PAPER: BLACKS AND JEws

Black?Jewish Dialogue: Beyond
Rootless Universalism and Ethnic Chauvinism

 

Cornel West

hat is most striking to me both about Tihhun

and about this conference is that they focus

on the failure of empty internationalism and
rootless universalism, that is, on the refusal to think
seriously and critically about one?s tradition and identity.
In the period in which there was a stronger alliance
between Blacks and Jews, some of that alliance depended
on both sides? identifying with a form of universalism
that did not highlight questions of identity. There is no
going back to such a period. If there is going to be a
renewed connection between these two communities,
or even a sensible dialogue, it depends on our ability to
remain sensitive to the positive quests for identity among
Jewish Americans and African-Americans.

We need to be aware of the complex interplay between
universalism and particularism so that we can avoid the
traps of tribalism and ethnic chauvinism. We can no
longer raise the banner of internationalism?a banner
that should and must be raised?unless that internation-
alism is ?ltered through our particular experiences.

We live in a society that is characterized by increasing
racial polarization and rising anti-Semitism. Blacks and
Jews still remain the two peoples that are most loyal to
progressive politics in this country. Both peoples have
long histories of exploitation and oppression, degrada-
tion and devaluation. For us today the central question
is, ?What is going to be the moral content of our identity
and the political consequences of it??

When we look back, we have to acknowledge that
there has always been anti?Semitism in the Black com-
munity and anti-Black racism in the Jewish community.
But there was also, particularly in the period from 1945
to 1965, some serious attempts to build bridges and forge
alliances that would run counter to these destructive
tendencies. The turning point away from this alliance was
in the period from 1965 to 1968, with the emergence of
the Black Power movement, which perceived Jews simply
as whites and began to push white activists out of the
civil rights movement. Supporters of Black Power in-

 

Cornel W/est, professor of religion and director of the Afro-
American studies program at Princeton University, is the
author of Prophetic Fragments (Eerdmans, 1988) and The
American Evasion of Philosophy (Wisconsin, 1989).

creasingly began to see the world in terms of the
American empire pitted against Third World liberation
movements?a profoundly Manichaean perspective, a
simplistic dualistic perspective. There is a sophisticated
way of looking at the US. as an empire as well as a
sophisticated way of understanding Third World libera-
tion movements, but the sophisticated version was not
always what we heard in those early days when Blacks
were seeking to_assert their identity.

In 1967 Harold Cruse published The Crisis of the
Negro Intellectual, which remains highly in?uential to
this very day. The book contained a scathing attack on
the role of Jewish particularism, with special focus on
the Jews? role in the Communist party, U.S.A. This was
another sign of the growth of particularistic conscious-
ness. in the Black left. The loss in April 1968 of Martin
Luther King, Jr., was signi?cant in this respect because
King promoted the legitimacy of Zionism to the Black
community. King spoke explicitly about the importance
of Blacks? learning from and promoting the progressive
version of Zionism. With that loss we saw a crescendo
of Black critiques of Zionism?most vulgar, though
some sophisticated. I?m sure that a Tihhun audience
understands that many critiques of Zionism are tinged
with anti?Semitism. But some critiques do transcend it.

After 1968 we saw three major arenas of Black?Jewish
tension. First, there was the issue of community control.
In the sphere of education, this struggle was perceived
as an attack on Jewish educators, but the community
control issue extended also to an attack on Jewish entre-
preneurs in the Black ghetto (particularly since a devel-
oping Black business class had an interest in freeing up
space so that it could progress).

The second issue was af?rmative action, which pitted
many conservative Jews against Blacks and liberal Jews.
It is too often ignored that many liberal Jews support
af?rmative action. For example, Thomas Nagel, a profes-
sor of philosophy, has put forward some of the most
powerful critiques of the opponents of af?rmative
action, in the name of Kantian morality. This doesn?t
mean that we should forget about the neoconservative
Jewish ?gures who argue against af?rmative action. But
we also need to understand their opposition as reflective

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of the boomtown character of Jewish ascendancy to the
middle classes in a short thirty-year period. Many Jews
expressed a deep anxiety about the reintroduction of
quotas when those same quotas had been previously
used against Jews in the anti-Semitic structures of higher
learning. Yet when the previous anti-Semitic structures
began to fall, Blacks perceived Jews as securing middle-
class status in an astonishing manner. Blacks who were
entering the mainstream found a disproportionate Jewish
presence in the upper middle class of American society?
in law, in medicine?in part because Jews worked hard
to take advantage of the opportunities that had recently
been opened to them.

Many ?rst-generation Black middle-class persons
began to wonder, ?When are Black folks going to move
into these institutions, given that there are a ?nite
number of places?? Since they knew they could not
count on the ?rationality? of white employers or admin-
istrators to overcome the history of past discrimination,
they had to rely on af?rmative action?and the attack
on af?rmative action, no matter how principled, was an
attack on Black progress.

he third issue was the Black critique of American

foreign policy. This critique coincided with the

emergence of conservative forces in Israel after
the 1967 and 1973 wars??rst as a conservatizing in?uence
in the Labor party, then as the triumph of Menachem
Beg-in?s right-wing coalition?and the increasing identi-
?cation of Israel with an American foreign policy that
was dominated by cold war preoccupations and a refusal
to see anything good in Third World liberation struggles.
This connection to American foreign policy made it
easier for many Blacks to identify Israel as a tool of
American imperial interests.

These were issues that tended to weaken the Black?
. Jewish alliance, but we should also note that there has
persisted in America a very real alliance in the political
arena. In fact, many Black elected of?cials would not
be in of?ce today if it were not for the Jewish voters
who, in alliance with Black voters, helped put them in
of?ce. The grand example of the late Harold Washington
looms large here.

Black anti-Semitism and Jewish anti-Black racism are
real, and both are as profoundly American as cherry
pie. All of us who are Americans must struggle against
the devaluation of the Jewish people, which persists in

the and symbols of what it is to be a citizen of
i this country. Blacks have a deep moral obligation to
?ght against anti-Semitism. And Jews have the same
duty to combat Jewish anti-Black racism.

Black anti-Semitism is also a degraded people?s resent-
ment of a downtrodden people that is moving quickly
up the social ladder. One sees this resentment in Louis

96 TIKKUN VOL. 4, No. 3

Farrakhan, who evokes the image of alleged Jewish
unity and homogeneity (certainly a myth!) in the process
of asserting that if Blacks could be like Jews and create
a sense of achievement and dignity among themselves,
then they could succeed in similar fashion.

 

need to avoid the traps 0f
trz'balz'sm and ethnic c/aauvz'm'sm yet
still a?rm Jewish

and Black partz'cularz'sm.

 

The state of siege now raging in Black America, the
sense of frustration and hopelessness, pushes people to
look toward a leader who speaks in bold and de?ant
terms. The Black elected of?cials tend not to speak to
these deep needs. Farrakhan tries to ?ll the vacuum?
and this obsession with Jewish achievement and Jewish
accomplishment is one of the means by which he tries
to do this. I?ve argued with Farrakhan?s people??rst,
insisting that they understand that Jews are human
beings, but, second, trying to point out to them that
Jews are not as important as Black Muslims think when
it comes to the actual operation of economic or political
power in this world. If you want to talk about power,
start with multinational corporate America.

Farrakhan is a radical anti-Semite, but he is not a Nazi.
It?s important to make this distinction, because if every
anti-Semite were a Nazi, we?d have to reconstitute the
Allied Forces. Farrakhan says terrible things about the
Jews, but he does not advocate that people physically
attack Jews. He is different from the neo-Nazi skin-
heads who advocate the actual physical injury of Jewish
human beings.

Jesse Jackson must, in turn, be understood as part of
a Southern Black American Protestant tradition. Blacks
in the South had very infrequent contact with Jewish
people. Struggles in the South were primarily between
Blacks and whites, with both sides being Protestant
(there were not even that many Catholics in the South).
Jesse?s own perceptions of American Jews are shaped
mostly by his encounters with the Jews after 1965, and
the experience of American Jews in the period since
1965 is very dif?cult to square with the larger context
of Jewish experience in the modern world. When Jesse
sees Jews he doesn?t think about the expulsion of Jews
from Spain in 1492, the expulsion of Jews from England
in 1290, or the expulsion of Jews from France in 1306.
He sees Jews on the move in the middle classes. He
doesn?t seem to grasp the legitimate fears or the paranoia
of American Jews, nor does he seem to understand the
impact of the Holocaust on Jews during
the past forty years.

I do not believe Jesse Jackson is an anti-Semite; but
there are shadows of anti-Semitic sensibilities shot
through his language. In principle, he would struggle
against anti-Semitism, demonstrate against it. But it?s
very problematic to have a leader of left-liberal forces
in America who has this kind of baggage. It?s in some
ways a tragedy.

In Jesse Jackson we have someone who highlights the
unprecedented business attack on working and poor
people in this country, one of the few people who
emphasizes this issue and speaks with power and passion
about it. How do we evaluate and assess such a ?gure
who uses as his social base the most loyal group in
America to progressive politics?Black Americans? Do
we support him, hoping that he will continue to grow
and move beyond the shadows of anti-Semitic sensibili-
ties, or do we oppose him and then align ourselves with
?gures who won?t talk about the business assault on the
poor? Or do we try to tease out some of the Black elected
of?cials who are much more sensitive but who have as
encompassing visions as Jesse Jackson?the Bill Grays
of this world? That?s another option. Or do we wait for
a third, extraparliamentary ?gure who boldly and de?-
antly challenges corporate power, racism, anti-Semitism,
homophobia, sexism? At the moment, I remain a critical

PAPER: BLACKS AND JEws

Class, Women,

supporter of Jackson?s efforts to change America.

The future dialogue between progressive African-
Americans and Jewish Americans will be dif?cult. On
the international front, the conservative form of Zionism
that regulates Israeli policies on the West Bank and Gaza
Strip warrants wholesale rejection and fundamental
reorientation. Palestinian national self-determination
must be confronted and accommodated by all who take
seriously Jewish national self-determination?on moral
and political grounds. Similarly, Blacks must criticize
the atrocities in Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia?not
simply the ugly realities in South Africawwith the
same moral outrage with which they criticize those
atrocities committed against Palestinians as a result of
the Israeli government?s policies. On the domestic front,
the Black?Jewish alliance must be rejuvenated and
reconstituted?especially in the labor movement, among
Black womanists and Jewish feminists, among Black
Christians and Orthodox Muslims and religious Jews,
and in the new emerging group of American left-liberal
activists now led by Jesse Jackson. The ?rst step is to
break the ice with engaged dialogue, openness to change,
and constructive attempts at collective thought and
action. This is the road to substantive internationalism
and rooted universalism. El

and ?The Black?Jewish Question?

 

Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz

do a lot of speaking in the women?s movement

about anti-Semitism and racism, and I ?nd I need

to explain that anti-Semitism is a form of racism?
which shouldn?t be news to people, but it is. Because
feminists have for some years committed themselves to
?ghting racism?this is not the place to debate the
sincerity or effectiveness of this commitment?I try to
establish a continuum of racism that includes racism
against Jews, a continuum on which the separate but
related lines of race and class are traced. The problem

 

Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz worked in the civil rights movement
in Harlem in tbe early sixties and has continued as an activist
in antiwar, feminist, lesbian, and progressive Jewish politics
including Middle East peace work. She is coeditor of The Tribe
of Dina: A Jewish Women?s Anthology (Beacon, 1989).

is that most Americans are groomed to be ignorant
about class structure and class oppression. So the related
but distinct issues of race and class are fuzzed and
confused, and this fact in turn confuses the meaning
and danger of anti-Semitism.

Here?s how it works. Rich WASPS are taken for
granted?as perhaps entitled? Poor WASPS and other
poor whites?the rural white poor, for example?are
simply invisible. Poor Jews are a contradiction in terms.
Most Americans see racism as identical to economic
oppression; they see race and class as the same thing.
They also see Jews as excessively economically privileged.
It?s obvious: How can racism have anything to do with
Jews? In fact, the logic goes, not only is anti-Semitism
an entirely different animal from racism, it?s trivial,

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