Bari Weiss of the NY Times has written something very important for those of us who protest anti-human, anti-environmental policies and racism/sexism in our society. It turns out four of the organizers of the Women's March have a very bad history of supporting dictators and hatred themselves. I think an article like this is important and exposes something that a lot of us did not know.
Are all of Weiss' points valid? No, the drive-by on Keith Ellison, who has long renounced his behavior of 20 years ago and who has been very consistently reasonable and anti-hate since, was unbecoming of her. And is anti-Zionism alone a sign of being a hater? Sorry, Bari. But, no. Netanyahu and Israeli policies towards Palestinians are enough for most kinder Americans to shudder when they read about it or hear about it. And when the light was shone on Farakkahn after his Million Man March, he had to retreat to the sidelines because he was exposed as the often weird minded hater he is. That any of these four women could find him enlightening speaks very ill of their judgment and overall worldview indeed. And further, let's recall that these four did not help organize more than the main march in D.C. Plenty of marches, large ones, occurred across the nation with which they little or nothing to do with.
There is one other difference that Weiss did not need to note, but I will here. If any of these four women tried to get a hate-filled chant against Jews or blacks (or for that matter against men in general) started at the Women's March or Marches, they would not find many takers. And not many grabbing Tiki Torches to menace a religious institution, either. What I recall reading about the Women's Marches was how free of violence they were and how much they meant emotionally and politically to so many who attended. A very different thing. Weiss is not "falsely equivalencing" I might add, but the temptation from some reading this is likely.
The problem most right-wingers (and to a much lesser extent, a few corporate media pundits who are Clintonites) will have reading Weiss' article is they will likely fall back on the tropes they know so well, which is Red-baiting just as Weiss herself did with Keith Ellison. Well, news flash, at least to right-wingers: Look in the mirror. You want to defend the current occupant of the White House for his footsie relationship with Putin? You are now a pro-Russian "apologist" in the parlance you know so well. You want to wait until a "real" news source tells you the guy who plowed into the crowd with his car was a pro-Nazi, and say the so-called "anti-fa" was as bad as the ones shouting hate slogans? Meet real Fellow Traveler status, again, something that remains a right-wing byword to demonize and delegitimize someone whose politics with which they disagree, like demonizing someone who supports a progressive income tax or national health insurance.
So again. Let's thank Bari Weiss for her investigative analysis and learn why we should all be wary of these four persons she exposed--Bland, Sarsour, Perez and Mallory--,who really do not speak for the multitudes of women and pro-feminist men who will no doubt organize again across the nation to oppose policies that hurt women's rights to bodily autonomy and women's health. The only good thing, I suppose, is that the four women are on "our side" on those matters.:)
