An enlightened self-interest is necessary for a community to stand in solidarity with another group of people whose plight does not appear to directly affect one’s own well-being. An enlightened self-interest causes one group to see themselves in the struggles and concerns of another group. It moves us to ask a different question: What do we have in common rather than what are our differences?
As an African American, it is through this enlightened self-interest lens that I view the antisemitism experienced by my brothers and sisters in the Jewish community. My faith tradition calls me to ask the enlightened questions: Am I my Jewish brother’s keeper? Am I my Jewish sister’s keeper? Are the members of the Jewish community my neighbors? My response to these questions is yes! Therefore, I must stand against all forms of antisemitic speech, rhetoric, and acts.
African Americans in the United States have faced the historical realities of racism from the beginning of what public theologian Jim Wallis calls “America’s original sin of slavery.” Even though legal chattel slavery ended 160 years ago, African Americans encountered Jim Crow segregation, lynchings, black codes, mass incarceration, police brutality, underfunded public schools, redlining, and microaggressions. In fact, one historian calls the period between 1865–1965 a time of “neo-slavery” for African Americans in the United States.
Personally, I, like many other people of color, still experience overt and subtle racism today. I have experienced racism in law firms where I have been employed, in courtrooms where I have appeared, in academic institutions where I was enrolled, and in churches where I have worshiped. Racism can be found in every region of the country and in both political parties. Once, in court, I was mistaken to be the defendant when I was actually the lawyer representing the defendant, who happened to be white. Once, on vacation, another hotel guest assumed I was the bellman when I was actually a guest in the same hotel.
Many of my Jewish sisters and brothers have similar but also unique experiences from their encounters with antisemitic speech and acts. Even though I am not Jewish and have never experienced antisemitism, history informs my enlightened self-interest and teaches me that antisemitism and racism are blood brothers who have produced destructive offspring and come from the same parents of “hate” and “bigotry.” Antisemitism birthed the Holocaust, and racism birthed American slavery. Antisemitism and racism are inextricably linked together and work in collaboration and solidarity with each other to marginalize and eventually defeat the Jewish community and the African American community, respectively, not to mention all people of color. Antisemitism and racism are evil twins.
No matter our communities’ differences, Dr. Cythina Swann, secretary of the American Bar Association Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice, correctly notes that antisemitism and racism have the same underlying themes of systemic marginalization, state-sanctioned violence, economic disenfranchisement, and cultural erasure. Simply put, antisemitism and racism originate from the same paternal premise: hate.
Those of us who are targets of these two evil twins should not be distracted by debates and arguments about which sibling is worse. Siblings like to argue about who had it worse and who was the favorite in the family. Siblings enjoy competing. We know both evil twins are immoral, and if we don’t stand against all forms of antisemitism and racism, their parents’ “hate” and “bigotry” will protect and reinvent both of their evil progenies in ways to guarantee their collective success, only resulting in our mutual devastation.
To paraphrase the prominent German minister Martin Niemöller, let it never be said again, “that when they came for the Jews, I said nothing because I was not Jewish, and when they came for me, no one else was there to speak for me.”
