actions of the current president and his administration, that we are watching everything they do, that we are working to identify, prevent, and stop institutionalized action against any group - mainstream or marginalized. This is laudable work and should continue, including all who choose to participate, recognizing all who are abused. We all deserve the decent treatment that's often called "white privilege."
To do any less - to stay silent - is to be complicit in the abuses and murders of our neighbors in grocery stores, schools, churches, mosques, and synagogues - all for the offense of being a person who is perceived as "other."
14
@A neighbor - going out and marching feels good, but its not the real work. It feels good to be surrounded by a bunch of people we agree with. The energy of the crowd feels good. We feel like we're accomplishing something. But in fact, aside from motivating ourselves to do the real work, we are not accomplishing much.
The real work means donating money and time to causes and campaigns.
It means writing letters FREQUENTLY to your representatives, to the point where their staff recognize your name each time another letter arrives. (Keep in mind the only people they ever hear from on a regular basis are paid corporate lobbyists. If we don't speak up, who do you think they'll respond to?)
It means going to town council meetings and speaking up.
For a committed few it means running for office.
Marches and speeches on the Mall in D.C. garner a lot of satisfying press coverage but they don't put allies in office or change the minds of those who are already elected.
33
I have little doubt if people widely knew one of the main organizers of the Women’s March feels “white women” (or white Jewish women) are not to be trusted, and says so on the record, their support would dwindle. I imagine also that if someone said “Blacks are not trustworthy,” that this would be the headline and not the tail end of the article. It would be a national scandal. Are we now normalizing double standards, hypocrisy, and stereotypes in our politics?
From the end of this NY Timed article:
Ms. Mallory denied that she disparaged Ms. Wruble’s Jewish heritage in that meeting, but acknowledged telling white women there that she did not trust them.
“They are not trustworthy,” she said, adding that Ms. Wruble gossiped behind the backs of the other march leaders instead of confronting them when she had an issue. “Every single one of us has heard things that offended us. We still do the work.”
89
All this talk about being “woke” but the country continues you fall deeper into denial.
Identity politics plays right into the hands of “owners” of our country. They gleefully watch as the citizens split up into smaller groups battling each other.
We are now very close to removing the U from USA. The weak (about 90%) must find a way to stand together if we want to end all the discrimination and gain some leverage against the small, but powerful, entitled part of our society that own the majority of power and wealth. I’m putting my money on the 10%, since the 90% are split up in so many splinter groups that spend more time fighting the other splinter groups instead of rallying together in the name of change, fairness, and equality.
The Woman’s March May feel good but it’s all show and no go.
26
When it comes right down to it, Hispanics were not brought to this country as slaves. They were not bought and sold like chattels.
Ms. Mallory needs to forcefully put Ms. Perez in her place and carve out a special place for black women at the front and in the leadership of the next march. Not to do so would would refinforce the as yet not-fully-ackknowledged racism of *all* non-black groups.
/sarcasm off/
24
@Wine Country Dude
The double "k" in "acknowledged" was a typo; it's hard to type correctly during a cardio workout. Most commenters here will be relieved that it was *not* a veiled allusion to the Klan. :- )
4
Who would have thought that tribal identity politics would turn out to be divisive and destructive?
50
I read this article and never realized how much like the oppressors we were getting this march off the ground . Success that it was with numbers but full of distrust and hate for individual groups. I was foolish to believe that all women were in the struggle together . Apparently all women count for marches and voting but not in the big picture of life.
The stakes are so high for January 3 that I am frightened that we as women have learnt nothing from the oppressor that will make us better than them.
I pray we grow up after reading this article and attempt to be well rounded individuals otherwise we and the country are lost.
8
Is Alice Walker going to be the Grand Marshal?
70
Just as anti-Semitism has weakened and undermined the Labor Party in the UK, with its weak attempts to handle it causing further damage, growing voices of anti-Semitism in the Left, and even within the Democratic Party itself, are capable of causing the same damage.
The Labor Party has been falling into this sinkhole a few years longer than the DEMs here in the USA. So if we want a glimpse of our future if we don't change course, all we have to do is look at Corbyn and the Labor Party.
The DEMs, if they want to maintain the foothold on power they achieved in November 2018 and grow that into something larger and more effective, MUST build a broad tent. But it is not in the direction of identity politics and grievance groups that it needs to extend. It needs to extend towards rural and small town America, those people put out of work as our economy changes due to NAFTA and global movement of capital.
Walking away from these people nearly killed the party over the last 10 years. 2018 only happened because the GOP too has let them down, because a few realize they've been bamboozled by the Trump and now they are too dispirited to vote at all.
24
I think it is really unfortunate that these women can’t mend fences because the march has become bigger then them. They need to reunite for the health of the march and what it stands for. I’m truly disappointed as one who has marched in Calif the past two years.
15
In the 60s & 70s, anyone who worked this hard at discrediting their own movement was just assumed to be an agent provocateur..
43
Given that the slave trade was accomplished with at least some cooperation with tribes that captured and sold other tribes to slavers, how would Ms. Mallory and Ms. Perez feel if they were told they had to confront the role of their African and Latino ancestors in the slave trade?
94
I attended the March in DC. Found out about it on FB, but used that website only for info about where and when, etc. I wanted to protest the election of a racist, misogynist man who ridiculed the disabled, and I did so with a big group of friends and family. It was a fabulous day that I will never forget. But, I suspect, like the majority of Marchers, I couldn't have told you the name of a single one of these self appointed "leaders." How stupid they all sound, trying to decide who is or isn't the more injured among them. Someone should tell them it's not and never was about them.
136
It was the largest March in our history, bigger than the inauguration. Yah people who are different do have differences, the amazing fact is that women gathered together in such large numbers. We marched with blacks and Jews and Indians.. Just because these few women out of a million had issues, doesn't mean anything. There were a million women. Yah. Take that in.
14
They function, and present themselves, as the leaders, so yes, it matters a whole lot. Their actions and words, and support for people like Minister Farrakhan, show them to be unacceptable for that task.
67
This is hilarious. This is what happens when you try to make distinctions and "identify" with groups. By gender? (increasingly contentious) By religion? (does this say anything beyond, usually, only who you happened to be born to?), by "race" (whatever that means, there is no biological cutoff, only a continuum of polymorphisms), how about by weight? By height? By intelligence, by educational achievement, by medical condition, by wealth, by how much one has suffered (that's a great one...people love to talk about that) by sexual orientation....you can go on an on and on.
If people acted as individuals, respected the sanctity and dignity of the individual, not as collectivists, well I suppose they would have to think for themselves. The only monolith is the individual.
21
Did you even read the article??
It isn't about minor, benign distinctions . It's about this group of women, who didn't even suggest the original March, aligning themselves with people who have shown themselves to be blatantly anti-Semitic and homophobic. These attitudes and alliances fly in the face of everything the Women's March stands for...
38
The honeymoon is over
Every movement has its internal grievances
Regardless I will be in D.C. on Jan 19
Will you?
The movement is bigger than these women
15
When i look at the sweep of great progressive leaders of the post war II era from MLK and Gloria Steinem to Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi I see people who worked to find common cause across all boundaries. And who largely succeeded. The Democratic Party used to be about the common goal of segregated blacks and union whites in building a government that stood up for the people.
Even our music was universal. I Want To Break Free was born from the struggles of a gay teenager but Queen spoke to universal teen struggle from catastrophic to trivial. We all listened, straight black white rich or poor.
Now everyone is pulling apart into oil droplets of affinities. Culturally and politically. Likely this is driven by social media and iTunes that allow us to ignore those near us who are different and talk only to distant people who look and think like ourselves.
The new generation of progressive leadership by promoting fracture is helping fuel the rise of demagoguery. Trump is a result not a cause.
24
I am a mixed-race Korean-American woman. While Asians experience racism, we also have our own history of anti-blackness, and it is my responsibility to constantly grapple with both these factors as I work to dismantle racism. I believe a similar duty falls to white Jewish folks, white-passing PoC, men of color, etc. We must acknowledge when we are unjustly given power over others, even as we ourselves experience oppression.
To those commenting that we need to identify as "women" first and put aside our "differences": These matters are ALWAYS intersectional. To ignore that as feminists only serves to perpetuate white supremacy. All hierarchies along racial, gender, religious, etc. lines are symptoms of a single ideology that says white, straight, cis, able-bodied, educated, rich, Christian men are the most "human" and therefore most deserving of life and power. Differences in oppression must not compete nor be disregarded, but balanced as elements of a single struggle against the idea of the "truly human." No one involved in these marches should have treated racism and anti-Semitism as separate issues. I believe that anti-Semitism should have been addressed, but also that it would not have been appropriate to act as if the power denied to black and Jewish women is equal. While the Women's March leaders' alleged choice of words was poor, pointing out that Jewish folks sometimes benefit from white supremacy is NOT anti-Semitic, nor does it deny the realities of anti-Semitism.
26
It was way far more than their use of words.
No one gets to use their oppression as a hierarchical tool, by which they can attempt to silence or dilute the experiences of others.
These women, who were not the initiators of the March, have demonstrated their arrogance, superiority, and shady political stances from the very beginning. I, for one, am grateful that they are being exposed.
63
@Adele
I am not defending these specific women or denying that some of their actions were anti-Semitic, for instance Ms. Mallory's endorsement of Farrakhan. I am speaking about a larger issue concerning the difference between asking Jewish folks to acknowledge some complicity in the oppression of others (which many other groups must do as well), and anti-Semitism, as they seem to be getting conflated in this discussion. I did not say that anyone should be "silenced;" in fact, I suggested the opposite: that the Women's March should have taken a clear stance against anti-Semitism.
11
@AGR
The issue is that these women suggest that ones voice is more or less legitimate depending on what ethnic group one belongs to.
This notion seems rather common among intersectional feminists, and to me it just seems like blatant racism. Intersectionalism, or what may very well be an unsophisticated but popular intepretation of it, is really a threat to liberal values.
32
"A closed mouth does not get fed" sounds like a slogan one would see at Auschwitz. To complain bitterly about past racial discrimination out of one side of one's mouth, while vilifying others based on their race or ethnicity out of the other side, is the definition of racist oppression and hypocrisy.
70
Tamika Mallory studied under the tutelage of Al Sharpton and his National Action Network.
Par for the course.
39
I wouldn't expect that large of a group of people coming from so many different backgrounds not to have difficulties controlling themselves; but as a leader, this is a basic requirement.
Leadership doesn't just happen, it takes the right people to make it work. This article leads me to believe they allowed the wrong leaders to lead.
17
Sounds like a giant coffee klatch. Brother!
4
The classic "Circular Firing Squad" has begun within the Women's March, pointing fingers, we're assuming we know what life-and prejudice-is like for others, profiling individuals and lumping them into a stereotypical group. I know, I'm guilty of sliding into this, I fight it everyday, it's hard to keep focused, keep my eye on the ball. We need to continue to make the effort to rise above the infighting and trust that each of us will work to help support each other by providing a caring human rights safety net. One that supports us all. I hope that what I thought (maybe I was wrong) the original goals of the organization-women's rights, human rights, equality, outreach, safety and understanding for all-can survive. The right-wingers, biggots, and conspiracy theorists are standing in the theater wings waiting for us to crumble under own weight so they can take the stage. Can we keep our focus on the real enemy? I'm not sure. I'm losing faith as everyday passes. Call me the tired old lady in Seattle, saddened that human nature is human nature-what a cruel joke life can be.
14
Keep up the spirit Martha. I'm a Martha in the Midwest. Right now it's a Farakhan led sham of a movement. Evil needs to subside first in the leadership.
14
From this article it sounds like these leaders are not suitable representatives for an all inclusive march, that they hold prejudices, attitudes and make judgements that sorely need enlightening. Every group represented has it's elements and it's haters for sure but the leadership should be above reproach lest they poison the whole effort and do more harm than good. That said bringing all this out into the open is a good thing.
18
Farrakhan is homophobic in addition to extremely anti-Semitic. Why should he have any influence whatsoever on the Women’s March? It tells me that the march organizers have a real lack of embrace for true intersectionality if they are intent upon this kind of carve out.
43
I can’t help but feel that there’s also a theme of internalized misogyny running through this story.
6
@Susan H.
No there is a theme of anti-Semitism running through this story.
48
Kudos to the NY Times for waking up from its several year slumber and calling out the transparent anti-Semitic antics from "leaders" who hypocritically wear the mantle of tolerance and inclusion. Seems kind of obvious, but nobody, regardless of -- or because of -- gender, skin color or religion (including Sarsour, Mallory and Perez) should get a pass when engaging in obvious bigotry. So, nice for this paper to finally (albeit belatedly) recognize this.
86
Think of the Women’s March, and of this internal conflict among its organizers, as a metaphor.
Together, as they march down that broad avenue in Washington, they stand shoulder to shoulder, from one side to the other across the avenue stretching back as far as the eye can see. The effect is very powerful. They are a collective and dynamic entity of formidable strength and purpose.
Think of how that entity came into being: By “side streets,” if you will, of individuals funneling into a center that is marching for justice, equality, identity, economic and political power. Those side streets are the diversity and identities, their specific messages and political positions, each of these women in this article personify. Each street, each message, each stream of women, is clearly seen and recognized. Each feeds into the gathered march and elevates its strength and power. And each retains its own message and returns to it. These messages, and this collective power, are what the opponents of the Women’s March fear, and will fight and seek to destroy by trying to divide you.
Don’t let it happen. Keep your individual places and identify – your "side streets" – and stay in the central “march” that gives you the power of your collective action
4
Oh, so to say that you don't trust white women isn't a problem, only to say so about Jews is a problem?
I'm Jewish and i believe that over all, we are a pretty privileged group, but I find it deeply offensive to say that Jewish people can't be trusted, and so do, rightfully allot of white people.
24
Since that conversation, we’ve all learned a lot about how while white Jews, as white people, uphold white supremacy, ALL Jews are targeted by it,” Ms. Mallory said in a statement to The New York Times.
So, if you believe this, anti-semitism is bad, anti-white is good. A great organization to lead all to the promised land. Good grief.
29
These women confronting Wruble about her Jewishness are ignorant about history. Consider the role of Jews in the Civil Rights struggle. They are mixing up US and Israel, two different entities.
28
“Since that conversation, we’ve all learned a lot about how while white Jews, as white people, uphold white supremacy, ALL Jews are targeted by it,”....
Excuse me, I'm not sure what all jews are targeted by- anti-semitism. So true. But all white people uphold white supremacy? That's a sad, ignorant thing for Ms Mallory to say.
27
The way this story reads is that Mallory & Perez had no finesse with Wruble. Their org should have no room for militant speak. Who put that stuff into their heads?
3
Farrakhan hates Jews. Period. Anyone who aligns with the Nation of Islam is clearly anti-Jew and anti-white. Period.
68
And homophobic.
35
Liberals have been anti-Semitic all along. Look at the current state of relations between Britain’s Jews and Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party in the U.K.
21
It is disappointing that instead of providing leadership and defining a set of common values most women can agree with, this group of women chose to focus on identity politics.
This was a good effort, but the four women behind the march, are organizers, not leaders. We need leadership who can craft a universal agenda that appeals across races, demographics and ideologies instead of focusing on issues that appeal to a slender number of women but create drama and discord.
How about broadly supported policies like quality, low cost day care for every child? Even if you don’t have kids, you can understand the societal benefits and you probably know at least one mom struggling with daycare while juggling school or work.
9
After reading (and participating in) the comments here, i feel that many commenters are confused about the nature of this article. It is not about the Israeli-Palistinian conflict, about which we all have opinions. It is about a movement being hijacked, and thereby subverted, by identity politics. The stage on which this is played out has to do with anti-semitism, but that is just a rationale for exclusion. To be diverted into arguing the truth or falsity of the claims made is missing the point, just as trying to make the women's movement into a racial-religious statement misses the point of the movement.
Another amusing (to me) irony in the comments is seeing how commenter's praise for the Times' courageous reporting on the Trump interregnum turns to vitriol when the reporting is not in lockstep with their ideology.
I'm only surprised that there are no right-wing comments linking the women's movement with wanting open borders.
8
So very sad to hear of this divide! Support of Farrakhan dividing the purpose of this movement is a win for patriarchy. Women must unite if we are going to lead and save this planet. We have no time for these divisions
6
This is a perfect example of where identity politics leads--no two people can agree on anything because they are in competition to prove who is the most oppressed. It is vile, and has driven a lot of folks away from the Left.
29
And the right, as well.
5
@roxana If my memory serves me right I don't recall Jewish women in the original march saying that they are oppressed because they are Jewish. It was because they were women.
9
Thanks, Women's March. You were needed in the wake of the shocking 2018 election, but now that Democrats have seized back real political power in this country you can all go back to mutual recriminations on Twitter and leave policy and politics to those who can do something about it. Women like Nancy Pelosi, for example.
10
Someone should show them the picture of Bernie Sanders getting arrested as he protests for civil rights.
12
Sadly, identity politics can often divide, instead of unite us. If we are to ensure that we never again have a Trump in office, then we must start focusing on how to bring all of us together, not to look for ways to foster more hate and divisions among us. I remember marching against the Gulf War in San Francisco and having to listen to a program of speakers spouting agendas that had nothing to do with stopping the war and everything to do with a spectrum of far left causes that clamored for a spotlight. Ms. Mallory, Ms. Perez and Ms. Sarsour ought to realize that their stance and their ignorant and hateful, sweeping comments oddly focused on one religious denomination (Jewish people) can only create backlash, resentment and anger at a cause that many of us would like to come out and support, as women, and as people who care about this country and all of its citizens. I, for one, will stay home and find a more inclusive and tolerant way to battle this administration. Rather than create divisions by casting aspersions on an entire religious group, the only way we can insure that a decent, capable person gets elected to the highest office is to embrace everyone who stands against Trump, his incompetency and his own mean desires to scapegoat, spew hate and divide.
16
Commenters are attacking Farrakhan as though he had been the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter. The shooter was actually a white man, Richard Bowers, with zero ties to Farrakhan and the NOI. But Bowers and his Nazi counterparts get a pass. What’s up with that?
My view of these feminist groups is they serve the interests of white women only. Black women are viewed by the dominant society as black first and female second, if we are considered female at all, and many times we are not. This is a major difference that makes it impossible for white and black women to participate together in so-called women’s groups. I suspect this is a major reason for the falling out among the Women’s March leaders. If Wruble’s allegations of anti-Semitism are to be explored, it is also fair to explore whether she approached the group from a white supremacist perspective and refused to acknowledge the concerns of the nonwhite women.
8
This is ridiculous. Who says Bowers gets a pass?
31
Yes, it is #MeAnti-SemiteToo, in case YOU hadn't noticed.
6
Fox, Limbaugh and Coulter will have an absolute with this. It’s amazing how thin you can slice identity - and how it splits people who otherwise could accomplish great things together.
7
This sounds like the "Olympics of Discrimination, Racism and Bias." Each group puts forward its own history and attempts to win the prize of the worst off. The winner is then able to "teach" others about their failings. All have suffered, some more than others -- but it gets us nowhere to play this game.
I marched and therefore, this is all the more disappointing.
Our intent was to protest as women (no adjectives). These organizers (can't call them leaders) seem to have fragmented the movement and caused such animosity in the process.
They cannot see their own biases and the irony of their approach. Who meets the criteria to be part of their group? No group should be painted with broad brush -- that's the whole point of what we're trying to protest!!!
17
Did we learn nothing in 2016 when white women voted trump? Time and again, stories like this are still being told. Will we finally learn before 2020?
Identity politics divide us.
13
Mallory and Sarsour are both antisemitic, their comments on a variety of occasions, including their ongoing refusal to denounce Farrakhan and the (homphobic\transphobic\patriarchal) Nation of Islam confirm that the leadership of the Women's March is wholly corrupted. And then there are the fiscal irregularities, the celebrity culture etc.
39
Just goes to show that stupidity, corruption and, of course, anti-semitism isn’t confined to any single race or gender. What a tragic statement of the times that these utterly unimpressive minds are on the supposed forefront of a supposedly (hmmm...) important progressive movement.
24
It sure looks like everywhere you look, the kindergarteners are in charge.
13
Tamika Mallory is ignorant, but she is not the problem. Plenty of people are ignorant. The problem is all of the women who tag along with her and Linda Sarsour and their ilk. And all of the women and men who refuse to pillory them for fear of being tagged a racist or a sexist or some other intersectional kind of ist. And there is no reverse racism - it's all racism. When Mallory exhibits it towards white Jews, it's still racism.
45
Farrakhan is literally a tool used to turn potential allied minorities against one another; a useful tool in that.
17
@Miz Rix
Antisemitism has ALWAYS been used for that purpose. The grand uniter: blame the Jews.
21
I am a Jew and white, but I do not uphold white supremacy, and that statement reeks of anti-Semitism. People should be careful not to tar all members of a group with certain opinions. That is bigotry in itself, and minorities, of all people, should be sensitive to that. Hatred comes from ignorance, and it does not matter how well educated a person is--they can still be ignorant. The March should stand for freedom, democracy, and the rights of all people to be judged as individuals. Otherwise the March leaders are no better than the person they are marching against.
53
The distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is continually being abused and/or ignored. Also, some of comments made by the disputants in this article about "all Jews" and all white people should remind us of the perilous terrain we enter when we start talking about "all" of an ethnic, religious, or nationality group (all Black people, the Chinese are such and such, the Irish, etc.,) -- this is the soil in which the seeds of racism are sown. The greatest confusion of all is the lack of understanding about class as opposed to ethnicity. Jewish bankers and Jewish factory workers have little in common in their living standards and lifestyles and have more in common with Black Bankers and Black factory workers respectively, and working-class women have more in common with working-class men than either has with upper-class bourgeois capitalist men or women. Identity politics is, in fact, a ruling class invention to tamper down and prevent the development of class consciousness by dividing the oppressed along "racial," gender, ethnic and religious lines as they know full well that once class consciousness is fully developed it marks the beginning of the end of their oppressive rule.
18
Speaking of modern day leaders and ideal marches think of Gandhi, and Martin Luther King. In other words figures who sacrificed themselves not others, who lived by example without egotism. “Spirituality cannot be taught, it must be caught like a disease from a person already infected with love of God-humanity. ( Kirpal Singh) We honor King with a well deserved national holiday because he stooped neither to petty condemnation of others nor self pity even when he knew he was about to be murdered by our own government.
3
There’s a comment suggesting Jewish people were the “primary” civil rights activists. Many Jewish people supported, organized, and protested with the actual “primary” civil rights activists — African Americans — and their contribution, sometimes death, has not been forgotten. But it’s this kind of appropriation of the struggle and sacrifice carried mostly by African Americans and aided by other Americans including Jewish people, that sows resentment between the groups. Jewish people should not assert more influence or suggest some greater burden was or is carried by Jewish people than the burden black and brown people who are routinely and institutionally marginalized and oppressed by *this* country. It’s this conflation of burdens that frustrates black and brown people. Anti-Semitism is one type of an array of ethnically driven violence in this country, but it’s not the majority. Pittsburgh was a tragedy begot by bigotry. Hate and violence toward anyone or any group is disgusting. But to assert that Jewish people in America — who are often white and therefore not perceptibly a minority regardless of how they personally identify — have suffered the same kind of targeted violence and oppression as black and brown people in America is absurd. It would be helpful for allyship if Jewish people would recognize the disparity between their minority experience and black and brown people’s experiences as minorities and use their white privilege to support and amplify equality for all.
17
Ignoring the historical effects of antisemitism in American history is just a politically correct expression of the very bigotry that this writer is claiming to decry. My family is unusual for Jews in that it has been in the United States since the early 19th century, living in Ohio when it was the gateway to the frontier. I can give you examples of racism from every decade, but the most notable was the lynching of Leo Frank in Marietta,Georgia. One of my father's cousins was sent by the family to retrieve his body and accompany it back to New York for burial. Don't tell me Jews are unable to fathom the pain of other oppressed people in the United States.
42
@Vanessa Moses - misery olympics? Jews are not interested in being victims, but do not want to be painted as the oppressors. Jews have always been and continue to be everyone's punching bag and easy target, seemingly because we don't go down so easily. We focus on what is important. Family, education, hard work, and trying to make the world a slightly better place.
37
@Vanessa Moses brown people? Hispanics have suffered less violence and discrimination in America than Jews and Asians. Yet they get affirmative action. Crazy.
16
The Jewish people who join a movement because they strive for "tikkun olam," repairing the world, are "cast aside" for the likes of Farrakhan. I guess Trump is not the only one setting an example of bad behavior. Those who seek to divide will destroy.
33
Well now I realize that the pro-life women (we're not anti-abortion, we're for the importance of human life whether it's unborn, or on death row) were not the only group of women who were shunned. I agree with a previous post -- just what exactly were the women marching for. To paraphrase George Orwell, all women are equal, but some are more equal than others!
14
This article made me very sad and angry. I went to the WOMEN’S MARCH 2 years ago and left feeling so empowered. Vanessa, Tamika and Carmen I feel you lost focus. A Women’s March means all women on this planet. Remember: health care, equal pay, abuse......I could go on and on.
Ladies, this is not MIDDLE SCHOOL and who is the most popular! Include all or step aside. This is our future - but mostly yours and your daughters.
Rochelle, 69 year old woman
21
The real tragedy here is that those who boycott the Women’s March, even for noble reasons, are withholding their voice from a cause they felt was worth marching for.
Our infighting as progressives only empowers conservatives, and while I think the presence of anti-semitism in the movement, or at the top of it, is absolutely unacceptable, and demands action, I have to ask: who does a boycott of the Women’s March benefit?
The answer is obviously not women.
6
@Braden Lock...Whom does participation in a Some-but-not-All Women's March benefit?
14
This dispute among the leadership quartet appears to be so damaging and disabling. The common denominator of being women seems to be undermined by unspoken allegiances to race, religion, ethnicity, and individual egos making a bid for power. Those diversions can only result in divisions and subsequently weaken or destroy their movement.
I imagine the mass of people in the Women's March had no side agenda of their race, religion or ethnicity. They demonstrated for the higher cause of being women as did the men who marched along with them. The leadership of that cause should reflect the goal of all women moving forward. Leave the other agendas at home.
9
Yes, 53% of white women voted for Trump, but the remaining 47% still represents a larger actual number of women than the number of any particular ethnicity in this country. So if you want to effect real political change you’re still going to have to go through that 47% and not simply dismiss them. You might even find while doing so that they want to use their numbers, their privilege, and their own experience in organizing to fight oppression for the good of all women including those of color.
That being said, we do need to examine whether “women” is a valid political term. The inescapable fact that millions of women voted for Trump and supported Brett Kavanaugh means that we have to accept that women do not have a monolithic attitude toward a woman’s sovereignty over her own body, whether in the form of sexual assault or reproductive rights. There are male as well as female politicians who support legislation upholding that sovereignty and female as well as male politicians who don’t. It seems to me that it would be more effective to frame the divide as being between those two types of politicians rather than being about men vs. women.
And there are also two types of Jews, based on what they learned from the Holocaust: many dedicated their lives to fighting all forms of racism while others became insular and militant. You can’t blame Jews for taking advantage of white privilege and you can’t blame blacks for resenting them for that. We all need to develop empathy.
7
I participated in the Women’s March, although I was suspicious of the politics at play within the organizing group. The bottom line is that I marched because I wanted Trump to see he did NOT have a mandate, even though the organizers tried to turn it to a host of other progressive issues (all subject to their approval). I’ll bet most of those who marched were like me. I don’t want to submit to their brand of leadership any more than I do Trump’s. What a waste of potential.
14
The anti-semitism of some members of the Black community has always been troubling, and somewhat puzzling to me. Malcolm X broke away from the NOI, which begs the question: why would this group be revered by some in the Black community? You can't embrace the legacy of Malcolm AND the NOI. Black activists such as Mercey Morganfield (mentioned in the embedded link to the Tablet, which I highly recommend reading), need to speak out on this issue to clear the air so as to distinguish between leaders who have the interests of women vs those whose only interest is themselves.
This article only serves to make glaringly apparent the ignorance regarding the definition of white privilege, and calls to mind an event I attended which featured the Director of the Anne Frank house from Holland. He recalled speaking to a group of young children from a favela in Brazil. A young girl said, I am Anne Frank, because Anne's story resonated with her. Then the young girl said, she identified with the persecution of Anne Frank, because this young girl is Black and poor, but she did not understand why a white girl from Europe was persecuted. Just because Jews are white does not mean anti-semitism is not real. Antisemitism is as destructive as any form of racism. A Jew's whiteness does not eliminate anti-semitism.
The march should focus on Equal Rights for All Women, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, and legal status.
32
The disconnect between (non-Orthodox/non-Zionist) Jews and Blacks has long been fostered by Farrakhan.
When I was an undergraduate (1993), someone spraypainted a swastika on a mural of Malcom X on the outside of a campus restaurant. Members of the student Jewish and Black Student Union groups, among many other people, went to a meeting organized by the BSU that was to feature the local head of the Nation of Islam. It soon became apparent that the event was being used by the NOI as a recruitment opportunity rather than to build bridges across groups with a shared goal. It was a lost opportunity then, and it is a lost opportunity now with regard to Women's March.
29
A thank you not a pejorative is required when one receives good. That has not been the case between Jews & the black community. Remember Andrew Goodman and many others who gave fullly for the right thing? Well neither does the black community evidently.
35
It is extraordinary - and horrifying - that these women would accuse Jewish women of being racist, when, for decades, Jews were the primary civil rights activists. In fact, their social activism in the 1930’s, ‘40’s and 50’s, made them targets of the McCarthy HUAC purges and blacklists, because it was linked to alleged communism. They should read some history, rather than listening to an anti-Semite like Farrakhan.
118
@Jose Pieste What does this comment even mean?
4
@Jose Pieste
But a frequent tactic. When a member of an ostensibly oppressed group achieves something positive, it is treated as a striking advance for all group members, reflective of that race's or gender' inherent capabilities.
When one of them does something bad, the refrain is they're all individuals, the group is no way tarnished, and that it would be racist, sexist and patriarchalist to view it any differently.
It is tiring.
6
This is disappointing. NOI and Farrakhan are still a thing?! And they’re still attacking Jews?! They were a bad joke even back in the 90s. Also irrational hatred on the part of black women needs to be exposed and discussed a lot more. This story exemplifies that.
78
So typical of the Left to drag ‘Israel’ into the discussion. What does Israel’s strategy for defending against 70+ years of war and terrorism perpetrated against them have to do with the Women’s March?
56
If this isn't anti-Semitism why are the wrongs of Jews obsessed over while Muslims, blacks and Hispanics are given a free pass? All three groups have a worse human rights record then Jews. All three had more to do with the slave trade then Jews. I would be interested in the reactions from Sarsour and Perez if the role of Muslims, Arabs and Hispanics in the slave trade was brought up by Mallory. The role was far greater and Arab Muslims are far more complicit in black suffering than Jews. Including the present day.
132
Ms Wruble got into bed with the wrong people. She should have known better. Many on the hard left want to distance themselves from Jews or are virulent antisemites. The women's march was/is a vehicle for the hard left. Many Jews are finally waking up to the fact that they don't belong there anymore.
36
It seems the original concept
“...a diverse group of women united by their concern about the incoming administration...”
has been forgotten by the current organizers.
But the real focus has not been forgotten by those of us who wore pink pussy hats in 2017.
See you all in the streets January 19th!
11
White Jews, as white people, uphold white supremacy. This is the quote of the year, from someone who thinks she is going to break down racism, but is racist herself. Reverse racism.
How many varied articles in the NYT have pushed the idea of collective guilt on all Caucasians for being racist? For being inherently racist without knowing it or feeling it? Privileged white racists? And we are supposed to accept this garbage posed as the truth? So when these women of color, who idolize Mr. Farrakhan, pretend they are not anti-Semitic, the whole women's march becomes a hypocritical movement of those seeking the limelight with their useful idiots in tow. And don't forget Linda Sarsour, who doesn't like to talk about the inherent misogyny in much of the Moslem world, nor the racism inherent among her Palestinians, with Palestinians of color (Sudanese ancestors) being discriminated against in everything from marriage to housing to jobs.
98
If anyone is wondering what makes anti semitism so unique and serious is the FACT that if any woman’s leader or any leader for that fact had stood on stage with someone that openly and proudly called black or Hispanic people Termites then they would be forced to resign by that evening. So why not when they subject is the Jews?
70
Ye shall know them by their heroes. Ms. Mallory co-president of the Women’s March group has called Mr. Farrakhan “the GOAT,” or “greatest of all time,” on social media.
Some comments by Mr. Farrakhan:
As the leader of the Nation of Islam, Farrakhan has preached the organization's theology that blacks are superior to whites. He has said whites were created 6,600 years ago as a "race of devils" by an evil scientist named Yakub. At an event in Milwaukee in August 2015, Farrakhan said: "White people deserve to die, and they know, so they think it’s us coming to do it.
At a meeting of the Nation of Islam at Madison Square Garden in 1985, Farrakhan said of the Jews: "And don't you forget, when it's God who puts you in the ovens, it's forever!" Farrakhan made antisemitic comments during his May 16–17, 2013 visit to Detroit and in his weekly sermons titled "The Time and What Must Be Done", begun during January 2013 In March 2015, Farrakhan accused Jews of involvement in the September 11 attacks.
And on and on...
What is most troubling is that a majority of commenters say something like a pox on both houses. They claim that both sides are to blame. What is most obvious is the vicious antisemitism of Ms. Mallory. It is she who threw out Ms. Wruble; not the reverse. When someone mugs another person, both are not equally responsible for the mugging, as many here would have it.
85
Blacks and Latinos need to confront the mote in their own eyes, hate-filled racists that they are.
30
Too little too late New York Times. That first women’s march was offensive to any well read Jew. ALL Jewish women should have known about Linda Sarsour’s vicious Jew hatred and Tamika Mallory’s fondness for Farrakhan before they embraced the March. Where were you New York Times to call out these organizers? Oh that’s right you were too busy calling Trump a misogynistic Nazi and perpetuating the myth of an Israeli occupation. Now you’re taking credit for exposing these heinous women? Shameful.
43
Now white women are experiencing what it's like to be a white man in these conversations. Division breeds division, and in the meantime important issues remain unaddressed.
21
The leaders of the march have to ask how it feels to be gunned down in your temples and then told weeks later told that you are equivalent to the shooter.
59
Those who hate white people, regardless of whether they know, frequently interact, or acquainted with any, are simple racist.
Labeling any group as evil, cruel, or anti-whatever is simply stereotyping. Dividing people is the popular strategy of many seeking instant social media fame. It's propaganda pushed by those who are ignorant of history and current day behaviors.
32
The liberal far left is just as bad as the far right! Wake up you have Linda Sarsour as a leader of the movement. My daughter attended the march in NYC. When I told her to research this person she was surprised she was a leader. I wasn't.
So it's white supremacy that holds women back now is it? There apparently is enough blame to go around to many cultures not necessarily just based on race it seems to me. But hey I've been labeled the problem what do I know.
20
This is why the left has become deeply dysfunctional. Rather than fight over which demographic identity is the greater victim, why not march for feminism or some specific feminist cause? There are plenty of them out there. How about paid maternity leave?
16
The reported prejudicial attitudes of the leaders of the 2019 Women's March will insure a lower turnout and provide fodder for Trump, Fox News and the rest of the Right. The rightists will seek to use this to smear the entire opposition to Trumpism and the Democratic Party as bigoted and only concerned with issues important to non-whites. Whether these new leaders have intended to single out Jews among all white people as racist or simply can't see white woman as having problems that need to be addressed, such narrowness of vision is disheartening and self-defeating.
8
I am obviously naive as a Canadian and reading this but I am trying to understand why the US is so compelled to always make these issues about “self” versus “us”.
When Trump came into power a shock wave came to world and the gripping fear of his disrespect for women was felt in every country not just the US.
Why is it that every group must look back versus just move forward from the day he was elected to protect the collective versus bicker and grip and what each other’s group has done or did do?
I just don’t get it, it seems everybody wants the stage for themselves and not share it versus saying how do we protect women.
I agree with the previous comment what are these women marching for?
This is one of the biggest issues I see with the US is that is that it has this never ending division and blame versus moving forward, do everything you can to fix it, acknowledge what happened in the past and move on.
Dwelling on the past and continuing to blame in a sense shows these groups don’t want to make change they just want to dwell on the past.
This I assume is fodder for garbage like Trump to sit back and laugh about it and how this strife only creates weakness in the ranks with nothing gained.
9
@Ms. J. Trump has more women in senior posts than any other president in history - fact.
2
if the organizers of this march/grouping are unable to view people as individuals regardless of their origin, how they can expect to be treated fairly is beyond me.
not only do they disqualify themselves from any legitimate action against racism, they taint and tarnish the objectives of their group.
what a sorry bunch.
9
This is a march about women of color?
When did that happen?
Last January I marched on behalf of ALL women, our children and grandchildren,
our country and our planet. And I was looking forward to making another significant impact next January.
If you make this about color, I’m (very sadly) out.
Why are we fighting?
This is so disappointing. What benefits the whole will benefit the individuals as well.
Right now the focus needs to be on stopping this disastrous presidency.
Please don’t allow these politically minded self serving groups to highjack this movement. These selfish monovision “leaders” should step down. And please disengage from Farrakhan. His name will turn more people away.
Save the March! Save our movement!
58
@Barbara Vilaseca. You are speaking sense, so probably few will listen. Some have their own axe to grind (Mallory et al) and apparently could not care less about the true purpose of the march.....just about their own viewpoint, however inaccurate.
9
Your comment is spot on. It all reminds me of Life of Brian, with the People's Front quarrelling with all the "splitter" factions, to the point of forgetting their wider purpose.
9
It seems that many of these accusations of anti-Semitism center on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
It is vital that we not conflate opposition to Israeli state policy with Anti-Semitism. Proponents of Israeli expansionism tend to correlate the two in order to shut down criticism of Israeli actions. However, this strategy serves only to weaken the term "anti-Semitism". It is possible to support the safety, freedom and integrity of the Jewish people while still opposing the human rights abuses of the Israeli state.
17
@Scott M. Blaming Jews for slavery as Mallory did is indeed anti semitic.
29
A depressing read. The right unites and the left disintegrates. No wonder Trump won and might win again. When I was at the San Diego Women's March in 2017 there was a 5 heard old girl with a sign that said "Don't worry...even Hogwarts was taken over by Voldemort for a while." This kind of division is going to ensure that he will be there for a long while.
5
@CA Republic, if only Trump could become "he who must not be named."
Ms. Ruble, Ms. Mallory and Ms. Perez have weakened the women’s movement because of their divisive bigotry. Rather than unite women they have divided women. After reading this I am furious. How dare they hijack the women’s movement’s agenda. If they want to address the injustices of racism then do so in a separate forum. This is not the place or time to do so. They fell right into the playbook on how to dilute and weaken a movement. Thank you - NOT.
43
@Ozma
They hijacked the movement because no one was brave enough to call them out.
7
The mark of anti-Semitism is not criticism of Israeli policies. It is the making of such criticism exclusive of critiques of other nations. It is the insistence that support of Israel as a nation is not tolerable among people of good will. It is opposition to the sole Jewish state as an illegitimate expression of nationalism when there are so, so many other nations that can be criticized on essentially the same grounds.
Thank you, NYT, for bringing this issue to light.
40
hummm. perhaps some facts and historical perspective are in order:
"American Jews played a significant role in the founding and funding of some of the most important civil rights organizations, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In 1909, Henry Moscowitz joined W.E.B. DuBois and other civil rights leaders to found the NAACP. Kivie Kaplan, a vice-chairman of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now the Union for Reform Judaism), served as the national president of the NAACP from 1966 to 1975. Arnie Aronson worked with A. Philip Randolph and Roy Wilkins to found the Leadership Conference."
https://rac.org/jews-and-civil-rights-movement
52
The Times wrote endless articles about the factions and fissures in the last Women’s March, too, which went on to be immensely successful and powerful. Those divisions, real or imagined or real-but-inflated, seemed to be an obsession of the Times ... and it’s worth pointing out that’s it’s already happening again. This emphasis strikes this (male) reader as sexist, somehow— look at the women squabbling, or something. Maybe it’s newsworthy, probably it is, but it all feels relentlessly negative.
9
@JMF The millions of protesters who marched on January 20th, 2017, did not show up to show our support Tamika Mallory and the steering committee of the Women's March. We showed up to send a message to Donald Trump. We no longer need this organization to effectively oppose his presidency.
42
@Michael
And after millions were mobilized, and fiery speeches of defiance made, Donald Trump ... remains President. Granted, he may not make it to 2020, but that has nothing to do with the march and everything to do with his own mistakes and Gerhard Mueller. He could not have asked for a better foil than this march.
Sending a message to Trump--if he even deigned to listen--did not make him quake in his boots. When movements like this revert to the 60s' focus on the individual, they might actually regain people like me who are disgusted with the left's current Oppression Olympics.
6
This type of thinking will kill the women's movement. Why must people insert their own special identity politics into a group that was organized for an entirely different reason? This isn't about black, brown, yellow, red, or white, and by the way, we're all people of color. Is Russia infiltrating this group? As Benjamin Franklin said, "We must all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall hang separately."
24
It is possible for liberalism to be based on inclusiveness. In fact, that's kind of the whole point. Where did this idea come from that you can't truly be a good liberal if you don't have the right religion or skin color? Seems both hypocritical and self defeating to me.
18
"She said she went home that night and searched Google to read about the Jewish role in the slave trade. Up popped a review of “The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and the Jews,” a 1991 book by Mr. Farrakhan, which asserts that Jews were especially culpable. “
I recall reading that a Jewish historian had discovered that a Jewish man brought Africans here to work as slaves. This fit in so nicely with Mr. Farrakhan’s anti-semitism that he wrote a book blaming the entire slave trade on the Jewish people. According to the Wikipedia page titled by the name of Farrakhan’s book, "Henry Louis Gates, Jr., head of the department of Afro-American studies at Harvard University, called the book "the Bible of new anti-Semitism" and added that "the book massively misinterprets the historical record, largely through a process of cunningly selective quotations of often reputable sources” “ In 1995, the American Historical Association (AHA) issued a statement condemning "any statement alleging that Jews played a disproportionate role in the Atlantic slave trade.”'
I wonder what Mr. Farrakhan thinks of the Black Africans who sold their brethren into slavery; of the Muslim North Africans who raided sub-Saharan African tribes for slaves; and of present-day Muslims, in Libya, who are enslaving some of the Black Africans who are trying to make their way from sub-Saharan Africa through Libya to Europe?
54
@ann. You should have stopped after "I wonder what Mr. Farrakhan thinks".
I don't think he has researched history at all accurately, unless to cherry-pick those few things upon which he can expound/expand his own warped views.
I wonder if "what" should be "if".
4
A grass roots political organization which has become strong enough to present a serious challenge to rising societal threats is being torn apart by internal bickering and thin skinned self focus?..... Turn off your social media streams and get back to work you fools. Don't allow the amplification of small efforts by weak political foes destroy the important social and political work of strong majorities.
6
I am heartened to see the NYT finally highlighting anti-Semitism emanating from the left. While far right movements are a scourge to Jews and other religious and ethnic groups, it is also spreading among the progressive left and must be monitored and called out just as much.
39
In reading this I keep thinking about the Civil Rights movement and how the Jews were on the forefront in their alignment with the Blacks. Jews were involved financially, with their feet on marches and some paid with their lives (Schwerner and Goodman too name two). So perhaps Ms. Mallory and Ms. Perez should study the history first before taking an anti-Jewish stance.
17
Women need to always stand against bigotry and discrimination, the movement of women must be for equality for all. Anti-Semitism is always beyond tolerating. I stand with Ms. Wruble.
35
Glad to finally see an article on how the Women’s March was hijacked by a group of racist and self-promoting grifters.
Those of us who marched with deep concern for women and our country need to take our movement back.
82
This is but another disgraceful example of how American Jews,
who did more for civil rights than any other white American
grouping, have again been singled out for "special treatment,"
and no less by many of the very people for whose rights we fought so hard yet compared to other whites way out of proportion to our relatively small numbers.
17
Gee, remember how there were no Jews active in the Civil Rights movement of the 60s?
Yeah, me neither.
35
@Steve Simels
But what have you done for me *lately*? :- )
3
Antisemitism is becoming widespread again. White supremacists are emboldened under Trump, and many on the left conflate Israel's policies with the Jewish diaspora. No one blames African Americans for Rwanda, so why are American Jews blamed for Israeli actions?
16
@ann
Israeli actions? You mean like defending themselves against 70+ years of war and terrorism perpetrated in an effort to drive Jews from their own indigenous ground?
17
The women's march shouted "don't take us seriously" the second they made Linda Sarsour one of it's leaders.
27
Seems reasonable that someone could both be a feminist and a racist. Is the movement’s tent sufficiently large to include women who are racists?? Are they not women too!?
5
@Brian - These days you don't even need a vagina or a uterus or breasts or ovaries or any other female biological attribute to be a woman, so the answer to your question anyone apparently can be a "woman."
2
Unashamed and unpunished open anti-Semitism = black privilege. Jews coordinating the slave trade? Please. Perhaps out of politeness or guilt, Jews have so far refrained from making the case for winning the oppression Olympics. No group of people has been oppressed for a longer period of time or from such a variety of other factions.
Ladies, check your privilege.
31
Italians endured the same type of discrimination that Latinos now unfairly receive yet somehow we’re “white” and Latinos are a minority. Good example of why identity politics is a cancer
9
Sarsour involved! Need one add more? A totally disingenuous hypocrite. Sugar would not melt in her mouth.
16
Big mistake happening here
You--know-who is no doubt delighted
Bury your differences
I'm just sayin'...
6
Sounds as if there’s at least one borderline personality disorder in the mix and a lot of trolling.
4
Jews are white people? Cool! Any chance I can get some of that privilege on a retroactive basis?
Anyone that actually believes that Jews haven’t had to “grapple” with their racial status over the past couple of thousand years should take a moment out of their anti-Semitic day, and consider what a ‘Semite’ is.
And remember, it’s not reverse racism; it’s just racism.
32
@ubique - thank you! The ridiculous term "reverse racism" has always befuddled me.
4
Why is the headline “Accusations of Anti-Semitism” instead of “Anti-Semitism”? You chose internal quotes to demonstrate anti-Semitism, so why not just say it?
19
I have been warning my friends about the antisemitism of 3/4 of the Women's March leadership since before the first march in January, 2017. It has been covered and discussed widely, but not by the mainstream media that loved the March. It took dogged reporting by Tablet, an online outlet, to get the mainstream media to pay attention, more than two years later, with reporting like this story. Thank you to the NYT for waking up. Now it is time for follow-up on the third antisemitic member of this troika, Linda Sarsour, whose exterminationist and dissolutionist exclamations about just one state in the world -- Israel, the Jewish state -- similarly identify her as unfit for leadership. She is in the same kitchen as Mallory and Perez, not to mention Farrkakhan, Hamas, and David Duke. A few telegenic crumbs thrown to the useful idiots of the Jewish far, far left do not change the nature of the strongly anti-Semitic cake in her oven. She should not have been buried until paragraph 19, and her own antisemitism soft-pedaled.
38
The Women's March following the election of Donald Trump was one of the most positive and invigorating events of my life. I marched in Oakland. There was humor, insightfulness and above all UNITY. If the leaders of the movement are endangering that unity, then they need to step aside. This is about women, all kinds of women, their needs and their struggles in today's political climate. Any leader caught up in their own personal issues needs to get out of the way.
17
Feminist for Farrakhan is a concept that is difficult to grasp.
From the Final Call today, "Wicked, Zionist so-called Jews have been attacking the Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan".
Followers of the NOI embrace this tripe. So do people who sit in the front seats cheering.
There needs to be an audit of funds raised and spending. The percentage of the gross proposal sent heads spinning.
11
Their bigotry and anti-semitism is appalling. Time for a real look in the mirror.
18
I will not tolerate Mallory and Perez’s undercurrents of anti-Semitism, Women’s March be damned.
Jews have always been at the forefront of the struggle for civil rights for all; where, as a Jewish woman, I will continue to fight on.
17
I don't understand how, given the toll paid at Auschwitz, anyone in their right mind can possibly claim that white Jews "uphold" white supremacy?
Ms. Mallory needs her head examined.
(Comment by a white Jewish woman)
52
How is it possible that woman who ally themselves with Farakhan whose role model is Hitler, are leaders of the Woman's March. I don't think they know that Hitler compared blacks to Apes . Racism and anti Semitism have no place in the fight for Woman's Rights. The woman's movement has been hijacked by racist leadership and all woman and people of conscience should see through this and not support the march until current leadership steps down.
15
This was a march for Women's Rights in light of the potential assault by the Trump administration. It was an amazing show of strength, determination and public display that women will not be silenced or pushed further away from social equality, access to health care, reproductive choice and equal pay. The infiltration of identity politics only divides us. I get that there are plenty of issues today to act on but don't mix the message with your personal agendas that have a voice elsewhere. I thought the Women's March was about the issues that face ALL women reguardless of colour, race, religion or politics; its about having a vagina.
5
Wow, the cudgel of identity politics is exposed as a failure because it creates divisions between people when none exist. It also shows how victimization as a motivation lacks lasting structure to create the change that is desperately needed. I’d like to see a unity message that encourages love and kindness not “look at me I’m a “insert identity here” and I’ve been wronged and it’s “insert responsible group here “ fault. Shouldn’t progressive activists be able to evolve to true leaders or is it too easy and fun to just be angry? I fear the latter. And the failures continue. It’s a pity.
20
Give it up, Paul. It's a disagreement - not a failure.
4
@njglea
Anti-Semitism is not a "disagreement".
8
It’s a failure because identity politics does not create unity which is what makes lasting change. Otherwise it’s just protest and that is the easy path to think you have accomplished something.
3
Great leaders inspire movements to rise above past wrongs. As Nelson Mandela said, "You will achieve more in this world through acts of mercy than you will through acts of retribution." I pray the women's leaders showcased here will find in their hearts such courageous generosity. Stop keeping score. Start working together. Then as you lead, we'll see your brave example and follow.
7
I originally planned to write that Tamika Mallory, who's demonstrated an unapologetic affinity for racial prejudice time and time again, has no choice but to resign from the Women's March if the organization is to retain any credibility.
But upon further reflection, her resignation seems unnecessary, because this organization has been hemorrhaging credibility from its inception. It has actively sought out and advocated for the most radical, maximalist social demands of the Far Left; so when Tamika Mallory, for instance, categorically states that all white people are responsible for upholding white supremacy, she is not undermining the organization's mission statement — she is enunciating it in the clearest possible terms.
Tamika Mallory and Linda Sarsour and Carmen Perez can have the Women's March, for all I care. When I showed up on the Washington Mall on January 21st, 2017, it was to stand up against Donald Trump. I don't need this ridiculous organization, and all the odious politics of resentment that it embodies, to do that.
94
Amen to that. A house divided will not stand. As a woman I am appalled.
11
What a relief it is not to live in New York and be consumed by this nonsense. Look what happens when labels are applied to people. Accepting and respecting every person for who they are is a simple concept. Intolerance, even disguised as liberalism, takes a lot less effort.
If loving every person as we love ourselves was easy, God wouldn't have had to make it a commandment.
7
The women's march suffered the same fate as WBAI and Pacifica. it was taken over by a hate group, which spouted its hatred so loudly, every one was terrified to be called a racist and gave in.
17
If your religion participated in the slave trade, please step down. If your religion has been used to promote a violent political ideology, please step down. If your country of origin has engaged in genocide, please step down. Who's left?
26
Nobody. Excellent point. There is not a locker big enough to check our historical baggage, so acknowledge it and move forward.
7
The fringe always takes over, no matter what the cause.
11
Remarkable how these flawed, bigoted “leaders” demand a legacy of absolute purity from others that they lack themselves. Didn’t Jesus say, “Let he who is free of sin cast the first stone”? This quest for absolute moral purity, which is unattainable, will cripple the progressive movement, which, after all, isn’t so progressive.
11
These women should have never been allowed to co-opt this movement. It was supposed to be a march for all women. That’s it. It’s not the march for intersectionalism. If they want more awareness of issues that women of various races and ethnicities face, then they should create movements for those subgroups. They are not entitled, though, to have people of another marginalized group bend to their wills. They have no idea how bad this looks for them, and these specific women appear to care more about their status and power in this movement than doing what is best for all women.
33
Instead of emotional discussion I suggest looking at facts. Women discrimination over the world is highest in Islamist states, so is the crime against women. Even during the Arab spring demonstrations in Egypt the attacks and violence against women was a daily event. In the Palestinian community both inside the green line, or the occupied territory, majority of murders of Palestinian women is honor killing by family members and not by Israelis. I suggest to the Farrakhan crowed will clean their own house before they throw the first stone.
26
“Since that conversation, we’ve all learned a lot about how while white Jews, as white people, uphold white supremacy..." Way to rally those marchers Ms. Mallory! This is so junior-high. Could all these women please step aside and let some grown-ups manage one single women's march?
14
What are these women marching for? If they can't even accept each other, how do they expect the greater society to make a place for more women? No wonder these movements become ineffective. Infighting like this is what rendered the women's movement of the 1970's impotent. They need to identify as women first, and Black or Jewish or whatever, second, if they hope to survive.
392
@Ms. Pea
women always end up being their own worst enemies, which us encouraged byvthe patriarchy
21
@Ms. Pea
I agree completely. As women who finally get angry enough to protest for change, we do ourselves harm by infighting.
23
This article highlights the troubling turn the civil rights movement has taken in recent years. It has gone, from the days of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., from an effort to get equal rights for all, to us vs. them. The very notion of "allies" implies enemies. And privilege is spit out like an epithet. I am an older, white, male, and a physician. When I get stopped by police, I am treated with respect. This is not a bad thing. It is something that should be extended to all. This should be the privilege of being a human being. Instead the civil rights movement is devolving into a contest of resentment; a competition for which is the most maligned group. If you can't see the immense strides the world has made in human right in the last 50 years you are blind. We should fight for further advances with hope for the future, not looking back with bitterness and anger.
21
I commend Ms. Wruble for going public with her story as she speaks for so many of us in the NY metro area not only for those involved in movement and the women's march but also by extension those fighting for criminal justice reform for women. It is an extremely toxic environment filled with hate, jealousy, resentment and very destructive, spiteful women. I have personally received much of the same treatment as Ms. Wruble from some of the same individuals and many others. I am not jewish but I'm white, from a middle-class background, had a professional career and received my education prior to my incarceration and am continually labeled "a WHITE woman of privilege". If that is the case then I did almost 5 years combined of jail and prison (including Rikers) with plenty of "white women of privilege". This movement is not inclusive but rather exclusive and if you do not fit the specific characteristics they are seeking you are locked out of everything including advocacy, employment AND yes the holy grail of GRANT FUNDING. I have gone on job interviews with well-known criminal justice organizations in NY only to be told BEFORE any interview that I am "all wrong for this position" I have been dealing with this toxic culture for almost 5 years now and continually remind people that I have enough fishes and loaves for everyone, that I have a place at my table for ALL I just ask the same from them. Until this changes we will accomplish nothing.
36
@Kathy it was mentioned earlier in the comments to "follow the money" I feel it's important to point out that Ms. Perez is (she may have stepped down) the Executive Director of an organization called 'Gathering for Justice' a 501(c)(3) founded by Harry Belafonte which focuses on putting an end to children and incarceration. Mr. Belafonte's (whom I admire as an artist but also his work for children) daughter Gina Belafonte writes for the NY Times.
2
Right wings in the country came together despite their difference; the left wing? Self-implodes at the perception of it. No wonder we can’t even decide on who runs for 2020, alas, we just lack the “perfect” candidate!
1
Anti-semitism will always exist. Thousands of years of history. As a non-Jewish woman who married a Jewish man, a neighbor once remarked that she knew immediately that I was Jewish, an assumption made simply because of my last name. I don't know why I found that comment offensive. My late husband once said to me, "Scratch anyone and you'll find an anti-semite."
14
After reading this and the Tablet article, it would appear that the women's march is a failed enterprise and it's failure is due to the same old factors as always: greed, cultural bias, and lack of empathy. When you rally around people who have a history of making divisive statements ( Mallory, Perez, and especially Sarsour,) you are going to end up with a divided movement. It is clear that the "leaders" put their own agendas ahead of a broader movement and brought their own cultural biases with them as well. Time to look for truly inclusive leaders and make a fresh start.
24
@Here's the Thing
The Women’s March movement needs to adopt anti-authoritorian organizing by taking a page from the Anarchists and dispense with leaders altogether.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/chris-crass-but-we-don-t-have-leaders-leadership-development-and-anti-authoritarian-organizing
Here we go. Every time women start to gather forces and work together for true, systematic change differences break unity apart. It's amazing to me that the "differences" are usually cloaked in some religious dogma.
Good Women of America and the world YOU are over one-half the population. Every single woman is a unique individual with unique ideas. What women have in common is SUPPRESSION for centuries - usually because of religious beliefs dreamed up by men for men so they can control.
It is past time for women to stick to the subject - STOP THE SUPPRESSION OF WOMEN'S RIGHTS TO DECIDE HOW TO LIVE AND WHAT TO DO WITH THEIR OWN BODIES.
Stop gender discrimination. Stop sexual abuse and harassment. Stop a few socially unconscious, insatiably greedy men's ability to take away the rights of over half the population of the world - women - yours.
The mantra must be, "Woman first. Religion and politics last."
8
If women are marching in Washington DC, I will be there. I have even met Ms. Mallory and am so proud of the efgorts of the four faces of the Women's March. However, Ms. Mallory is now revealing herself to be a millennial in need of a history lesson. Ms. Mallory has no idea how the coalition of brown (me), white AND Jewish women created a world that allows Ms. Mallory to co-chair these marvelous events in support of issues critical to all citizens. I am old now and I am glad that millenials can take these privileges for granted. However, denigration of any woman who marches with Ms. Mallory her is unwarranted. Ms. Mallory needs to personally work hard to bring these two marches together on January 19, 2019, or she should step aside. Please let's stand as one in D.C.
21
Another conversation we might want to have is; why does terminology like “anti-Catholic” or “anti-Mormon” (or insert any other religious group) not pack quite the same punch in our culture as “anti-semitism”? I’ve been in countless—truly, too many to count—experiences where my Jewish friends scoffed at or made light of my own religion. It’s so very common (even in the NYT) to make light of Catholic traditions, or conflate them with the problems of priests, that the hurtful words and stereotyping barely make a ripple. So perhaps what the two women were responding to is decades of exceptionalism (I can be hyper-critical, YOU can’t) that causes a certain amount of tone deafness.
If we dig deep enough into our backgrounds, we’ll find suffering, injustice, prejudice, wrongs, rights...Yes, the parsing and conversations we need to have are essential, but at some point let us move past the constant picking at scabs and instead seek our common humanity, decency, and desire for a better future.
8
@Colibrina
Maybe because of the Crusades or the Holocaust, stuff like that.
4
So a group that wants to parse the significance of every event through the lens of one identity (gender) finds some of its members wanting to drill-down to other segregations? Wow, who would've expected that?
5
I think part of the reasons the Woman's March has become so contentious - is that it has no legislative agenda. I think when people are fighting for something concrete - like a new voting rights act or the ERA - people are more likely to pull together.
The leaders of the Women's March on the other hand are more concerned with placing all human beings on a relative privilege graph. In addition they seem to be immune to looking at their own prejudices. I don't see how anything good could come out of that combination.
9
The women who gathered for the first march two years ago agreed on exactly two things: that the election of Trump was an insult to women, and that his presidency posed an existential threat to humanity. That’s it and that’s enough to protest about.
The only way you get the large crowds you need is to make sure the description of the cause you’re protesting can fit on a bumper sticker. Anything more complex than that and you’re being exclusive rather than inclusive. Sadly, for the people who try to hijack a mass movement and steer it to their particular cause, that’s exactly what they want.
Yes, we want to hear how Trump’s actions are affecting individual communities and people from all cultures and walks of life, to better understand the ways in which the political and personal are connected, how the impact of one’s vote is manifesting in different people’s lives, and to learn about effective actions we can take to counter the devastating impact of the political reality. No, we don’t want to hear how we’re all hypocrites because we haven’t been paying enough attention to your cause and that our very existence as a member of a demographic historically oppressive of yours means that our voices and concerns need to be actively suppressed.
Women are not monolithic. Jews are not monolithic. Having a common enemy, whether it’s the patriarchy or systemic racism, is not a defining principle. Affirming the right of all individuals to live in peace with one another is.
466
@James Jacobs white men are not monolithic.
21
@James Jacobs
Thank you very much, Mr. Jacobs!
12
Is there a job to be done? What is it?
These aren't hard questions.
If the answer to these questions is to create political engagement under a large tent, infighting about who is more oppressed is a waste of precious energy.
It means making room for people who we don't agree with 100%. People who lead successful movements understand this.
Organizers need to get it together, compromise and lead. These are dark times. Anything else is self indulgent.
5
I thought the women's march was about seizing the future(?) If the movement dwells on litigating past history, the right-wing will exploit the fissures and the movement will be discredited, just like 'occupy wall street' was taken-apart by the media as too left.
3
I see the statement by Ms. Mallory as quoted that all white people up hold white supremacy by virtue of being white as divisive and wrongheaded. I am a white woman. I could, but won’t go into, the practical ways I support people of color, financially and with my time. The idea that just by being white, I am injuring others and exercising white privilege is offensive. Most importantly, even if activists believe this, it is a poor strategy for building a coalition for change. It turns off people like me who willing to actively support racial justice and does a disservice to racial justice movements that will need to be broad in order to succeed. There are many things I will never truly understand in terms of discrimination because I am not a person of color. But, that is different from saying I uphold white supremacy because I am white.
46
Although this story focuses on the rift with Jewish women and the leaders of the Women's March Inc., people should understand that Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam also discriminate against women in general and gay people.
The problem from the beginning was having Michael Skolnik recommend the 3 women of color who had all worked together, as Tablet Magazine has reported. None of the four women had much experience in working for women's rights specifically. For example, Sarsour had worked for the Arab-American Association of New York. That's different from organizing feminist Muslims or working for the rights of Arab-American women.
The women's marches around the country have different leaders, and may have issues specific to their location. I'm not sure how much good marches actually do. I'd rather see work focused on what changes each one of us wants, whether it's maternal health, women in prison, sexism in religion, etc.
8
This is just so sad. We need to unite to solve the problems of today, not lose any momentum by bringing up historical conflicts. Of course, we should not forget them, and we should address them. But to baste in these disputes only serves to set us back. Can't these women see that?
2
Shortly after the first women's march (filled with feelings of solidarity in the midst of a political crisis) I attended a meeting of interfaith ministers. I was talking about the need to listen more closely to people who didn't agree with our orientation. I was told to shut up by a woman in the group who had known me for several years. This interlocutor told me that she was literally becoming sick hearing words coming from the mouth of a white male.
Reading this, I kept wondering if I was reading a script for a Monty Python Movie. I'm sort of resigned to there being the same sort of of extremism on the far left fringe as there is on the right, and I find myself increasingly sympathetic to the criticisms of identity politics, the phenomenon of exclusionism, and self aggrandizement in the politics of victimhood. but this is just embarrassing.
I do hope that the 2020 election will not be hijacked again by a group of activists who put ideology before country. (I use the phrase deliberately) It didn't end well in 2016, and we need only read the daily papers to see that it doesn't end well.
I hope we can keep our eye on the ball this cycle, and sort out our identity grievances after some sanity has been restored to our government. Otherwise we can look forward to more years of plutocratic misrule. Nobody likes being told they don't have a voice because of their color or religion. Nobody!
13
That is just sad. It should be a big tent with women of every race and ideology. The women's march my wife participated in included everyone even with differing political ideology and opposing views on abortion. It was quite interesting to see the interaction between liberal and conservative women who ignored their political and cultural differences and focused on women's rights for all women. There were many areas of agreement with an understanding to agree to disagree on others.
6
Brings the the so called women’s resistance back to reality. 53% of white women voted for Trump while almost 90% of women of color voted against Trump. White women essentially vote against the interests of women of color and per the New York Times, have essentially always done so. White women vote progressively when their interests overlap, but when it comes to maintaining their white privilege, they vote just the way white people do.
7
@Sipa111. WOC should get a free pass at anti-Semitism because white women voted for Trump. This is exactly the attitude that is going to increase white women and Jewish women voting for Trump in the future. Btw- black and Hispanic men voted for Trump at a higher number than Jews, so this means that bigotry towards them is going to be tolerated right? Muslims voted 90% for Bush in 2000 because the Democratics had a Jewish man as the nominee for vice President. Strange no one tells the Muslim community that their prejudice
voting decision in 2000 is responsible for the post 9/11 policies they complain about so much.
13
Why would a white woman who voted for Trump march, let alone organize a march?
3
Ms Wruble's google search should have helped her discover some of modern history's most commendable findings about Black/Jewish relations from Kivie Kaplan - a Jew - presiding as President of the NAACP to Jewish activists marching in protests during the civil rights era to rabbis taking a beating from Southern law enforcement to social action commissions developed within countless Jewish establishment groups to address racial justice and - most of all - to Andrew Goodman losing his life to the KKK during that infamous confrontation in MIssissippi during the movement's horrendous days. Seems to me these women are drinking Farrakhan's Kool-aid and perhaps even being influenced by anecdotal stories, such as slum landlords - a portion of whom are Jewish. If they are genuine activists seeking the truth then they ought to know better. Ironically, and sadly, they're emotionally invested in their own narrative.
45
No question that in certain places, in my hometown in south Georgia, i. e., Jewish businesses took terrible advantage of black people, often running stores in black neighborhoods that were notorious for selling people cheap goods at high prices. But of course Jewish activists of the past, and in Israel today, have led fights for peaceful ways -- and against the terrible harms inflicted on the Palestinians. A very mixed picture. Yet it would be wonderful if women's movements today could unite and accept all those who want to struggle for a better world -- for women, minorities, and all left-out people. It's not easy, and the NYT itself needs to struggle against its own terrible prejudices!
2
@Martha Stephens took terrible advantage of black people? Myth invented by Malcolm X who never had a job except pimping. Asians are slurred and scapegoated in a similar way. They are imperfect but blacks do better. We never see such malice directed towards pimps, drug dealers or old lady muggers by black community leaders as we do towards Jewish and Asian owned businesses who are constantly targeted for extortion and violence by this same community.
15
@Martha Stephens
My mother once referred to my daughter's Godfather as my "black friend". I had to explain to her how his position in my family had nothing to do with the color of his skin or the flavor of his language.
You recall that "Jewish businesses" in your hometown "took terrible advantage of black people, often running stores in black neighborhoods that were notorious..."
Do you not remember these stores because they were identifiably Jewish? Did not all competing stores take the same "terrible advantage" and sell "people cheap goods at high prices"? Market forces would say that all small stores in the black communities would price the same in order to stay in business.
The only difference between you and my mother was that my mother didn't have an axe to grind.
5
sorry typo: they are imperfect but blacks DON'T do better.
If this is the intellectual level of "leadership" in this movement exhibited by Perez and Mallory. I would not want to know anything to do with it. Another victory for Trumpism, Orbanism, Erdoganism and neo-fascism.
15
The march leaders need to learn some history. If they are going to blame individuals for things their ancestors may or may not have done, they should be more inclusive. Therefore, while there were probably some Jews involved in the slave trade, the vast majority of those involved in the trade and of slaveholders were white Christians. So, blame all white Christians. The slave traders received their slaves in Africa from Arab traders. So blame all Arabs and all Muslims. The Arab traders received slaves from African tribes who had captured members of other tribes. So - blame all black Africans. Columbus enslaved native people in the Americas. He was working for Spain but was born in Italy. So - blame all peoples of Spanish and Italian origin. Ms. Mallory, Ms. Perez, Ms Sarsour should see themselves on this list. When Jews are singled out for blame, it is anti-semitism pure and simple.
63
So true. If a woman’s day march isn’t going to be all inclusive and let anti Semitics take over it will truly be hypocritical...sometimes hypocrites succeed in their goals, which would be great. I’d love to see Muslim women be able to marry four different husbands if they can afford it. Equality for all yo.
6
I am appalled. My Nazi grandfather would have used the same kind of rhetoric.
When I marched in January 2017 I wanted to express my opposition to a president that got elected without the majority of votes. I planned on marching again this January. I will not because by default as white woman I am seen as an oppressor. Thus, there is no place for me.
19
@Claudia
I was thinking the same thing, but I think by participating and making it known that I as a person *not* of color and *not* of Jesus belief (I am a Jew) that I believe in total equality for everybody, and that in the end, total equality makes all of us strong, and makes our beloved country stronger and more powerful.
In a sense, isn't that what is at the core of the teachings of Jesus?
3
Is the group asking each Catholic member to consider her responsibility in all the crimes that the Church has committed? Are they asking each African-American member to consider her responsibility for the black on black violence against women being perpetrated now against women in Africa? No? The fingers being pointed at the Jewish woman, are they pure and innocent?
36
Sad. Progressives, captive to their own rhetoric and sentiment, routinely disregard widespread black anti-Semitism, hostility to gays, misogyny, indifference to environmental concerns and many issues begging for attention.
It would be helpful politically to group blacks, speaking broadly, with others of the disregarded poor left behind in the digital world.
Bumper sticker certainties leave us spinning our wheels.
4
So a fight for women's right turns into black-white-Jewish splinter groups?!
Why is it that so many organizers think they have to make a cause about identity politics?
Can we only fight against women's discrimination if I am told it is about my skin color or my faith? The best part of the Women's march was to see the mix of genders (yes!), colors, ages. If you start dividing us up, it is downhill from here.
And btw: Don't play up any (well justified) criticism of Israeli racist politics an anti-semitism issue. Many Jews are against it as well.
6
@msf then stop playing up justified criticism of Africans, Muslims and Hispanics as racism. Notice the progressives will never call out their considerably greater wrongs
4
@Lisa R, it's the unjustified criticisms (rapsts, murderers, criminals, etc) that are being called out, just as the unjustified anti-semitic tropes are being addressed here. It seems that liberals are willing to stand up to errors in our own thinking. Try it.
She said she said. Hard to know who really said what to whom, but either this is a conspiracy by the Time (unlikely) or it has been elevated to the level of serious concern in one of the most important progressive political organizations this country has seen in decades.
Dare I say identity politics is playing right into Trump's hands, only increasing his support, and is destroying any chance of forging a unified resistance.
Attending a rally of Lois Farrakhan does not make Ms. Mallory an anti-Semite. (We can ignore the positive things that the Nation of Islam has achieved in black communities. )
But in a statement to the Times, Ms. Mallory says, " Since that conversation, we’ve all learned a lot about how while white Jews, as white people, uphold white supremacy, ALL Jews are targeted by it,” Hard to really think what she means by the grammatical gymnastics.
This has to stop! There is no group -- black, white, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, gay, straight (who am I missing) -- that is categorically good or bad. Only individual people can be judged on their character,--but even individual people are complicated with contradictory tendencies as we seen throughout history.
Only kindness matters in the end.
13
@Glenn Ruga
"(who am I missing)"
Men, women, trans.
2
"Ms. Wruble said that she felt angry and that the event’s official leaders were ... unwilling to confront their own bias against Jews."
All I can do is shake my head in disbelief at Ms. Wruble's blindness to the nature of the Women's March. First they came for white males, and Ms. Wruble did nothing. Then they came for Jews, ... and she is shocked.
"You people this,’ and ‘You people that’ and the kicker was, ‘You people hold all the wealth.’" Why is Ms. Harmon shocked that the leaders of the Women's March made those charges against Jews? The same charges are made against men a thousand times every day.
Isn't that what identity politics is all about? It divides us on the basis of race and gender and apportions moral worth, guilt and innocence, entitlement and blame, not on the basis of anything we have done -- but because of who we are.
30
Ms. Mallory's knowledge of the role of Jews in Black History seems to be limited to the Cliff Notes version. Jews helped found and fund: the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
Jews didn't just give money to the Civil Rights movement. They gave their lives. Two young Jewish civil rights activists trying to register black voters, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, were murdered in Mississippi in June 1964.
As long as Ms Mallory settles for half-truths and views American Jewish women as "You people," all women will remain divided and oppressed.
139
@LS Friedman
I heard Congress person Andrew Young several years ago, before Farrakhan, Say that "Jews and Black have marched hand-in-hand." Indeed toward the end of the 19th century and up until WWII, many blacks had respect for Judaism as a religions and for Jews since they too were salves at on time.
12
Yes!
5
This is so disheartening to read. And yet predictable.
Mallory and Perez treat Jews and Judaism as "the other." They don't have any familiarity with the history of anti-Semitism - or the history of the Jews and have allowed the haters to creep into the women's movement.
54
These women don't seem well informed. They might be interested to know how many Jews were involved in the Civil Rights Movement, for example, and helped bring about changes enjoyed today. It is very intolerant to lump an entire social/religious group as being all of a like mind, and to blame those alive today for what happened hundreds of years ago.
31
who benefits from sowing dissension and divisiveness? Why is this happening now? Who is funding the anti-Semitism of the left? Why has anti-Semitism become a calling card of so-called progressives, just like it was a calling card of the antiwar movement of the Sixties? My first reaction was that I can no longer support the Me Too movement; if the don't want me I don't want them. But then I realized that this was the goal of malignant woman haters. Start a fake feud, create fake barriers between groups of oppressed minorities, build more fake walls between us and keep us fighting each other instead of the real enemy, institutionalized sexism and racism. We are avoiding naming and addressing the real problem.
14
Despite the fact that this is a very difficult conversation, I'm glad that it is happening. If we want to undo oppression, we will have to recognize it's complexity. I am a Black woman living in Crown Heights. Before I moved there, I really had no exposure to anyone other than secular Jewish people and was completely naïve to the dynamics that I now experience daily. Orthodox children run away from me on the street, I once went into a Jewish grocery store and everyone froze and stared at me. A woman in the produce aisle backed away from me, slowly, never taking her eyes off me. Some young Jewish men were starting a law practice, so they came to a Black area and started attempting to hand out flyers - giving the impression that they assumed we'd be good for business with our constant legal problems.
Today, all the most overt racism that I experience comes from this particular community. I am not naïve enough to think that they do not experience a fair amount of anti-Semitism from the Black community.
Hate begets hate. Honesty and compassion begin the healing process. If we are serious about unity and equality, we will have to face these dynamics. We cannot shove them under the rug and hope for progress because the necessary trust will not be there.
I hope that we will keep talking and not simply silence those who try to start the difficult conversations.
337
@A.H., The Orthodox Jews you cite represent only a tiny percentage of Jews in New York. (And the hatred you mention is addressed even more strongly against non-Orthodox Jews.) Based on your argument, am I to assume that the young Black men who mugged me (on 2 separate occasions) are representative of all Black people.
168
@A.H. The orthodox Jew who live in Crown Heights are are an insular community with no connection to other U.S. Jews.
69
@A.H. talk about how this community is constantly targeted for violence by black folks. Why is that always omitted as though being looked at the wrong was by them is an equal or greater sin.
58
Identity politics continues to be an effective way to derail the left. We fail ourselves if was can't find a way to work together.
14
This is the time for unity, not division; understanding, not "my way or the highway"; inclusion, not exclusion. Lose sight of the common good and "they" win, like they are doing now. I'm tired of their "winning," aren't you?
3
Worthwhile read. However, likely blown out of proportion.
This strikes me first & foremost as a clash of personalities between a diverse group of women trying to get something done in the face of identity politics and differing knowledge/education.
In 2017, when the first march was organized, Pittsburgh had not happened. Arguably, Mallory and Perez were less aware of Jewish persecution in the US, and yes, influenced by Farrakhan.
However if we are honest in examining US history, Jews in the US have not suffered systemic racism in terms of mass slavery or incarceration as African-Americans have. US history, and Jewish-American History, is what it is. Watch the PBS Special GI Jews. It gives context on Jews obtaining the “White Privilege” in the 20th C.
The American women’s movement has always been plagued with issues around race and class. This is not a surprise either.
Each of us have to choose our own identity politics. I am saddened that this article may strike fear & divisiveness in a time when, for Democrats and women, standing together to prevent Authoritarianism from overtaking Democracy is top priority.
Personally, as a Jewish woman, I will stand with the original Women’s March in January. In choosing my identity that day, being an American Woman comes first over some misunderstandings among the leadership. To repair the world, I believe this is a moment to stand together, not to fracture. Future Times reporting should support the former, not the latter.
10
@Aren Cohen Gustavus
"Each of us have to choose our own identity politics"
OR
Judge each person by their own merits regardless of their "identity" and live by the Golden Rule
5
@ayjaytee
Agreed!
See each person for their HUMANITY, not identity and treat them with respect even when opinions may differ. Perhaps we have forgotten how to agree to disagree.
AND
Recognize that as we live in the world, each of us makes choices about, and based upon, our own identities.
The Women's March and Movement will succeed or fail based on adhering to these ideas.
Take this test: Say a Jewish leader did a Farrakhan- like speech, a massive one in front of a huge crowd, riling up his people, like that Chicago speech. Say that Jewish leader yelled to his people that Blacks are " Satanic" and screeched that Blacks are "causing men to act like women and women to act like men" as Farrakhan did. Say this speaker has, like Farrakhan has repeatedly, vitriolically spoken with the most hateful of bigotry over many many years.
Say, then, a Womens March leader embraced this well known bigoted Jewish speaker, called him Greatest of All Time. And when called out justified her action because the Jewish speaker also had done good work in the Jewish community. What would you say to the Women's March leader who fawned all over the Jewish bigot? You would roundly condemn her for the embrace of a bigot and insist she resign. As you should. If you would do that, but don't demand the Sarsour/Mallory resignation you tolerate bigotry only directed at Jews, but not Blacks. That is anti-semitism.
I urge people to read this: https://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/20/opinion/black-demagogues-and-pseudo-scholars.html
9
Although intersectionality is important, the Womens March Committee have to learn from their past mistakes. Choose your battles wisely (is it womens issues, or world issues?) and be open and inclusive. Have honest discussions knowing yourselves and not stereotyping. The committee fell into the same unconscious biases every one does. Now, they need to learn and make peace with those they harmed.
6
Well the leadership here could have been a lot broader in their own thinking. And they've allowed too much mission creep.
To build a coalition, you have to assemble people who hold the same viewpoint on the CORE ISSUE but then set aside differences in all other areas.
However the concern about feminism being dominated by white elites has some merit. To rise above this, you need leadership all around that is truly great-minded.
2
I was never really convinced by Jordan Peterson’s description of the far left as cultural Marxists, but I can see it clearly described in this article in the zealous adherence to and pursuit of an ideological purity that aims at nothing less than the destruction of individual people. It is truly hateful in its cruelty and irrationality.
12
I thought the whole point was to include EVERYone who supports women's issues.
11
@GiGi, I thought I saw someone holding a sign that said "Women's rights are human rights" or maybe it was the other way around. It works either way. Not all women are praiseworthy; not all men are beasts. Or maybe its the other way around. It works either way.
1
This piece is a remarkable illustration of the personal hurdles involved in surmounting prejudice... Some of the details reminded me of my surprise, while researching Caribbean history for a thesis, to learn that the spread of the Inquisition from Spain to Portugal, resulted in Jews who became slaves in Africa...
5
Any freedom movement has to draw a hard line against hate of all kinds. A freedom movement cannot afford even the appearance of anti-Semitism. So leaders who have expressed or condoned such sentiments should resign. Cut ties with Farrakhan if you want to be in the big leagues.
On the other hand, honest (and deeply-informed, rather than knee-jerk and tribal) discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a good thing. If you have not studied the issue, the best thing is to say nothing about it, and to stay away from the Farrakhans of the world who come at the issue in a hating, hateful fashion, launching ad hominem, fact-free attacks on entire groups.
12
If it is a "women's" group then the focus should be on "women's" issues.
How is it you all don't see that introducing other issues automatically turns it into something else? And by that creates divisions where there were none?
The mentions of Jewishness and Racism by those women indicates they aren't really interested in women's issues specifically, but rather that they are interested in Jewishness and racism and they just happen to be women.
They seem intent on hijacking this "women's" movement for their own purposes.
246
Right on!
@magicisnotreal
10
@magicisnotreal Your point would be very valid if the Womens March leaders themselves stuck to Womens issues. I really really really wish they had. They have not. Instead they chose to connect the womens movement with black civil rights, etc. Linda Sarsour in her official Womens March speech applauded Saudi Arabia's womens rights record and spoke against Israel (the only country she singled out). And she's used the march to focus on Muslim issues. So these women have in fact broadened the focus. Jews now say, hey, why are you claiming to speak against bigotry against Blacks and Muslims, but you yourselves are supporting and loving horribly anti-semitic bigots?
51
@magicisnotreal
You probably realized this, but don’t mention it in your post. The organizers brought up Judaism in a pejorative manner and their background and commitment to not standing against anti-Semitism is what made this an issue. Ms. Wruble was discussing issues that affect all women and she was targeted for being Jewish. Big difference!
42
This is just one more sad example of how identity politics can kill momonetum on the left if it’s allowed to fester like this. I don’t think any religious group is in a position to be self-righteous about there righteousness. Why was religion ever introduced into the conversation?
226
@Maggie
Adulting is hard for adult age children.
12
@Maggie, Why was religion ever introduced into the conversation?" Go ask Ms. Mallory. She was the one who threw out the Jewish activist. Perhaps it can be explained by Ms. Mallory's championing of avowed Anti-semites.
59
@Maggie
Tamika Mallory and Carmen Perez introduced it. Ask them
42
I am one of those women who dropped association with the Women's March because of anti-Semitism. I've seen the same 'son' play over and over in the years of women's liberation movements - that Jews were not always welcomed. It is an irony because a great many women's movements were with the tremendous involvement of Jewish women. These disparities led me to Lilith magazine instead of Ms. magazine.
15
We truly need complete integration to eliminate groups. Adherence to one's "people" causes more hate and harm than religion does, which is saying something. For some reason differences are catalysts for violence, differences are not celebrated nor are they honored. Differences need to be eliminated. If we are not intelligent enough to see we are all people then remove the indicia of differences.
5
recently I defended a women's group - who were accused on social media of not treating women of colour well even though some of them are women of colour.- - the original post was on - me too article and I could not understand why such a nasty accusation was posted as the original article on sexual harassment which they had nothing to do with.
I was told that I could not understand the issue because I was white - I fear for the woman's movement and justice for all women.
11
I certainly understand that what Ms. Wruble experienced must have hurt deeply — but two Women's Marches? If women of color dropped out every time they experienced unwarranted or unconscious racism in the feminist movement it would be white indeed. This feels like a power trip in response to what must have felt like a power grab. It is up to us as women to work through our collective wounds; forgive and move on — in this case March On. We all need to constantly check our biases and prejudices. If white and/or jewish women splinter off we are fools. I identify as both and am deeply saddened by this. There are much more creative and powerful ways to draw attention to and heal anti-semitism.
164
@Angela Neff The issue as reported in the Tablet is much broader than what the Times described...it was antisemitism combined with an overt power grab combined with financial improprieties that smack of fraud/theft. I am surprised the Justice dept. has not opened an investigation based on the financial dealings alone. In this context, it is as if the whole thing needs to start over.
39
@Angela Neff
Simple fact if these women were interested in "women's issues" they would not have antisemitism or racism constantly coming to the fore of their minds in their dealings with women who are trying to create a women's movement.
The said women are immature and under developed as adult person or they would recognize that they are more interested in antisemitism and racism than they are women's issue and knowing that would get involved with groups focused on those subjects respectively.
As it is they are hijacking this movement for their own purposes instead of doing the necessary inner work of figuring out why they keep talking about tangential subjects when the group tries to deal with the subject it is focused on.
21
@Angela Neff
Ms. Neff, there was nothing subtle about their anti-Semitism, no ‘well intentioned,’ but misunderstood sentiments. Ms. Mallory and Ms. Perez singled Ms. Wruble out. They targeted her for being Jewish and then projected all kinds of nefarious ideas onto her, then despised her for it. This woman was their ally. Their behavior is shameful.
32
The women's march has been roiled by anti-Semitic tropes from the get go. The four so called "leaders" must go. You give Linda Sarsour a complete pass in this article. Her statement that you can't be a Zionist and a feminist, as well as her continued focus and obsession with trying to bring the Israel-Palestine conflict to the forefront of the Women's March is well documented. This causes Jewish women who have been in the forefront of the women's liberation movement for years a deep mistrust of this group and with good reason. The embracing of the antisemite misogynistic gay bashing Louis Farrakhan should set off sirens, let alone alarm bells and should be enough for all people involved and supporting of this movement to call for the entire leaderships replacement.
335
After the revolution comes the purge, reducing diversity to group think.
23
As usual the extremes take the floor here.
The extreme feminists who say that we should look at Trump's ill treatment of women as the main or only issue with Trump or people who say anti semitism re Israel is the main problem.
Trump has insulted just about everybody on earth. If you are not sure just google the NY Times story on it. It is better to march on Washington by all people who have been hurt by Trump and not to single out women.
Likewise with Israeli, a lifelong war between Israeli and its' arab nations is the main issue not anti-Semitism. The great majority of the people in the area are semites.
11
This is so sadly yet so vividly reminiscent of that scene in Life of Brian where the People's Front of Judea declares that the true enemy is the People's Judean Front, rather than the Romans.
Come on, folks! Let go of these perceived slights and focus on the true obstacle to peace and justice! It's not the leftie who carries on about the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. It's not the jew who bristles at such talk. It's the big, orange elephant in the room. Focus!
35
@Christopher Exactly! Well put.
2
There are three basic strains of anti-semetism:
1. Right-Wing Naziism
2. Arab/Islamic supremacy (over their former dhimmis)
3. Pseudo-intellectual left-wing intersectionality
As an intersectionalist movement it is no surprise that the WM mixes numbers two and three. Like so many on the left they have confused an Arab/Islamic supremacist anger at military defeat to Israel (a nation comprised of their former dhimmis) in several wars to broader repression of ALL minority groups (except for Jews, of course). To admit that Palestinianism, at least as practiced by its leaders, is an expression of number 2... and that Arabs in other Arab countries treat their own Palestinian residents as third class citizens puts too much of a negative spotlight on a class of people that may be subject to discrimination in the USA, but who regularly practice discrimination in their own countries where they are the majority. Palestinians in Lebanon, for instance, are barred from many professions. Palestinians under the control of the PA are denied basic rights of freedom of speech, press, and... well good luck with LGBTQ rights or anything associated with modern feminism... or having an election for that matter. Palestinians in Gaza -- a judenfrei, of course -- are used as human shields in violent stunts such as border riots. Rather than deal with these complexities it is so much easier to blame the Jews -- and thus, very quickly, descend into even the scariest anti-semetic tropes of strain 1.
105
@TMDJS
You nailed it. Good job!
8
Identity politics will make any movement grind to a halt, mostly because it is so self-absorbed. This is why the likes of Tamika Mallory refuse to accept that their conduct is anti-Semitic and thus creating a hostile environment for Jewish people. It seems there are limits to the new creeds of anti-racism and feminism. I for one have no part in this movement.
57
This was first reported by Laura Loomer almost a year ago....she confronted Linda Sarsour and brought it to the attention of Alyssa Milano. She was then banned from twitter for her reporting....give credit where credit is due.
74
This article so angered me I want to cry or scream. If I had known what was going on behind the scenes I never would have gone to the March in Washington. Perhaps all us "privileged" white women and white Jewish women should have just stayed at home were Ms. Mallory and Ms. Perez thinks we belong. Tell me ladies when did any of you ever suffer the murder of 3 million of your people in one decade? Tell me Ms. Mallory how did all the soon to be slaves get from the interior of Africa to the western coast? Certainly Moses and the jews didn't lead them or the white people. Let me tell you Ms. Mallory and Ms. Perez when you demean your allies you will end up standing alone. I am done unless you are gone as the woman in Hawaii whose idea the march was suggests.
183
@amp, demeaning their allies is the default MO for the lunatic fringe – nobody else will listen, or take them seriously.
4
Check your egos at the door, ladies. Let’s look at the bigger picture.
17
@Kelly Stevens
Is it ego when you confront racism?
Should racism be ignored for the bigger picture?
3
@Barry B, racism is part of the bigger picture, and nobody is ignoring it. It is ego when you become a one-issue voter, and exclude the (much) bigger picture.
Poor Ms. Mallory and Perez,
as bigoted and brainwashed as any good white man hiding under the white sheets! Their sheets are not much different.
Look how they weasel out of their horrific statements!
They should be sent back to where they came from and start all over again upon conditional entry in the usa, if they opt to
behave like rational, objective and truly nice people.
and Poor Mrs. Wruble who seems so highly motivated to
champion the cause of women, but seems to have little inkling about the more righteous goals of a Jewish woman.
She has to go to the nefarious source of anti-jewish propaganda in the computer and has little knowledge about
the history of Jews and their fight against slavery throughout the ages. We can only hope Wruble's great ambitions do not embroil her in woemen warfare where her entire existence is reduced to emotional ruble by dealing with
totally dishonest and corrupt representatives of womanhood.
12
This is nothing more than media sensationslism and misogyny. The oversized scrutiny of a women's organization is not surprising from the sexist NYTimes.
5
@Ellen
Were you at any of the marches?
I was and what stood out was the virulent rhetoric around Israel with zero condemnation for other countries.
By default the speakers were marginalizing Jewish women during their talks. I came home truly saddened.
14
I have long been disgusted by the ignorant and anti-Semitic rhetoric used by the women's march organizers--Tamika Mallory, Linda Sarsour, Carmen Perez, and Bob Bland.
Step up ladies and admit your anti-Semitism. It will help you understand the ugliness you perpetuate by standing in awe of Mr. Farrakhan and your other heroes--Adolph HitIer?
Before you open your mouths it might be useful to know a little history: In the 1930s and 1940s Hitler was invited into Palestine by their leader. He was going to be the savior of the people of Palestine who felt oppressed by the British and the increasing number of Jews who arrived because they were fleeing centuries of oppression and later, Nazism. Umm...
Come clean ladies. Your unabashed anti-Semitism undermines your credibility. You do not speak for all women. You speak for ignorance. You repeat centuries old rhetoric espoused by a lunatic who invents and manipulates the truth. Louis Farrakhan and others like him are no different than other hate mongers. Remember, the German public liked some of the things Hitler did too. He wasn't all bad, right?
As women, as Americans, we deserve better. We deserve honesty. I don't support Donald Trump. I do support Israel's right to exist. I am Jewish. I am a feminist. Create a March for All.
169
@Carrie Gottlieb
The state of Israel has much to answer for in its treatment of Palestinians. It is the very definition of an apartheid regime. The women have a valid point in saying Jewish people must confront their own racism. To throw the accusation of anti semitism out anytime someone criticizes the state of Israel is a rhetorical device designed to deflect..ad hominem...
3
@Carrie Gottlieb
I am disheartened and appalled by the antisemitim on the left. Frightened by it , really.
13
Nonsense Biron. Stop hiding in the shadows behind your notion of righteousness. I am not in favor of everything the Israelis do. But being anti-Israel is today's very convenient excuse for anti-Semitism. You should confront your own prejudice.
19
Are we so broken as a society that we cannot find one cause to get, and stay, behind? Must find ways in which someone is "not like us" and ignore the million ways we are all alike? The Womens March was one shining beacon of peaceful coming together for a cause, I felt. Lets hope we get out on the right side of this
29
I'm glad to finally see this controversy reported on in the NY Times. I only wish Farah Stockman has reported on all of the findings of the Tablet article, namely the murky financial relationship of the Women's March organization with The Gathering for Justice, a nonprofit led by Carmen Perez; the lack of financial transparency overall (where is the money going to? Local organizations which organized marches in their cities and states have not seen a penny); the fact that many local Women's March organizations are independent of or have disaffiliated from the Women's March. The accusations of anti-Semitism are very troubling, but I always say, "Follow the money."
72
@Emma bingo. Follow the money is a key... the lack of transparency and accountability has been previously called into question. Ms. Perez's reach goes much further than just the Women's March and she is a huge player within the criminal justice reform movement in NY.
8
@Emma I agree. I encourage anyone reading this to read the far more detailed and indepth Tablet article. There is more to it than this article would have you believe.
9
At the root of so much of this ethnic and racial stratification seems to be the concept by some that marginalized peoples, because of a history of various types of oppression, are purer and superior to those who suffered less. Thinking that any group is better than another for whatever reason is a dangerous reversion to the espousal of racial superiority by the fascist governments of the past, regardless from what direction it comes. The thing to do is to acknowledge all facets of our history without pinning any one group with a tag of unique guilt for it. No soul currently on the planet can help what happened in their past generations; it is what they do now that counts.
134
The Women's March also excluded a group of Democrat women who were pro life. They refused to allow them to march with this group which was very unfair. The Democrat party should include everyone of all stripes and not pick and choose which groups are to be represented in their march. The tent is large enough for dissenting opinions and not just liberal progressive ones. Their inclusion might even gain them more voters.
34
@WPLMMT
Maybe if they called themselves anti abortion. Their current moniker deliberately suggests any different view is pro-death - an intolerable conjunction to the March in Protest of the Evangelist in chief. (also another source of religious war)
6
@WPLMMT
“Democrat” is a noun but you are using it like an adjective. The adjectival from is “Democratic”.
4
@WPLMMT
Citation please. If you read through this comment section you would see a comment or two from women who were at marches who personally saw women carrying pro-life signs. The organizers of the Washington DC march did exclude the Texas pro-life group New Wave Feminists. That is not the same as the entire Women’s March making pro-life women unwelcome.
www.usnews.com/opinion/op-ed/articles/2017-01-19/the-womens-march-on-washington-errs-in-excluding-pro-life-feminists
3
Mallory calling Farrakhan "the greatest of all time"? Enough said. She discredited the whole movement with that outrageous remark. She cannot walk it back. I'm not at all surprised that many are turning their backs on her and her movement.
291
@styleman It's not "her movement". The Women's March belongs to the millions of women who participate in it. Extremely few would share her views.
10
This kind of conflict serves only the Patriarchy. When you're working for the Women's March, you are a woman first, black, brown, white, pink, muslim, jewish second.
36
@Repat, I was one of many men at the women's march in Seattle. I was under the impression that it was about being a human being first, and other distinctions second. Of course, I wasn't close enough to hear the speeches.
6
How the Latin woman in that story wasn’t pressed to explain the rampant, open racism in Latin America is amazing. I’m Latin American and I have seen racism against people of color, indigenous people, Jews, you name it.
68
New leadership across the board is needed or the whole thing will unravel which would be an unbelievable shame. Maybe Michelle Obama is available?
24
@Monique GirouxMichelle Obama with her million-dollar new home . . . ? Or was it two million?
Somehow it has to matter that poor black women are the ones we most need to hold up.
3
@Martha Stephens
I love this comment! Someone names a person that could act as a leader to bring many different people together to create a larger and more powerful presence, and you say that person can’t possibly do it because she has an expensive house.
Go ahead, kill the movement in search of perfection.
15
@Martha Stephens Please research Michelle Obama’s early life and maybe a doctor can look at that knee jerk reaction to wealth.
6
this is sad...like other commentators hear, I thought the Women's March was to advocate for all women, not for certain groups or identities...with a March just a few weeks away I hope the organizers clearly state what the March is all about...is it about all women, marginalized minorities, only certain marginalized minorities?..."they are not trustworthy" is a chilling quote near the end of the article...
21
Guess we need a new take on Animal Farm — this time with an all female cast.
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How do we know this isn't the Russians stoking animosity with lies??
19
@Vivian
Because all you have to do is attend a Women's March and listen to the speakers. There was no condemnation of other countries - just of Israel. And it was virulent and marginalizing.
I left the Marches thinking "how intolerant the tolerant are" because there was no room for a view differed (Israel, abortion) from theirs.
7
@JGB
What a shame.
These types of fissures in mass movements while often distressing are a healthy sign of the broad support of a movement. Antisemitism is and always has been a part of the feelings of the poor blacks, Latinos and whites in America and indeed in all of Western civilization. It is misguided at best but when one looks to into who are the recipients of the dollars the poor lay out for rent, food and clothing the result is a list of for the most part Jewish Real Estate Owners, Jewish Supermarket owners and Jewish Haberdashers or merchants.
What is missing is the great good the overwhelming majority of these Jewish Business people do for their communities. Were it ot for them: the civil rights movements, farm workers unions and other unions of the 20th century and other successful social movements would have been DEAD ON ARRIVAL
14
All new religions and movements need scapegoats. Why not tag on one of the oldest? "Fight persecution with persecution" would be a worthy slogan for this movement. The entire article, it's own quotes, is a condemnation of the movement's leadership and direction. Farrakhan opens his mouth and anti-Semitism rolls out; his organization is hired as security, feeding their coffers. Quote-wise, hard to top this one: “Since that conversation, we’ve all learned a lot about how while white Jews, as white people, uphold white supremacy, ALL Jews are targeted by it,” Ms. Mallory said in a statement to The New York Times. Who are the other non-white Jews? Is she saying that only Jews of color are without guilt? Look at the world. We're back to the toppling dominoes of "then they came for you". Because we refuse to learn from history, it strives to repeat itself.
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One thing worth mentioning and pointed out by Tablet is that much of the work around the country was done by local activists. These women are the national face but they didn't organize ppl in other states. They aren't the movement and maybe it's time to just leave them to their political shenanigans and let the non-spotlighted lead.
21
Disgusting.
12
One cannot reasonably condemn an entire group because some of such individuals act in an anti-social matter. Condemning an entire group is common in bias tropes. Speaking of which, could it be that they have been hacked?
5
I am saddened to read this piece though it confirms much of the other reporting that I have read here and in other publications. Is the women's march officially for only certain sanctioned minorities? That wasn't what I thought when I marched in 2017.
18
If true, this pains me to the core of my being. Let us not as women descend in the abyss of very -isms we are fighting against. Our initial Cry was for Unity. United we must remain.
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This is a depressing but not particularly surprsing development. Anstisemitism is as ubiquitous on the far left as it is on the right. I supported the original Women’s March but not anymore. Not a dollar of my money will go to any organization tainted by association with the “Nation of Islam” whose leader called Jews “termites”. Now will I vote for or donate to any candidate who does not denounce antisemitism whether it is of the old-fashioned blood-libel variety or disguised as ‘anti-Zionism”. I call upon all women of conscience to do the same. A liberal who stands up for human rights and dignity cannot condone the longest and deadliest racial hatred of them all.
68
“Since that conversation, we’ve all learned a lot about how while white Jews, as white people, uphold white supremacy, ALL Jews are targeted by it,” Ms. Mallory said in a statement to The New York Times.
Is this serious? White Jews uphold white supremacy? Does she realize how ignorant she sounds? I am rather shocked at the blatant lies and anti-antisemitism displayed by these women. Shameful and terribly racist.
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Women as a group or voting block will always hard to align.
Because yes they share gender issues, but this will always be trumped by the cultural, religious and ancestry groups they come from.
Same thing with men of course.
Tribe trumps gender.
So best way to align a women’s group?
Stay in the lane.
Focus everyone on direct women’s issues that affect all. Don’t drift to other issues. Let people have different points of view but come together on clear and universal women’s issues.
21
The truth is coming out. Left-wing movements are rife with anti-Semitism. It reminds me of the same thing back in the 70's, when Jewish people were targeted by blacks as being racist, even though they had been staunch allies for decades.
And with all the barbarous regimes in the world, why do they accuse Israel (falsely)?
Its citizens are under attack daily, even though it doesn't make the news.
44
How happy you must be making all the far right and misogynists in the country with this ridiculous bickering and jostling for position. There should be no room for hate and prejudice in the women's movement. How about an organizing principle like nurturing life and accepting others? Are there no channels to mediate differences calmly and rationally without Trump-like distortions and name-calling? This shouldn't be a place to get your revenge for all that you have suffered by attacking the other members. Some believe that all groups eventually turn into a mob, but the very foundation of a woman movement should be unity. Get it together or go home and let someone else do the work.
9
What a shame that the women mentioned in this article are worried about Jews--falling hook line and sinker for fascist rhetoric. Such a shame they willfully turn a blind eye to history. are they so ignorant that they do not remember who walked hand in hand with Martin Luther King--marching and dying for justice and freedom. Are they so ignorant that they do not know that Jews every year remember that they, too, were slaves. Are they so ignorant that they do not recognize that this experience retold over th milenniums have informed most Jews to be in the forefront fighting for the causes these women purport but know nothing about except maybe what Farrahkan tells is the right thing to do.
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@selma
Yes! I'm afraid they are so ignorant.
3
Racist and anti-Semitic utterances by the left and especially those of color, have been poo pooed by the left because of the past.
Isn’t it about time that those of us who’s ancestors suffered at the hands of other “groups” of people, finally just move on? This is just ridiculous..
7
This is so sad. Jews and Black Americans have stood together and died together. Figure it out. It's easy.
5
@Dave It isn't easy. Please explain.
1
What a mess. Fight bigotry and sexism with bigotry? Do these people listen to themselves and how ridiculous they sound?
23
Every group has bad apples. I was recently reflecting on the stubborn continuation of anti-Semitism and, as a white Jew, the hidden stigma I may carry. In Israel I wouldn't pass muster as a Jew, not being observant, even though I went to Yeshiva as a child. I pass for white in society, but also can feel that stigma. Israel/Palestine is unresolved, but is there outrage over what Moslem rulers do to their own people as virulent as the demonization of Israel? No. Israel has a contentious society where opposition to its inhumane policies are openly contested, Netanyahu is under investigation by his own government, like here in America. Jews are an easy target with centuries of fuel at the fingertips of bigots. I am sorry to read of this latest outbreak.
41
We splinter and the bad guys win. 2016 all over again?
13
Antisemitism on the Left, often disguised as Anti-zioinism, is pervasive. Count me among many one time peace activists who left the movement due to ugly antisemitism. The one part this article leaves out is that many of the most outspoken Jew haters in the movement are Jews themselves, who by their presence give the bigotry a stamp of approval and permit it to thrive.
62
@SC
Agreed. At the Marches I attended, the thinly-veiled anti-Semitic speeches were loudly applauded, even by some of my Jewish friends.
10
I believe that this rift is being fanned by those who want the resistance to fail. Leadership needs to wake up and stop playing into their hands.
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@Working Mama
I disagree. The Marches were filled with intolerance to any view which differed from the speakers.
I would be scared at the March to vocalize any support for Israel - or even to make the argument that many countries oppress their people and worse, yet we turn a blind eye to their activity.
Pro-life? Forget it.
The speeches seethed with vitriol. I came for Unity and left disappointed and disgusted and swore "never again" - a phrase with multiple meanings.
5
@Working Mama you are the problem, not the free press.
2
This is exactly the problem with identity politics. The very core of its perspective is rotten. And its roots in socialism add another layer of guaranteed human tragedy. Treating each person as an individual, which is the opposite of racism and anti-Semitism, is the best way forward. Dispite our sordid past, I can say with pride that it's the American way....
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@Len
And it was the way embraced by the original civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s. That view forced racists to back down and worked huge, fundamental social change.
This movement, not so much. Who knew that focusing on racial, ethnic and gender grievance could backfire?
6
This constant refrain of “identity politics” from the political right, is the quintessence of victim blaming.
@Len
I agree with a lot of what you say, but blaming this social fragmentation on socialism is entirely off the mark. The Scandinavian countries that I have lived in have a much deeper sense of common good than we have in the US. One proof is that the Social Democrats in Sweden are the most successful political party in the world. No countries take women's rights more seriously.
I sometimes think that the debate in the US is between right-wing individualists and liberal individualists. Rather than try to shape a greater common good, the left in the US hopes that it can pull together 50.1 percent of the fragments/ fractions and win elections. The last election is proof this strategy isn't working.
2
So the Women's March, presumably all inclusive, has turned into a Minority Women's March. Sorry, this is going nowhere.
305
I appreciate Farah Stockman's efforts to be fair in this article. One statement can be easily misunderstood, however. The article says, "While Black Lives Matter is a diffuse movement, some activists have issued statements expressing solidarity with Palestinians under Israeli occupation." It is not only Black Lives Matter that condemns the Israeli occupation; tens of thousands of Jews and non-Jews are part of the movement to end the occupation and support Palestinian rights. Opposing the occupation should not signal anti-semitism.
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@Joan
I agree with this completely. That was kind of a non-sequitur.
4
@Joan Oh, but calling it an "occupation" does.
7
@Joan It is the antisemetic remarks of the current leadership that are disturbing whether one is against the continued stance of the Israeli government or not toward Palestinians.
The focus of the Women's March group has ceased to exist causing deep divisions. All of the leaders should examine their racism - how they view others and how they treat people. I have read too many articles about how the current leadership has pushed anyone of Jewish heritage out of the group at their meetings, not just Ms Wruble. The point was to support all women, not some.
30
We can not afford this fissure. I hope the group is able to reconcile.
32
Yet another example of letting The Perfect get in the way of The Good.
43
Nothing perfect about this
8
@S "The Perfect" in this case being the libeling and ostracizing of Jews?
12
@Glenn Ruga “The Perfect” is shorthand for the demand for perfection/purity displayed by a couple of the organizers which fragments a group that was originally United for a greater good.
8
It is too bad that good women cannot come together on an issue to do good without demanding purity on all of their specific individual grievances.
67
@tjfeldman
Sorry to be picky on my demand for purity around anti-Semitism. We little women just can't brush aside these pesky differences.
5
@JGB
Bigotry in any form is abhorrent and must be confronted at all times. My point was if there is a common cause then act for that cause and avoid divisiveness with extraneous issues. In doing so all learn a little something more about each other. In this instance this did not occur because of the familiar anti-Semitic tropes.
1
I'm afraid that we on the left are ultimately doomed by an Iron Law of Factionalism — an inherent tendency of parties and movements to shatter over personal ego, sectarian belief systems, an inability to compromise with similar-but-different others, and (behind it all) a jockeying for money and power.
Blessed are the peacemakers. A pox on sectarianism.
149
@T. Chandler
Indeed. While reading this I couldn't help thinking of the scene in Monty Python's Holy Grail where the Judean Peoples Front is opposed to the People's Front of Judea, rather than the Romans.
22
@T. Chandler
This, my friend, is so spot-on.
After last year's March - which was fractured and intolerant of differing views - I swore "never again."
2
Please. Let us not engage in infighting. The idea for the March, as I understand it, was to push back against donald trump and his policies. Let us not lose sight of the common goal. I am suspecious of those who would undermine the efforts of the majority to create a rift that may decrease participation. They undermined HRC for 25 years and VIOLA it finally worked. Never again. We have a common goal, let's keep that in mind, push back and continue to RESIST. Thank you.
59
@Dee. Good point, Dee! But consider this....why is it so hard for these leaders to state and abide to basic denunciations of anti-Semitism... given that the modern face of anti-Semitism is, in my opinion, still Hitler?
The answer alas comes back the BDS movement and its mouthpiece, Linda Sansour. BDS' leaders make no mistake that its primary purpose is to destroy Israel. It is simply another tactic along with terror kites, suicide bombers, and terror tunnels. Branding the well deserved anti-Trump backlash, with a pro-BDS message is probably the best arrow in the quiver of a 70 year effort to obliterate the Jewish state.
I mean... why is it so hard to not be anti-Semitic?
9
@Dee you clearly are the problem. Wake up.
2
I am so sorry to read this - as a woman in her 70's, a white woman of various backgrounds who went to consciousness-raising meetings in the 1970's, has read all the 'basic books' of feminism - this is so self-destructive. Everyone deserves a voice and a hearing of that voice, a place in the parade.
"Divide and conquer" - that has been the means and method by which women have been separated and defeated in their attempts at making real change in this country, and others. It doesn't matter whether you are white, black, Muslim, Jewish, etc - there are so many names you can give people, and every one of them intends to separate.
We all have goals we want to reach as human beings - healthcare for all, real democracy where all votes are counted, more equity in the distribution of wealth. With those goals we all stand to win if they are achieved and we all stand to lose if they are not.
180
I, too am sorry to read this article about “us vs them”. It’s as if the Russian bots have succeeded once again in sowing division to undermine positive efforts to heal a broken system. Sad.
5
New show for Bravo: "The Real Housewives of the Women's March"
30
@Robert
You clearly haven't gotten the message. A completely misogynistic statement.
3
And we wonder why people criticize us for being humorless. The point of the joke was about a small group of self-absorbed women infighting, who seem unable to put aside their differences for the greater good. Yes, of course it's more serious than that, but I thought the joke was apt. I fail to see mysogyny in it, and I am a woman and a feminist.
6
Identity politics tinged with racism. Keep this up and we'll have 4 more years of Trump.
398
@Roger
Throw a hefty heaping of ego in that pot, as well, and sadly Roger you are correct.
19
Jews weren't the only people excluded from the marches. Woman who opposed Roe vs Wade were also excluded . That's because the "Woman's March" was really an Abortion March in disguise, held on the anniversary of the Roe vs Wade decision.
26
@Charlesbalpha Stating your opinion as fact? Or merely repeating a talking point? Either way, you don’t get to define what the marches were about.
8
@Charlesbalpha
I saw pro-life women carrying signs at the march. No one harassed them, and no one ever said they were not welcome. However, the fact is that the vast majority of women are pro-choice. So that probably makes those who are pro-life uncomfortable.
15
@Charlesbalpha And your point is what, exactly? Women who hold anti-abortion views and adhere to a demeaning patriarchal mindset willingly marginalize themselves, and if they fail to evolve they will ultimately have no existence outside of that allowed by men. Reproductive rights is central to the right of women to control their own lives.
4
I guess I was hoping the Women's March movement might be immune from human nature. Alas.
24
I, and all of my friends, thought this was about being female. We went to the DC and NYC marches to support Woman’s Rights. Beyond that, identity politics are not a part of what we are thinking about - and we are as diverse a group, economically, racially, ethnically, religiously as there is. We are united in our desire to seek equality for ourselves and our daughters. We are not thinking, or talking, about the color of our skin or our religious, cultural or ethnic affiliations. We cherish our differences, stand on our common ground and build our relationship from there.
Ms. Mallory sounds like a racist. Perez isn’t quoted enough to tell. But if even 1/2 the events described in the article are true, it’s very safe to say both are so caught up in the identity politics they’ve hung their activism on they’re as guilty of racial discrimination as the institutions the rail against.
495
Yes, Long Islander, leave it up to the NY Times and other media to find one disagreement and use it to try to suggest there is disunity.
Stand firm, Women of America. Nothing can stop us now. Nothing can tear us apart. WE are fighting the power-over, dominator, religion fueled, institutionalized male model SUPPRESSION OF WOMEN. Not each other.
10
In any other "civil rights" organization, Mallory and Perez would have been forced out of leadership for their overt antisemitism. It is at best a form of profound ignorance, and at worst, just more of the same old, same old.
My wife and I marched in the first Womens' March. We won't be participating in the second.
269
I was delighted with the march in January 2017 especially as a rally against the Trump election. However now the group seems to be splintering and losing its focus. There is too much concern with ethnic identity. All women are s minority. I take umbrage that when you identify certain groups you don’t mention whites women as if white women are not victims of rape. This movement should represent a cause for all women to unite. Please get back on point.
100
White Jews as white people uphold white supremacy? But all Jews are targeted by that? And you can't trust white women?
I cannot tell you how scary this is.
414
I'm a Jewish woman and I'm totally j mystified by this sentence. Is she trying to say that we Jews
benefit from white supremacists because
We're white? White supremacists don't like choose any more than that don't like lots of other people.
14
I am a white Jewish woman and I'm totally mystified by this sentence. Is she saying that Jews benefit from white supremacy just because we are white? White supremacists dislike Jews as much as they dislike lots of other people. Also Mallory should read some history. Jews were front and center in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. She need not go back that far. Just a few short weeks ago a white supremacist killed people in the Pittsburgh synagogue. How are Jews benefiting from white supremacy indeed?
116
@Talbot. If you really want to be scared... Google "Grand Mufti of Palestine + Hitler" and get woke. I know that sounds conspiratorial, and the NYTs censors will probably delete this comment, but none of that stops the Nazi-Arab alliance in WWII from being a thing.
Angela Merkels Germany is clearly not Adolph Hitler's Germany. But is the PA of Abbad or Hamas really all that different from the ideology of Hitler's old homeslice Hajj Amin al-Husseni...????
13